Democrats push to scrap California top-two primary amid governor race fears

Democrats are moving to scrap California’s top-two primary as fear grows that the party could be shut out of the 2026 governor’s race altogether. In a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly two to one, strategists are alarmed that a crowded June 2 ballot with eight Democrats and two Republicans could split the Democratic vote and send two Republicans to November.

The prospect has given fresh urgency to a 2028 reform push aimed at replacing or eliminating the system voters approved on June 8, 2010, through Proposition 14. California began using top-two primaries for governor in the 2012 cycle, and the rules send the two highest vote-getters from one primary ballot to the general election regardless of party. That design can reward consolidation, but it can also punish a fractured field. For Democrats, the danger is no longer theoretical: this is the first open governor’s race under top-two in which no candidate has clearly separated from the pack.

That risk is especially acute because Republicans have not won a statewide race in California in two decades. Yet the current field has created a scenario in which Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco could outpace a divided Democratic roster and leave the November ballot without a Democrat at all. If that happens, it would be the first time since California adopted top-two that the governor’s contest produced an all-Republican general election.

The rule’s defenders have long argued that it was meant as a nonpartisan reform, not a partisan weapon. But its recent use has exposed the tension between democratic rule-making and partisan self-preservation. In a state where the majority party can still lose when it fields too many candidates, critics say the system can distort representation as much as it broadens it.

The emerging anti-top-two coalition reflects that unease. It includes Democrats, Republicans, Green Party and Libertarian Party leaders, while labor unions have not formally endorsed the effort. That broad mix suggests the fight is not just about one governor’s race but about who benefits when election rules are written by the parties most exposed to their effects.

California has been here before. The top-two system emerged from a 2009 budget deal, when the state faced an estimated $41 billion budget gap, and lawmakers used institutional change to solve a political problem. The new push carries the same logic in reverse: if the current system threatens one party’s chances, that party may try to rewrite the rules before the next cycle locks in the damage.