The California Governor’s Race is Wide-Open and Everyone is Jumping In
To separate themselves a candidate will need policy, personality and prominence
By Joel Fox, November 29, 2025 2:45 am
29 Nov 2025 2:45 am
Two more notable candidates entered the California governor’s race last week. That brings the total number of candidates with some recognition to about a dozen.
And who’s the front runner? Nobody.
A recent UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll said 44% of California voters are undecided on who to vote for. The highest percentage of any candidate was 13%. While some reports declared this low percentage candidate as the front runner, no one at this stage of the campaign more than six months before the primary with less than 20% of the vote should be considered a front runner.
The candidates hope to gain notice and separate from the pack. Unfortunately, some of the candidates have gained notice in a negative way. Film clips of former Congresswoman Katie Porter showing her refusing to answer questions from a reporter or bullying a staffer have reduced her poll numbers. Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Beccera has been touched by scandal when the FBI arrested top Sacramento consultants, including Becerra’s former chief-of-staff, and a lobbyist for draining one of Beccera’s campaign accounts unbeknownst to him.
The two recent additions to the field tried to make a splash using their strengths. Hedge fund founder and climate activist Tom Steyer showed off financial strength with millions of dollars in support ads featuring himself for the successful Proposition 50 campaign. He followed that with his video announcement that he was running for governor. His video ads tried to portray a fighter, but it seemed more like he was projecting himself as the angry candidate.
Congressman Eric Swalwell, a constant Trump critic on cable news, announced his candidacy on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show highlighting his friendship with Kimmel and his support of him when President Donald Trump tried to have him removed from the airwaves.
Of course, this was not the first time a California gubernatorial candidate announced his candidacy on a late-night talk show. Arnold Schwarzenegger famously told Tonight Show host Jay Leno that he decided to run for governor in the Gray Davis recall election.
That announcement took many by surprise including Schwarzenegger staffers who had accompanied him to the Tonight Show carrying press releases claiming Schwarzenegger was not going to run.
A quick aside from my memory file. I had agreed to work for Schwarzenegger on the campaign. But like others who prepared to be part of the campaign, at the time of his appearance on Leno’s show, I believed he was not going to run. I had latched onto the nascent campaign of former Major League Baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth with the understanding that in the unlikely event that Schwarzenegger did run I would keep my commitment to him. I was actually in a meeting in Ueberroth’s office in Orange County when Ueberroth’s secretary called Peter out for a phone call. While the Leno show was not broadcast until 11:30 p.m., the show was taped hours earlier and Ueberroth was called and told what Arnold declared. When Peter came back into the meeting room and told us, he lived up to our agreement and asked me to leave the meeting. I was as shocked as everyone else.
I doubt Swalwell’s announcement on Jimmy Kimmel’s show will have the same impact as the Schwarzenegger announcement simply because of Schwarzenegger’s celebrity and the context of an extraordinary gubernatorial recall election.
Swalwell will work off the same playbook as Steyer and all the other Democratic candidates – GOP candidates need not apply-who will be the toughest Trump opponent. That is a lesson learned in the Proposition 50 campaign where the anti-Trump rhetoric piled up the votes in favor of Prop. 50.
But that won’t be nearly enough. With all the Democrats covering the same anti-Trump territory they will need to find something to gain the voters’ attention. Policy platforms could score. Sure, all candidates will talk about homelessness and affordability but to what degree? Platitudes won’t cut it. What remedies will convince the voters that the plans are realistic?
Remember Governor Gavin Newsom pledged when running for his first term as governor in 2018 to build 3.5 million homes by 2025 to escape the homeless crisis. A report in the San Francisco Chronicle placed the number of home units at 650,000 added through 2023. Considering an average of 110,000 permits a year adding that number for 2024 and 2025 means we haven’t reached one million homes yet. Don’t buy every plan proposed by candidates who claim they can solve a problem.
Yet, seeing how they plan to attack problems specifically can tell you about a candidate. Expect some gubernatorial candidates to follow the New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s model of presenting an agenda to solve problems whether they are realistic or not. Already gubernatorial candidate and School Superintendent Tony Thurman is following the Mamdani plan specifically by proposing tax increases on corporations and the wealthy. Thurmond has become the tax candidate.
The gubernatorial field may not be complete even yet. Rumors are that state Attorney General Rob Bonta might change his mind about not running. Wealthy Los Angeles developer and one time L.A. mayoral candidate Rick Caruso is another possibility. A celebrity with great name recognition could sense an opportunity. And California has never been short of wealthy candidates who think they can buy themselves the seat in the governor’s mansion.
This race is far from over and it can be channeled and re-channeled by circumstances ahead from scandal to a dramatic public event and how candidates react. Good strategy and campaigns matter, too.
Candidates who gain attention through policy, personality, and prominence will have a leg up.
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Joel Fox
Joel Fox spent over 40 years in California politics serving as president of both the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and the Small Business Action Committee. He was editor-in-chief and co-publisher of the blog Fox and Hounds Daily, which offered commentary and news on California business and politics. A Washington Post column named Fox and Hounds Daily one of the top California political websites. Fox’s opinion articles which have been published in national, state, and local news sites including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle. Many of his opinion columns have been collected by the California State Library.
Over the years, Fox has taken a key role in many statewide and local ballot proposition campaigns, served on eight state and local commissions appointed by elected officials from both major political parties, and advised on two gubernatorial campaigns including as a senior advisor to Arnold Schwarzenegger in the historic recall election of 2003. He holds a position as a Senior Fellow at Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Public Policy.
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