CA GOV 2021 - 2022 megathread

[SevenEleven]

Newsom is beyond safe even against an Independent challenger/in a Biden midterm/in a GOP wave. Poizner did lose by a respectable margin, but he also didn’t run against an incumbent in a high-profile race.

The state is way too gone for any Democrat to lose a gubernatorial or Senate race, unless something really weird happens in the top-two primary.

Even then, it's not going to happen. It's way too expensive to compete in California.

Keep in mind, Poizner had done a good job before and was running against an obviously moronic shill. Newsom is not Ricardo Lara, and he could be underwater and win by 10+ points.

[SevenEleven]

It's not impossible for a Republican to win in California in a Biden midterm, if they have the cash to compete, and the name recognition. Basically, they'd have to be a Republican Hollywood Celebrity to have any realistic chance at winning, and even then they'd start out as an underdog, unless Newsom chose not to run to focus on 2024 Presidential bid, or chose to run for the Senate (remember Kamala's seat will likely have an appointed incumbent in 2022. Don't rule out Newsom appointing a placeholder and then running for the seat, should Kamala be elected VP.)

You mean, like Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, who lost by double digits in a R wave election when the state was at least 10 points less Republican than it is today?

Fiorina was kneecapped by a scandal in the final months of the race, and spent months running to the right and embracing the Tea Party, as did Whitman. If both had run towards the middle we'd be looking at Governor Fiorina and Senator Whitman (especially Fiorina).

This is laughably incorrect.

[SevenEleven]

When talking about how just gone CA is for Republicans, perhaps the most important place to look is the Board of Equalization.

BoE is a huge statewide stepping-stone and Republicans held half the district seats from 1990-2018. No more and perhaps not for a long time. It's not just federal and statewide elections that they can't compete in.

[SevenEleven]

How did Newsom handle Covid? The summer spike reflects badly on his response, but I haven't looked into it.

Initially it was pretty good (we were one of the first states to lock down), but I think there was a lot of pressure on him to reopen. That did not go well. I’d give him a middling grade. Definitely better than someone like say Noem, but not the greatest.

It's pretty clear London Breed deserves a lot of the early credit, as far as actually containing a hot spot.

[SevenEleven]

How did Newsom handle Covid? The summer spike reflects badly on his response, but I haven't looked into it.

Initially it was pretty good (we were one of the first states to lock down), but I think there was a lot of pressure on him to reopen. That did not go well. I’d give him a middling grade. Definitely better than someone like say Noem, but not the greatest.

It's pretty clear London Breed deserves a lot of the early credit, as far as actually containing a hot spot.

Yeah, the Bay Area as a whole has been a lot better off. I know that my area (Sacramento) was doing very good for a while too, but I think that our numbers have gone up. The really sad thing is that a lot of the cases seem to be in more heavily Hispanic areas that probably don’t have as good of healthcare. I think that some of the Spanish language outreach could probably be improved.

I'm not sure that outreach is going to do much. For older Hispanics who are immigrants, they aren't likely to change their habits. At the same time, you have a lot of multi-generational households, with more people than should be confined to a SFH. And to place the cherry on top, a disproportionate numbers of Hispanics work in heavy industry or the service industry, with poor working conditions and necessitating contact with many persons daily. Outside of some hefty top-down efforts to intervene, the situation will not improve.

[SevenEleven]

I don't think people outside of California understand just how toxic the GOP is here. We've got a similar political dynamic with Kansas, where it's practically a 3rd-party system of solid-right Republicans, far-left Democrats & Moderates who can be fit in either party depending where the electoral wind blows (Former "Schwarzenegger Republicans"). Any GOP politician in a "nonpartisan" local office is DOA as soon as the R is next to their name in a remotely left-leaning district race.

Not to mention, 2016/2018 exit polls found voters under 40 support the GOP candidates in the 20s & 30s compared to support at the mid 30s-40 for everyone older. The California GOP seems well on their way to emulating the Hawaii GOP over the next couple cycles.

And for the record, Newsom's approval ratings still hover around 55%, pretty much what Jerry Brown got for most of the 2010s. He will not face a serious challenge, not face danger of losing re-election and could very well not face a Republican

I hate to say it, but he's right. I can't see a republican winning a statewide race unless we get something like a Poizner, in a Bernie style midterm, against a scandal plagued Democrat. Then the "Republican" would win by maybe a point. I don't think we're so screwed so as to go to Hawaii levels, because with the exception of the seat I work in, the GOP is kinda at their screwed level already, maybe CA-50 as San Diego expands if exurbs and suburbs go that direction, although I don't know enough about San Diego to talk about its development.  Republicans do have a winnable brand, that of the Arnold Republicans, but they don't run in partisan races anymore, only the nonpartisan ones. You can see that with Councilman Lee in Los Angeles, he ran on an Arnold-esque  forget social issues just focus on taxes and over regulation, and kept a seat in republican hands on the Los Angeles City Council. The R next to your name is a death sentence in the coming years in all but the 7 seats that the GOP held in 2018.

 In a few decades, if there's a decrease in immigration, then maybe you can see the Latino population voting more Republican, that trend is evident with 4th and 5th Generation Latinos, only a large gain with Latinos could make Republicans competitive again at the state level, and it's sure not happening in the next decade. CA Gov is safe Dem unless a lock out happens, with only 2 republican candidates, and every Dem of note running, Newsom is safe, and will probably run for Feinsteins seat if she (hopefully not) decides to not run for relection in 2024, and wins it safe.

California is absolutely gone for Republicans and nothing about a "Bernie midterm" would change that.

Republicans simply do not have the numbers, the money to compete, the motive to even care to compete with no downballot presence to think of (it's going to be less than 7 after redistricting), and no viable candidate on their bench of any kind. The perfect storm that would be required for a non-Democrat to win in say the next ten years is so improbable that it isn't even worth considering. California voters are still in the process of moving further away from the GOP. In 2004, Bush won every congressional district in Orange County. Fifteen years later, Democrats hold every district in Orange County. Now that voting is so much easier in California, Republicans are cooked.

[SevenEleven]

The CA GOP is dead as the dodo in statewide races for the foreseeable future. Faulconer would have been a good candidate 10-15 years ago, and still is compared to their bench, but he's not going anywhere.

And I doubt waiting to 2026 would change much for the better. By then, he'll be out of office for too long to be any news.

A strong run by Faulconer, a socially liberal and climate conscious republican, would help the GOP brand though and potentially help some congress and state legislative candidates.

I think it depends where the national party goes after Trump, which I'm not too optimistic about. The electorate has changed and became more partisan.

Btw, Arnold's decisive win in 2006, when the electorate was less polarized and the CA GOP in better shape, didn't help other candidates much either.

2006 was a very different environment than 2022 will be.

Yep, CA will elect more Democrats in 2022 than they did in 2006.

[SevenEleven]

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.

What about John Chiang? He'd probably do the best job.