CA GOV 2021 - 2022 megathread

[Mike Thick]

Faulconer is pretty clearly telegraphing a run. Going to be satisfying to watch CAGOP's golden boy get absolutely clobbered

[Mike Thick]

This shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been watching him for the past six months or so. Or longer, for that matter

[Mike Thick]

To the people saying he couldn’t win statewide, the San Diego based seat of the Board of Equalizers was held by a Republican as recently as 2018

This seat is much less Democratic than California as a whole, and was even more Republican pre-Trump

[Mike Thick]

People will forget about this specific incident. The perception is what will stick, particularly if Newsom does more dumb stuff

[Mike Thick]

Will Faulconer run as GOP or an independent?

Would be very weird for him not to run as a Republican. Poizner was a special thing

[Mike Thick]

So, big news: Newsom has appointed Assemblywoman Shirley Weber to fill Padilla’s spot as Secretary of State. Seems (don’t quote me) that she will run for an additional term in 2022.

Lorena Gonzalez, another State Assemblywoman from the San Diego area and arguably the previous frontrunner, has dropped out of the race and endorsed her. Not clear what Evan Low, the other current serious candidate, will do.

[Mike Thick]

A lot of buzz going around that Newsom will pick Assemblyman Rob Bonta to replace Becerra if he’s confirmed.

Can we turn this into a general CA 2022 state-level races megathread? Would be nice to have one.

[Mike Thick]

FTR: Everyone I've talked to says his rollout so far has been abysmal. Like, "finish 15 points behind John Cox in the primary if he doesn't figure his sh*t out" abysmal

[Mike Thick]

FTR: Everyone I've talked to says his rollout so far has been abysmal. Like, "finish 15 points behind John Cox in the primary if he doesn't figure his sh*t out" abysmal

how so? all i've seen is his one tweet, not sure how it could be all that much of a disaster.

Flip-flopping on his Trump support like three times during the “shadow primary” that’s been going on for a while, mostly. There’s no answer that can really satisfy everyone he needs to satisfy and he’s struggling with that

[Mike Thick]

https://twitter.com/rpyers/status/1347756218056466432?s=21

My guess is that this is either for 2026, or a hamfisted shot at torpedoing his nomination for AG. Who knows?

[Mike Thick]

Tons of legislators register domain names well in advance. Bonta won't challenge Newsom when he can wait until 2026 for an open seat. If he does get appointed Attorney General he can run for a full term in 2022 and be seat to run for Governor in 2026.

Yeah I don’t think Bonta is stupid. If there were any rumblings of him challenging Newsom, he never would have been let within ten miles of a statewide appointment

[Mike Thick]

What are the chance of a recall by now? The petition already has a million signatures, and need 500,000 or so by March 17.

I don't see the recall succeeding personally but it looks like it has a chance of happening at the very least?

I think the odds are still slim considering how many signatures will be DQ'd.

[Mike Thick]

[snip]

They should use the same standards they used for people trying to vote last November, otherwise it's not equal protection.  If they disqualified people's votes for the general on those grounds, then it's within reason they can disqualify here for the same reason. Same is true for the flip case.

Great, because we disqualify people from voting for all of these things!
 - Counties check signatures on all mail ballots.
 - When you register to vote, your info gets cross-checked with a DMV database to make sure you aren't lying about your state of residence, social, DOB, etc.
 - If you try to vote more than twice, like by voting VBM and in-person, the county government will give you a provisional ballot unless you surrender your VBM ballot for destruction, and won't count it unless they verify that you didn't vote two times.
 - We use people's address in the voter rolls to verify that they're voting in the precinct they're supposed to vote. We also use their address in the voter rolls to check signatures. Same standard applies to both.

[Mike Thick]

https://twitter.com/DavidChiu/status/1349494275319373826?s=20

If it was anyone but Gavin making the appointment, I would say it's all but sealed for Bonta.

[Mike Thick]

All I see here is more confirmation that Faulconer might not even crack top two

[Mike Thick]

The recall might be more likely than not now. The self-reported petition numbers have been jumping dramatically over the last few weeks. Look at how people are behaving — there's a ton of big checks flowing into the recall campaign & Gavin's people are pushing these kinds of stories in the LA Times. Not the acts of people, on either side, who think this is unlikely to succeed. It'll be close, but if they keep the validity rate that high, it'll happen.

This is what I've been hearing as well. Not sure if I entirely believe it yet.

[Mike Thick]

https://mobile.twitter.com/ZavalaA/status/1353569666212401152

In case anybody needed evidence that this is 100% about politics and not actually controlling the virus lol

[Mike Thick]

I guess I'm a skeptic in that I don't think there'll be a recall question. They've got quite a bit of ground to make up signature-wise in the next 40-50 days. They're gonna need a bit more than 1.5 million for cushion.

I understand why you would think this. As the cash flows in and the pool the circulators gather signatures from gets bigger, validity rates will probably go down somewhat. But this is going to be very close, and people on both sides are acting like it will be close

[Mike Thick]

https://mobile.twitter.com/ZavalaA/status/1353569666212401152

In case anybody needed evidence that this is 100% about politics and not actually controlling the virus lol

Do you mean the Recall or Newsom doing lockdowns?

I'm referring to Newsom's lockdowns.

To be clear, I don't think restrictions are necessarily bad. I think applying them selectively and lifting and lowering them for blatantly political reasons is bad.

[Mike Thick]

Interesting platform. If Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, and Al Checchi are any examples, doubt money alone can get him where he needs to go. Guess we'll see.

[Mike Thick]

History would say that the LG is the odds-on favored Dem candidate if the recall makes the ballot. The issue is that Gavin has been too much of a spotlight hog to let Kounalakis do anything, so she doesn’t have much of a statewide profile. So, I’m not really sure what would happen.

[Mike Thick]

History would say that the LG is the odds-on favored Dem candidate if the recall makes the ballot. The issue is that Gavin has been too much of a spotlight hog to let Kounalakis do anything, so she doesn’t have much of a statewide profile. So, I’m not really sure what would happen.

Would Kounalakis even run in the recall? Seems to me that high-profile Dems (even her) would probably be more incentivized to just line-up behind Newsom & not run so as to undermine the recall's legitimacy.

Aha! You've found the exact same logic used in 2003! That is, until the power hungry players of the bloodsport that is California poltics decided they had a chance, and No on Recall, Yes on Bustamante became a thing.

My wormy doomer brain is imagining, like,

GARCETTI FOR GOVERNOR
HOPEFULLY NOT. BUT JUST IN CASE!

[Mike Thick]

Kounalakis, Ma, and Yee have all kindasorta (jokingly? who knows) expressed interest in Gov runs before. I'm tempted to say Yee has the most profile just because she's been around the longest, but none of them have close to the profile Gavin or even Villaraigosa had last time.

[Mike Thick]

Kounalakis, Ma, and Yee have all kindasorta (jokingly? who knows) expressed interest in Gov runs before. I'm tempted to say Yee has the most profile just because she's been around the longest, but none of them have close to the profile Gavin or even Villaraigosa had last time.

Let's be honest, a row official probably couldn't pull it off. You need to look to congress and the mayors to find someone with a plausible shot at victory.

This is an interesting reflection of how Democratic politics here have changed over the past few years. For a while, the conventional wisdom was that you needed a background winning statewide to have the money/connections to compete, with the possible exception of big-city mayors like DiFi/Riordan/Wilson. Now some of the Congressmen have a national fundraising base and/or widespread name rec, and all the row officers are pretty anonymous. Close to a complete inversion.

pretty sure he still has an active PAC, if I was him I'd run in the recall were it to happen. What's the downside? Unless he's planning to run for something else in the future he won't be burning bridges.

The downside is that he would be stuck for months in a grueling campaign that he wouldn't even be really trying to win. Somebody will probably have to bite the bullet and run, but I don't blame anyone who turns that down.

[Mike Thick]

Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky could run, but probably does not want to tarnish his squeaky-clean image.

Wouldn't be a bronz thread without Wayne Gretzky for [office] in [state]