California governor's race wide open as four candidates emerge as leaders

California’s race to replace term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom has turned into a scramble for narrow, intensely loyal blocs, with Katie Porter, Chad Bianco, Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton emerging as the current leaders in a 61-candidate field.

The June 2 primary will put 24 Democrats, 12 Republicans, one Libertarian, one Peace and Freedom candidate and 23 candidates with no party preference on the same ballot under California’s top-two system. The rules reward the two highest vote-getters, regardless of party, and that structure has made this contest unusually volatile. California has used the top-two primary for governor since 2014, and none of the three prior gubernatorial primaries under that system sent two candidates from the same party to the general election.

The numbers show how unsettled the race remains. In a Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, Porter led the first-choice field with 17 percent, followed by Bianco at 10 percent and Becerra at 9 percent, while 38 percent of voters were still undecided. When second-choice preferences were folded in, Porter rose to 22 percent, Becerra climbed to 18 percent, Bianco reached 15 percent and Hilton stood at 12 percent. That kind of movement underscores the central fight: not just who is liked most, but who can become the fallback choice for voters trying to keep someone else out.

The Democratic scramble intensified after former Vice President Kamala Harris declined to enter and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis abandoned the governor’s race to run for treasurer after weak fundraising and polling. California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks responded by launching weekly polling in March to help shape the field, after party leaders had hoped the race would naturally winnow. Democrats are worried that a crowded roster could split the vote enough to clear a lane for two Republicans in November, though Hicks has said that outcome is unlikely.

The stakes are large enough to drive the anxiety. California has not seen a wide-open gubernatorial primary since 1998, and the next governor will inherit a projected structural budget deficit of about $35 billion in a few years, along with high housing and gasoline prices, homelessness, wildfire risk and an adversarial relationship with President Donald Trump’s administration.

The last Republican to win the governor’s office was Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006, but the current field suggests party history may matter less than coalition math. In a race this fractured, broad popularity may matter less than a disciplined base, second-choice appeal and the ability to survive a primary where a few percentage points can decide who gets a place on the November ballot.