{"id":575071,"date":"2026-02-08T11:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T11:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/575071\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T11:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T11:33:10","slug":"fix-potholes-fight-trump-choice-faces-next-california-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/575071\/","title":{"rendered":"Fix potholes? Fight Trump? Choice faces next California governor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You may have missed it, what with President Trump\u2019s endless pyrotechnics,<\/a> but California voters will decide in November who succeeds Gavin Newsom,<\/a> the highest-profile governor since the Terminator returned to Hollywood.<\/a><\/p>\n

Unfortunately for those attempting to civically engage, the current crop of contenders is, shall we say, less than enthralling.<\/a><\/p>\n

In alphabetical order<\/a> (because there is seriously no prohibitive front-runner), the major candidates are Xavier Becerra,<\/a> Chad Bianco,<\/a> Ian Calderon,<\/a> Steve Hilton,<\/a> Matt Mahan,<\/a> Katie Porter,<\/a> John Slavet,<\/a> Tom Steyer,<\/a> Eric Swalwell,<\/a> Tony Thurmond,<\/a> Antonio Villaraigosa<\/a> and Betty Yee.<\/a><\/p>\n

Whew! (Pause to catch breath.)<\/p>\n

Armed with that knowledge, you can now go out and win yourself a few bar bets by asking someone to name, say, even two of those running.<\/p>\n

Meantime, fear not. Your friendly columnists Mark Z. Barabak<\/a> and Anita Chabria<\/a> have surveyed the field, weighed the odds, pondered California\u2019s long history<\/a> and concluded … they have absolutely no clue what will happen in the June 2 primary, much less who\u2019ll take the oath of office come next January.<\/p>\n

Here, they discuss the race that has Californians sitting on neither pins nor needles.<\/a><\/p>\n

Chabria<\/b>: Mark, I do this for a living and I\u2019m having trouble summoning up any interest in this race \u2014 yet, anyway. <\/p>\n

Part of my problem is that national events are so all-consuming<\/a> and fast-moving that it\u2019s hard to worry about potholes. I admit, I appreciate that our White House-contending governor<\/a> is fighting the big fight.<\/a> But remind me again, what\u2019s a governor supposed to do?<\/p>\n

Barabak<\/b>: End homelessness. Elevate our public schools to first-class rank. Make housing and college tuition affordable. Eliminate crime. End disease and poverty. Put a chicken in every pot. Make pigs fly and celestial angels sing. And then, in their second year …<\/p>\n

Seriously, there\u2019s a pretty large gap between what voters would like to see happen and what a governor \u2014 any governor \u2014 can plausibly deliver. That said, if our next chief executive can help bring about meaningful improvement in just a few of those areas, pigs and angels excepted, I\u2019d venture to say a goodly number of Californians would be pleased.<\/p>\n

Broadly speaking, my sense when talking to voters <\/a>is they want our next governor to push back on Trump and his most egregious excesses.<\/a> But not as a means of raising their national profile<\/a> or positioning themselves for a run at the White House. And not to the exclusion of bettering their lives by paying attention to the nitty and the gritty, like making housing and higher education more readily available and, yes, fixing potholes. <\/p>\n

Chabria:<\/b> All that is fair enough. As the mom of two teens, I\u2019d especially like to see our university system be more affordable<\/a> and accessible, so we all have our personal priorities. Let\u2019s agree to this starting point: The new governor can\u2019t just chew gum and walk. She or he must be able to eat a full lunch while running.<\/p>\n

But so far, candidates haven\u2019t had their policy positions break through to a big audience, state-focused or not \u2014 and many of them share broadly similar positions. Let\u2019s look at the bits of daylight that separate them because, Republicans aside, there aren\u2019t canyon-size differences among the many candidates.<\/p>\n

San Jos\u00e9 Mayor Matt Mahan, the newest entry in the race,<\/a> is attempting to position himself as a \u201ccan\u2019t-we-all-just-get-along\u201d centrist. How do you think that will go over with voters?<\/p>\n

Barabak<\/b>: You\u2019re having me tiptoe uncomfortably close to the Make A Prediction Zone, which I assiduously avoid. As I\u2019ve said before, I\u2019m smart enough to know what I don\u2019t know. (Many readers will doubtless question the underlying premise of the former if not the latter part of that statement.)<\/p>\n

I think there is at least a potential for Mahan to tap into a desire among voters to lower the hostilities just a bit and ease up on our constant partisan war-footing.<\/a><\/p>\n

You might not know it if you marinate in social media, or watch the political shout-fest shows where, as in nature, the loudest voices carry. But there are a great many people working two or even three jobs, ferrying their kids to soccer practice, worrying about paying their utility and doctor bills,<\/a> caring for elderly parents or struggling in other ways to keep their heads above water. And they\u2019re less captivated by the latest snappy clap-back <\/a>on TikTok than looking for help dealing with the many challenges they face.<\/p>\n

I was struck by something Katie Porter said when we recently sat down for a conversation<\/a> in San Francisco. The former Orange County congresswoman can denigrate Trump with the best of \u2018em. But she said, \u201cI am very leery of anyone who does not acknowledge that we had problems and policy challenges long before Donald Trump ever raised his orange head<\/a> on the political horizon.\u201d<\/p>\n

California\u2019s homelessness and affordability crises were years in the making, she noted, and need to be addressed as such.<\/p>\n

I heard Antonio Villaraigosa suggest something similar in last week\u2018s gubernatorial debate,<\/a> when the former Los Angeles mayor noted the state has spent billions of dollars in recent years trying to drastically reduce homelessness<\/a> with, at best, middling results. \u201cWe cannot be afraid to look in the mirror,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That suggests to me Mahan is not the only candidate who appreciates that simply saying \u201cTrump = Bad\u201d over and over is not what voters want to hear.<\/p>\n

Chabria<\/b>: Certainly potholes and high electricity bills existed before Trump. But if the midterms don\u2019t favor Democrats,<\/a> the next governor will probably face a generational challenge to protect the civil rights of residents of this diverse state. It\u2019s not about liking or disliking Trump, but ensuring that our governor has a plan if attacks on immigrants,<\/a> the LBGTQ+ community<\/a> and citizens in general grow worse. <\/p>\n

I do think this will matter to voters \u2014 but I agree with you that candidates can\u2019t simply rage against Trump. They have to offer some substance. <\/p>\n

Porter, Swalwell and Becerra, who have the most national experience and could be expected to articulate that sort of vision, haven\u2019t done much other than to commit to the fight. Steyer and Thurmond want to abolish ICE, which a governor couldn\u2019t do. Mahan has said focusing on state policy is the best offense. <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think this has to be a charisma-driven vision, which is what Newsom has so effectively offered. But it needs to bring resoluteness in a time of fear, which none of the candidates to my mind have been able to project so far. <\/p>\n

But this all depends on election results in November. If Democrats take Congress and are able to exert a check to this terrible imbalance, then bring on the asphalt and fix the roads. I think a lot of what voters want from a governor won\u2019t fully be known until after November. <\/p>\n

Barabak<\/b>: The criticism of this collective field is that it\u2019s terminally boring, as if we\u2019re looking to elect a stand-up comic, a chanteuse or a juggler. I mean, this is the home of Hollywood! Isn\u2019t it the birthright of every California citizen to be endlessly entertained?<\/p>\n

At least that\u2019s what the pundits and political know-it-alls, stifling yawns as they constantly refresh their feeds on Bluesky or X, would have you believe.<\/p>\n

Voters elected Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor<\/a> \u2014 that\u2019s two movie stars in the state\u2019s 175-year history \u2014 and, from the way the state is often perceived, you\u2019d think celebrity megawattage is one of the main prerequisites for a chief executive. <\/p>\n

But if you look back, California has seen a lot more George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Gray Davis<\/a> types, which is to say bland-persona governors whom no one would mistake for box-office gold.<\/p>\n

It seems to me no coincidence that Schwarzenegger, who arrived as a political novelty,<\/a> was replaced by Jerry Brown,<\/a> who was as politically tried-and-true as they come. That political pendulum never stops swinging.<\/p>\n

Which suggests voters will be looking for someone less like our gallivanting, movie matinee governor<\/a> and someone more inclined to keep their head down in Sacramento and focus on the state and its needs.<\/p>\n

Who will that be? I wouldn\u2019t wage a nickel trying to guess. Would you care to?<\/p>\n

Chabria<\/b>: I certainly don\u2019t care to predict, but I\u2019ll say this: We may not need or get another Terminator. But one of these candidates needs to put some pepper flakes in the paste if they want to break out of the pack. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You may have missed it, what with President Trump\u2019s endless pyrotechnics, but California voters will decide in November…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":575072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[249686,205459,1582,276,9115,249690,249685,249687,3153,151145,2961,224,5337,249688,87937,249689,16361,6176,290,180448],"class_list":["post-575071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-anita-chabria","tag-barabak","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-california-voter","tag-end-homelessness","tag-fight-trump","tag-fix-pothole","tag-governor","tag-katie-porter","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-major-candidate","tag-matt-mahan","tag-next-california-governor","tag-november","tag-race","tag-state","tag-xavier-becerra"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116034797916601349","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}