{"id":17461,"date":"2026-04-17T20:02:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T20:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/17461\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T20:02:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T20:02:39","slug":"newsom-pelosi-wont-cull-democratic-candidates-for-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/17461\/","title":{"rendered":"Newsom, Pelosi won’t cull Democratic candidates for governor"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maya C. Miller<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\""Seven\"
\n\t\t\t\tFrom left, Betty Yee, Antonio Villaraigosa, Tony Thurmond, Tom Steyer, Katie Porter, Matt Mahan and Xavier Becerra participate in a gubernatorial candidate forum hosted by California Immigrant Policy Center, California Latino Legislative Caucus Foundation, and ACLU California Action at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center in Sacramento on April 14, 2026. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

Democrats are searching for a hero to save them in the California governor\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

So far, no one in party leadership has come to the rescue.<\/p>\n

Despite Rep. Eric Swalwell\u2019s exit from the race<\/a> this week, the Democratic field remains unwieldy, with seven major candidates still splitting the field less than three weeks before ballots are sent. Each of them refuses to bow out, regardless of their polling numbers, in the hope they can capture some of the voter attention that Swalwell\u2019s demise drew to the race.<\/p>\n

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, the face of the party in California, is not interested in elevating a successor. Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks, who faces criticism for not using his position to cull the field, has relied on party-commissioned polls and vague pleas for candidates to \u201chonestly assess\u201d their campaign\u2019s viability, refusing to openly pressure anyone to drop out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi \u2014 known for urging then-Rep. Adam Schiff to run for Senate and former President Joe Biden to drop his reelection bid \u2014 won\u2019t intervene.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have reached out to me saying, \u2018Your mom has to do something!\u2019\u201d said Christine Pelosi, daughter of the San Francisco congresswoman and herself a candidate for state Senate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018You know what? She doesn’t, though,\u2019\u201d the younger Pelosi said. \u201cShe already did that with Biden and Harris. She’s not going to \u2014 don’t look to her to do that again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gone is the heyday of the San Francisco-based political machine<\/a>, a network of political talent that dominated state politics for decades and produced titans such as Pelosi and Newsom, both of whom are moving on from California politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now that pipeline has run dry, and this year there is no obvious heir to Newsom for the party to coalesce behind. No current statewide officeholder joined the fray, and both presumptive favorites \u2014 former Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla \u2014 opted not to run.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That has made top Democrats loath to weigh in on the state\u2019s first truly open Democratic primary in 16 years. In 2018, Newsom, then the lieutenant governor, was widely viewed as the most likely successor to former Gov. Jerry Brown, another product of the San Francisco political machine. <\/p>\n

The 2026 race is also only the second time an open field has competed under the top-two primary system, adopted 16 years ago to the chagrin of both parties. That means two Democrats or two Republicans could advance to the general election and lock the other party out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Newsom reiterated his lack of interest this week when he issued a statement that said in part, \u201cI have full confidence that voters will choose a candidate who reflects the values and direction Californians believe in.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Too much democracy for Democrats?<\/p>\n

While grassroots activists have for decades decried the king-making of insider machine politics, the alternative \u2014 an abundance of candidates with no clear frontrunner \u2014 has proved unappealing too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The resulting decision paralysis has resurrected calls for a strong leader to step in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been incredibly frustrating, not to mention scary, with the idea that we could end up with two Republicans<\/a>,\u201d said RL Miller, a longtime delegate and chair of the party\u2019s environmental caucus. \u201cI really do believe that there has been a failure of leadership at the top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller theorized that party leaders were overcorrecting after years of backlash following the 2016 presidential election, in which establishment Democrats disregarded the grassroots support for Sen. Bernie Sanders and instead anointed Hillary Clinton.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As more Democratic gubernatorial candidates entered the fray in the last year, Miller said she thought leadership had the \u201cadmirable intent\u201d of letting delegates winnow the field themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But anxieties were already spiking before the Democrats\u2019 endorsing convention in February, where none of the nine candidates<\/a> vying for the gubernatorial nod amassed more than 25% \u2014 far short of the 60% needed. Hicks faced repeated questions then about whether he would step in, but insisted it wasn\u2019t his role.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the party convention, the alarm bells had been ringing for months,\u201d said Miller, who has consistently voted against Hicks in internal party elections.<\/p>\n

\""A\"California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks addresses the media in Sacramento on Nov. 17, 2023. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters<\/p>\n

After the convention, Hicks released an open letter<\/a> urging that \u201cevery candidate honestly assess the viability of their candidacy and campaign,\u201d and \u201cif you do not have a viable path to make it to the general election\u201d not to file to run. Only one listened, former Assemblymember Ian Calderon, who was polling around 1% or less.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later, Hicks announced the party would conduct ongoing polls<\/a> on the race and release them every seven to 10 days through early May, when ballots are sent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hicks\u2019 defenders said he was right to abstain from picking favorites. Christine Pelosi said it would be \u201cinappropriate\u201d for the chair to weigh in on the candidates after delegates at the party convention chose not to endorse anyone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hicks\u2019 calls for candidates to \u201cconsider their viability\u201d was a \u201csomewhat extraordinary and surprising\u201d move, said Paul Mitchell, the architect of the gerrymandered congressional maps that voters approved via Proposition 50<\/a> to boost congressional Democrats in the upcoming election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt maybe wasn’t surprising for people who think that the Democratic Party chair is like a backroom dealer that’s going to knock heads or something like that,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cBut that’s not the chair\u2019s role in California right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Top-two primary adds to tension<\/p>\n

Both Mitchell and Christine Pelosi blamed the top-two system for much of the drama. The slim possibility that two Republicans could emerge<\/a> from the primary has spurred many of the calls for leadership to weigh in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mitchell argued that since President Donald Trump put a thumb on the scale by endorsing former Fox News host Steve Hilton, there\u2019s less risk that both he and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco would end up on the November ticket, alleviating some of the pressure on Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it wasn’t a top two, people wouldn’t care,\u201d said Christine Pelosi. \u201cYou wouldn’t have the added agita of \u2018there’s only two Republicans and there’s a bunch of Democrats.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Notably, the state GOP failed to endorse a candidate<\/a> at its recent convention, indicating that Trump\u2019s nod might not hold as much sway as Democrats assume.<\/p>\n

Still, if Hicks is trying to convince rank-and-file Democrats he\u2019s doing enough, it\u2019s not working.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amar Shergill, the former leader of the party\u2019s progressive caucus, suggested that its weak, decentralized leadership was by design so monied interests could exert more control over who gets elected.<\/p>\n

\u201cRusty Hicks is furniture that folks with real power use at their discretion,\u201d Shergill said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s no sort of anger or animosity towards him as a person,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t Rusty, it would be somebody else. This is just the political situation right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview, Hicks told CalMatters that he is \u201cdoing what is required\u201d to ensure a Democrat wins the race. But when pressed repeatedly, Hicks would not elaborate on what that work entails, if he believes what he\u2019s done so far is working or if he should have had a stronger hand in culling the field, as his critics have suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not interested in opening up the playbook as to what we will or will not do in the coming days and weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

CalMatters\u2019 Yue Stella Yu contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Maya C. Miller, CalMatters From left, Betty Yee, Antonio Villaraigosa, Tony Thurmond, Tom Steyer, Katie Porter, Matt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10774,7795,1985,8,10775,9,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-17461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-california-democratic-party","9":"tag-california-governor","10":"tag-governor-race-2026","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-nancy-pelosi","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116421836392972184","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}