‘A revolving door’: Last-minute fight to take Gavin Newsom’s place in California

The growing number of Democratic candidates to succeed Gavin Newsom as term-limited governor of California has political operatives stunned.

“This is the most open I’ve seen in 25 years,” said Steven Maviglio, a Democratic strategist based in Sacramento.

The challenge for those running will be to prove to voters that they can address California’s cost-of-living crisis, as well as fill the high-profile void Newsom will leave as a national leader in Democrats’ fight against President Donald Trump.

Last week, Rep. Eric Swalwell, who made a name for himself as an anti-Trump firebrand in the House of Representatives and launched a brief run for the White House in 2020, announced his gubernatorial campaign on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” of ABC, telling Kimmel that California “needs a fighter and a protector.”

Billionaire Tom Steyer, who also ran an unsuccessful campaign for president in 2020, announced his campaign the day before. Steyer, known in progressive circles for his environmental advocacy, spent millions to support Newsom’s recent Proposition 50 redistricting push.

“Everyone in this race is going to talk about affordability, but what Californians care about are results and who will be able to deliver when it comes to cutting costs. And Tom has a track record of getting things done for California, even when real politicians couldn’t,” a Steyer spokesperson said.

Both Swalwell and Steyer join a large field of prominent Democrats, such as former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

“I am a proven problem solver,” Villaraigosa told ABC News in a statement.

“As Speaker of the California Assembly, I extended affordable health care to millions of children and passed the strictest ban on assault weapons in the United States. As mayor, I reduced crime by 50% and increased our school graduation rate by 60%. No other gubernatorial candidate has achieved results like that,” added Villaraigosa.

Villaraigosa is vying for a seat among other California politicians, including former Rep. Katie Porter and former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who also served as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration.

“Secretary Becerra is the only candidate in this race who took on the Trump Administration and won, suing 122 times to protect Californians as Attorney General. He provided affordable health care to millions and negotiated lower drug prices to save California families thousands of dollars,” a Becerra campaign spokesperson told ABC News in a statement.

Strategists are surprised that no candidate has clearly established himself as a favorite, indicating some instability in the race to lead a state of almost 40 million people.

“It’s one of the most important races in the entire country that no one has heard of yet,” said Democratic strategist Danielle Cendejas. “There is a lot at stake about who will be the next governor.”

“A historically weak field”

Democratic strategist Matt Rodriguez believes the reason the primaries are so crowded is because no candidate is very strong.

“I think it’s a very weak field, a historically weak field,” he said.

California employs a “jungle” or “top two” primary, in which there is a nonpartisan primary for all candidates, and the top two candidates from the primary advance to a runoff in November, regardless of party.

Rodriguez said having so many Democratic candidates in a jungle primary “definitely gives an advantage to a Republican to get into the top two. At some point, there’s a limited number of Democratic voters to split up here.”

Maviglio said it’s “possible, not likely” that two Republicans will end up in the general election.

“We’ve only seen it in legislative elections a couple of times, where the party that actually has the majority doesn’t make it to the November election because of strange things like that,” he said.

Little chance for a Republican candidate

Republican strategist and former executive director of the California Republican Party Jon Fleischman said that even if a Republican makes it to the general election, they would have little chance of winning it all.

“Perhaps the most important thing to remember in California is that if there is a general election between a Republican and a Democrat, unless some massive scandal of epic proportions hits the Democrat, we are a blue state,” Felischman said.

“The only time it maybe gets more interesting is if two Democrats make it to the runoff,” Felischman added.

There are currently two major Republican candidates in the race, one of whom is former Fox News host Steve Hilton.

“A crowded Democratic field means those candidates will spend months fighting each other and defending the status quo, while Steve Hilton focuses on changing it,” Hilton campaign manager Matt Ciepielowski told ABC News in a statement.

“Californians are tired of the highest poverty in the country, sky-high housing costs, failing schools, and a government that serves special interests instead of working families. Steve is running to make California affordable, safe, and full of opportunity again,” the statement continued.

The other major Republican candidate is Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who emphasizes his law enforcement experience to define himself as someone who will be tough on crime.

“Every Democratic candidate hopes to be a more liberal version of the narcissist who is currently the governor and Californians simply cannot afford for that to happen. Sheriff Bianco offers a new path forward and public polling shows his campaign is resonating with voters,” Rick Gorka, a spokesman for Bianco’s campaign, told ABC News in a statement.

A still unstable career

Others could still join the right, like tech entrepreneur Jon Slavet, who filed paperwork with the FEC on Friday and told ABC News he plans to launch his campaign early next month.

Maviglio characterized the race as “shaky” and “a revolving door.”

Vice President Kamala Harris was considering running after her loss in last year’s presidential election, but announced in July that she was no longer considering running. And U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, who strategists say could have cleared the field if he had launched a bid, decided not to run earlier this month.

“We’ve had people who said they were running and were left out of the race. We’ve had people who were drawn to think about running, like Padilla and Harris, and then chose not to do it. So it’s really hard to follow,” Maviglio said.

Two politicians, California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis and former California State Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, initially announced their candidacies but dropped out of the race shortly after.

Another rumored potential Democratic contender is billionaire Rick Caruso, who lost the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral race to Karen Bass. While Caruso has a lot of money and some name recognition, he was a Republican until 2019, which could alienate the progressive wing of his new party.

And while both Steyer and Caruso have the cash, strategists say they would have to use it wisely to mount successful campaigns.

“Self-funders don’t do well here. That doesn’t mean they can’t, but they usually don’t,” Rodriguez said, pointing to the failed candidacies of Michael Huffington in the 1994 Senate race, Al Checchi in the 1998 gubernatorial election and Caruso in 2022.

Problems for the first favorite

Porter, the early favorite and the only major candidate in the field, appeared to have momentum after gaining endorsements from the progressive EMILY List PAC and several state unions. Cendejas acknowledged that Porter likely had an early advantage due to her name recognition and the fact that she is “beloved in many progressive circles.”

“Katie is a fighter, a single mother of three, and a ruthless advocate for working families who took on the Trump administration and self-serving CEOs in Congress, and won,” Peter Opitz, a spokesman for Porter’s campaign, told ABC News in a statement.

But the recent controversy surrounding Porter’s conduct has narrowed his initial lead, indicating that he may not be as candidate as strong as initially thought.

in a video that went viral Online last month, Porter had a contentious interaction with a journalist, going so far as to threaten to end the interview. Other video appeared shortly afterward, Porter is shown yelling at an employee.

“What goes up must come down,” Cendejas said of Porter.

In his first appearance after the videos emerged, Porter apologized for the outbursts.

“I want people to know that I understand that what I did was wrong,” Porter told an audience at the UC Sacramento Student and Policy Center in October. “I’m not going to mince words about it, but I also want people to understand that I’m in this fight because I’m not going to back down and give an inch when people are hurting Californians. And both of those things can be true at the same time.”

Rodriguez hopes that a candidate’s ability to successfully define himself as someone who can lead California to go toe-to-toe with Trump will be “the key thing.”

“I think Trump is going to be huge here,” Rodríguez added. “It’s all going to be Trump.”