Why California Democrats should quit panicking about a Republican governor | Opinion

Imagine a meteor hurtling toward California, threatening to upend the state’s political landscape.

Well, in this case, the meteor is the possibility of a Republican becoming the leader of one of America’s most liberal states.

Because of California’s nonpartisan primary in June that allows the top two finishers to advance to the November election, Democrats are worried that the eight Democratic candidates running for governor will split the vote enough to send one or even two Republicans reaching the general election this fall.

No matter how liberal California may be, the anxiety over a Republican leading the state is real.

“On primary day, I guarantee you, there will be way more people selecting a Democrat than there will be in a second Republican,” elections analyst Paul Mitchell said. “The only question is…will there be one of those Democrats who’s managed to get more than the 20% necessary to ensure that they can make the runoff?”

Right now, about 25% of the electorate identifies as Republican, although GOP candidates for governor in California have gotten 38% to 40% of the vote in the last three elections for governor.

Fox News contributor Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco are the Republicans vying for as many of those votes as they can get. In models of election outcomes that Mitchell has run, either one of them could wind up as the top Republican in the race.

Meanwhile, none of the eight Democrats are polling above 20%, which is why Mitchell understands the angst some Democrats are feeling. Some reassurance is warranted, he said.

“It doesn’t have to be a huge risk for you to want to, like, do something. If I have a 25% chance of, like, stubbing my toe this year, I’m not gonna freak out. If I have a 25% chance of, you know, cancer, I’m going to freak out… The point being that it’s a low‑risk event, but just like insurance, you have to buy insurance against it,” Mitchell said.

So Democrats have set their sights on winning—even if it means setting aside some core values.

Win, baby, win

Sacramento County Democratic Party Chair Andres Ramos recently joined a group of Democratic leaders in signing on to a letter calling for candidates without a viable campaign to drop out. State party leaders also want fewer Democrats in the primary.

“I’m very concerned about the possibility that too many Democrats running for governor could lead to a vote split such that two Republicans could make the top two and lock out Democrats from being able to have a Democratic candidate for governor in November,” Ramos said. “I think it’s still a very unlikely possibility, but the fact that it’s a possibility is in itself worrisome, and frankly, too many Democrats running is really the only path that Republicans have to win the governor’s office.”

Ironically, Ramos endorsed candidate Betty Yee, whose single-digit poll numbers fit the description of a candidate who does not seem to have a viable path to victory. Ramos said winning has to come first.

“So much is at stake right now that I think a lot of the sentiment right now is ‘we just have to win. We have to win.’ A lot of the other considerations, whether it’s policy or identity, that sometimes are a little more in the mix....those things are kinda deprioritized because people are like we have to win.”

But even with this urgency, candidates aren’t always given the space to run their races on their own terms.

Candidates have to create their own viable path

Yee wants to win, but she’s doing it by challenging the definition of a legitimate candidate in this race.

“A viable path to me is, as I’m continuing to raise my visibility, that obviously we’re getting resonance. It’s not solely polling, because, frankly, I think the polling has been problematic,” Yee said. “We gauge our viability all the time, and the fact that there is still a good swath of voters who are undecided says that we still have a path.”

“To the extent that California is now a minority majority state, and we’re not going to have those perspectives from lived experiences be part of this conversation, something’s wrong with that picture.”

Tension is natural in high-stakes elections, but the liberal elites and Dems hit the panic button just a little too soon — all because two Republicans are polling well in a race that’s far from over.

At some point, California’s Democrats will need to trust that their values can prevail — without succumbing to panic over hypothetical outcomes.

This story was originally published March 30, 2026 at 2:45 PM.