Yes, we just got over a major election and yes, politicians are already campaigning for an election a year away.
With Gavin Newsom termed out as governor of California, the race is on to succeed him.
Former state Treasurer Betty Yee, current Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalais, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former state Senate president Toni Atkins and current state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond are among those already known to be running.
In one major development, state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced last week that he would not be jumping into the race and would instead seek another term as attorney general. In a possible indication of what’s coming, Bonta also indicated that he would support former Vice President Kamala Harris if she chooses to run.
It would indeed be quite the political comeback for Harris, who previously served as a U.S. senator and state attorney general, to run for the governorship. Given the competition — let’s face it, most Californians wouldn’t know most of the above-named candidates if they were in the same room together —it would also be her race to lose.
This isn’t to say that Harris would be a particularly great governor. We have zero reason to believe she’d be any different than Newsom. Her tendency to fluctuate positions based on the political mood of the day makes her hard to read. Her constant eye toward higher office means she’d engage in endless theatrics. In other words, she’d be like Newsom.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, there’s also growing speculation about Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who has long been considering a run for governor. Many on the right like Bianco because he goes on Fox and other right-wing outlets condemning Newsom and praising Trump. But Bianco, a puppet of the local deputy union, has been anything but competent as sheriff, with a historic spike in jail deaths on his watch, abysmal property crime clearance rates, endless litigation.
Bianco also made national news last year for arresting a supporter of Trump and then running to the media to declare that he stopped an assassination attempt on Trump. None of that was true.
If this all seems like a set up for a very underwhelming set of gubernatorial options, that’s because it is.