LivingForGod to Barack Obama Shaw: Meet the overlooked hopefuls for governor
LivingforGod AndCountry DeMott — yes, that’s his real name — doesn’t remember when exactly he decided to run for California governor.
The interdenominational chaplain has no campaign to speak of in his hometown of Redding. No staff, no political party, no social media presence and no budget beyond the $10,000 personal loan he took out to help get his name on the ballot.
Still, as better-known candidates pour millions of dollars into the race, DeMott, the former owner of a Northern California pest control empire, and several dozen other low-profile gubernatorial hopefuls are betting they can defy the odds and pull off a June 2 primary day miracle.
Only two candidates, regardless of party, will advance from the primary that includes 61 names. DeMott plans to be one of them.
“If I get in the top two, then the race would really start,” DeMott said in an interview.
California has been a magnet for unorthodox political leaders at least since 1859, when San Francisco resident Joshua Abraham Norton anointed himself “Emperor of these United States.”
If ever there was a year for an upset, this is it. A month out from the primary, there’s still no clear frontrunner. Even the highest polling candidates, like Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra, struggle to clear 20% support in most surveys.
That’s left a hypothetical opening for dreamers willing to splash out the $4,918.58 filing fee — or find 6,000 signatures — that were required to appear on this year’s ballot.
There are a dizzying amount of options for the adventurous voter. Ballots include 24 Democrats (including at least two, Eric Swalwell and Betty Yee, who have suspended their campaigns), a dozen Republicans, one Libertarian Party member, one representative of the socialist Peace and Freedom Party and 23 candidates labeled as “no party preference.”
That last camp includes Anne Komarovsk, a Malibu antitax activist who said she’s aiming to become the state’s first nonpartisan governor. Komarovsk said she’ll be a moderating voice in an era of fierce partisanship, or as she calls it, “political gang violence.”
Komarovsk is campaigning largely through her YouTube channel, where Komarovsk discusses current events, her affection for the $2 bill or queries AI — or what she calls “angel intelligence mode” — made about the meaning of the 2015 film “Cell.”
Then there are candidates here for the larger struggle, like Margaret Trowe of the Socialist Workers Party. Trowe, who works in housekeeping at a hotel in Berkeley, has spent decades in the labor movement and sees a capitalist system that’s nearing its breaking point.
“The working class is really getting hammered,” Trowe said. “I believe there will be a socialist revolution.”
She stressed that the coming “American revolution” would be nonviolent — “a mass movement of millions of workers.”
Republican Randeep Dhillon is taking a different tack with social media videos featuring his MACA slogan: “Make affordable California again.”
The economist and business owner may be the only candidate in the race to film a promotional video in a cemetery, where he promised that as governor, his office would cover up to $15,000 in funeral expenses. In another clip, he says his administration would subsidize the sales tax and registration payments for the first car for high schoolers who maintain a GPA of 3.87.
Dhillon said he moved to the U.S. at age 19 and said he has several advanced degrees and a business empire of convenience stores and gas stations, but English is not his first language — perhaps a contributing factor in the virality of his social media posts, he said. Still, the attention they’ve garnered boosted his confidence headed into the primary.
“If the election is today, I’m winning,” he said.
Some of the candidates, like Los Angeles entrepreneur Max Fomin, have heard from naysayers who believe they can’t win. Fomin’s skeptics include his brother, his parents and his ex-wife.
But Fomin is betting fortune favors the bold. In his campaign statement, distributed in voter guides mailed to Californians, he vows to “suffocate homelessness, assassinate unemployment, nuke crime, house the unhoused, prosecute corruption, generate $.”
“If you read anyone else’s message, I don’t think it’s as clear or precise as mine,” he told The Bee.
Fomin’s top priority is to criminalize homelessness and set up what he calls “reservations” with tight security. Residents would get psychiatric treatment if they needed it, showers and mandatory work. Fomin, who himself lived out of a van for around a year, conceded the plan “might sound a little extreme” but argues residents will “feel rejuvenated each time they take a shower.”
Other candidates share Fomin’s critique, if not his tone.
Republican Rafael Hernandez argues “the whole system is broken” in California and would work to address homelessness, albeit with a sunnier spin.
“I’m going to make it the greatest state with lots of jobs, peace and respect for everybody,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez grew up on his grandfather’s ranch outside Mexico City and moved to the U.S. as an adult, later gaining citizenship and managing operations at gas stations. Now retired, Hernandez may be the field’s snazziest dresser, favoring bold patterned-shirts with spread collars, blazers that pop and the occasional cowboy hat.
The Republican has leaned on his songwriting to spin out Spanish and English versions of a homemade campaign song (refrain: “I want to be, I want to be your governor”) that he sang to a reporter over the phone. He also, unprompted, offered up his heart or kidney to a reporter if it was ever needed.
“Humans need to help people,” Hernandez said.
Arguably the biggest alternative candidate isn’t on the ballot: Green Party nominee Butch Ware, whom a judge ruled didn’t turn in his tax returns in time to make the cut. A federal court judge also rejected Ware’s attempt to get his name added to ballots. His campaign is encouraging supporters to write in his name.
Ware is a professor of African and Islamic history at the University of California-Santa Barbara who ran as the party’s vice presidential nominee in 2024. His platform calls for taking over vacant corporate-owned homes, single-payer healthcare, free higher education, and divesting state pensions from weapons manufacturers and companies tied to war crimes.
Other candidates have names that jump off the ballot: Thunder Parley, Barack D. Obama Shaw, and, of course, LivingforGod AndCountry DeMott.
DeMott’s name change predates any run for office. Born Mark David, DeMott pivoted to Marcus Aurelius David (pronounced DAH-veed) DeMott, in a nod to the Roman emperor because “everyone called me that.” He said he changed his name again after the movie theater where he worked asked him to stop speaking about his Christian faith to patrons; DeMott reasoned they couldn’t stop him from invoking God’s name if it was baked into his legal name.
Shaw — no relation to his political namesake — adopted the then-president’s name in 2013 as a way to honor the hope he felt the Democrat brought to the world. It was also a nickname he’d gotten from fellow soldiers in the U.S. Army who called him Barack Denzel, in a nod to actor Denzel Washington.
The Alameda resident, who ran for mayor of the town in 2022, was blunt about his name’s ballot box potential.
“People have told me, ‘I always vote for Barack Obama,’” the Democrat said. “So they’re going to vote for me.”
Shaw id sahe’ll work with President Donald Trump to unlock an extra $24 billion in federal assistance to California.
“I’m the ‘get money for California’ candidate,” Shaw said.
Parley said he adopted “Thunder” when he moved to California decades ago, taking up an old childhood nickname.
The former Google engineer calls his name “the least interesting thing about me.” Take out the name, and the Democrat sounds a lot like better-known candidates; in fact, he accused San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan of lifting some of his talking points. Mahan’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Parley’s platform calls for slashing red tape, reigning in state spending and harnessing what he sees as a coming AI boom to make California “the AI capital of the world.”
Parley has plowed $133,000 of his own money into the race — or less than 0.1% of the $161 million that billionaire Tom Steyer has invested in his own candidacy. Like most of the other candidates on the ballot, Parley hasn’t registered in the polls. Still, he maintains that voters aren’t excited about their options.
“A lot could change in four weeks,” Parley told The Bee in an interview on May 1.
