[Initial Bonus Question: Who was the last Democrat to file their papers on Friday March 6?]

Top-Tupac-alypse! Get it? No? Ok. Also pictured: Chad Bianco, top left; Steve Hilton, top right; Col. Kurtz, bottom left, and I think that’s Eric Swalwell, bottom right.

Preface:

I’ve decided that I should admit my own bias about what I want in a Governor here at the top. My top concern is with a Governor being to able to assess and choose good judges — the heart of the disaster we’ll face if no Democrat makes the runoff — and being willing to confront and reform our screwed-up system of vetoes rendering much of our legislative energy pointless. Right now, the Governor can unilaterally upend an existing budget with the “May Revise” and can veto legislation late in the game to make its override practically impossible.

This gives too much power to the Governor and makes a mockery of the Legislature. If a Governor doesn’t want to see a given reform take place — either as proposed or at all — they should just come out and say it so that they Legislature can react appropriately. A veto should never be a surprise; where common ground on a topic exists between Governor and the legislative majority of the same party, a veto should be construed as a failure.

If the Governor has constructive suggestions, or bright lines they don’t want crossed, all of this should be conveyed to the Legislature early enough in the process that the branches can read rapprochement. Otherwise, we’re just playing “hide the ball” with legislators and wasting everyone’s time — including that of activists. We’ve seem this at various times with health insurance, renter’s reforms, split-roll taxation, and many other areas. If we’re going to have this powerful of a Governor, capable of derailing progress on an issues by themselves, we should know it early and saddle them with responsibility for it.

I have my suspicions about who might be best suited for this approach — but it doesn’t play much of a role in this story. This is not an endorsement piece; this is about winning a fight for our lives.

1. Before That Awful Day

At 5 p.m. Friday, March 6, candidate filing for statewide offices ended. Most eyes are on the Governor’s race, where two leading Republicans face nine — no, make that eight! — Democrats, plus a Green Party candidate with an outside chance.

Only eleven candidates were viewed as meriting their photos in Thursday’s New York Times graphic on the race. (Ian Calderon, polling just over 1%, dropped out Friday morning, perhaps due to that snub.) Those eleven, plus their ages, are:

REPUBLICANS

• 15.3% Steve Hilton [age 56]
• 16.3% Chad Bianco [age 58]

GREEN

• 2.0% Butch Ware [age 51-52]

DEMOCRATS

• 14.3% Eric Swalwell [age 45]
• 11.7% Katie Porter [age 65]
• 9.0% Tom Steyer [age 72]
• 4.0% Xavier Becerra [age 68]
• 3.7% Antonio Villaraigosa [age 73]
• 3.0% Betty Yee [age 68]
• 2.7% Matt Mahan [age 43]
• 1.7% Tony Thurmond [age 57]
• 0.7% Ian Calderon [age 40] [has now endorsed Swalwell]

Other candidates received 30% of the votes and 10% had no opinion.

NOTE: In the analysis that follows I’m treating the results above as “givens in the entire election,” as if they can’t change. Of course they can — and very likely they already have! We just don’t yet know how. And since this is really about strategy, it doesn’t really matter: other polls will likely yield different strategies, just with names attached to other positions.

2. The State of the Crash Site

I’ve been predicting a likely Democratic shutout from the Top 2 Gubernatorial runoff for about two months now — its potential use (when my side can do it) and abuse (when my opponents could do it) has been a common theme of mine in commenting on campaigns here ever since Top Two was enacted. This race has seemed especially ripe for abuse because there is no real consequence for candidates’ (joined by their trains of hangers-on) putting their own interests above that of the party and the electorate. Republicans have been doing the smart thing — limiting themselves to just two main candidates, who will split the lion’s share of their vote — while Democrats have embraced anarchy. Unless some of the 8 Dem candidates remaining in the race stood down voluntarily, disaster would likely await. Yet none of them did.

So now we face an eight-way game of “chicken” (for younger readers, this is the “game” in which (usually) two people drive their vehicles at each other at high speed to see which of them will swerve to avoid a collision. (We oldies know this from Rebel Without a Cause and American Graffiti; maybe someone can tell me if there’s another example of “chicken” that those under 50 would know.) If one or both drivers swerve, they become the “chicken” and the other one wins. If neither swerves, they both become corpses.

The difference between that game of chicken and the one being played in this primary is that those drivers are risking their own health, whereas in this primary, where at most three or four Democratic candidates would likely survive, and it’s the state government that would be injured — along with the anti-MAGA forces and the politicians and regular citizens and the rest of the nation looking on in horror and the rest of the world really wishing at this point that the U.S. were not collapsing as it is. Yet the only one who swerved away from the oncoming collision was Ian Calderon, who was 1% in the polls. (I will say nothing more about him except to compliment his functioning self-preservation instincts. Bravo!)

The top four candidates on the above list — Swalwell, Porter, Steyer, and (arguably) Becerra) — were all justified in staying in the race, despite that this leaves non-MAGA candidates splitting up the vote 4 a little more than 4 ways. (The Green Party’s Butch Ware will peel off its usual fraction of of the voters, (whom we can’t presume would vote for Democrats anyway: Greens wish that Dems would keel over already so they can become the main alternative to Republicans. It’s … a theory.) Democrats could survive a four-way split, although a three-way split would be better.

Below that is a second tier of (arguably) Becerra, Villaraigosa, and Yee. What would do would probably decide whether Democrats survive. Then there’s a lower tier composed of Thurmond and Mahan who have no business remaining — and arguably should get ostracized permanently.

Age, which I’ve listed next to the polling results, seems to be a serious contributor to why those below the top three candidates are risking all of their lives in this car crash. Of the frontrunners, Tom Steyer is 72, Katie Porter is 52, and Eric Swalwell is 45. but their high placement in the polls means that none will be blamed for the deadly crash if it happens. Among the second rank, Antonio Villaraigosa is 73 and Betty Yee and Xavier Becerra are both 68. All three can presumably hear the clock ticking.

(I’m not going to say more about Tony Thurmond and Matt Mahan, who have both screwed themselves. Thurmond is only 57 — and he has really harmed himself because he has years left in which he would have been viable and respected if he had withdrawn. Mahan is only 43; he may be able to outlast people’s memory and contempt for him, but he won’t outlast mine. He too could have banked substantial cred by standing down. (Is he too arrogant? You gotta earn it first, corpse-to-be!)

A. Betty Yee

Yee presents herself as the fiscal nerd among the contestants, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, nerdiness can be provided by good advisors, who are in ample supply. I care more about someone who can squeeze the most good (and the least bad) out of advisors than someone who can do it all themself.

I want a Governor who won’t accept that — no matter how much legislators want to hide from hard votes!

Yee is the one I most expected to be willing to drop out for the greater good, especially given her party role. She’s 68, same as Xavier Becerra, so maybe she thought this was her last chance — unfair if so, of course, given that Antonio Villaraigosa is 73 and Tom Steyer 72 — but better that than the political fate I believe that she has awaiting her.)

Yee might have a way out of this situation. She could still warrant an appointed position as the Governor’s internal budget director — she loves the fiscal side of governance and is presumably skilled at it — and might have substantial influence under Steyer or Swalwell. (I’m not sure Porter believes that she needs anyone else’s advice.) I truly hoped that Yee would negotiate such an appointment with the top few candidates — but she’s high on her own supply (with a Joe-Kerr level of self-regard) and (like the others) would apparently rather take the party down with her if she can’t get her way.

But there’s nothing Yee can do for herself in the next few months that she didn’t already do or couldn’t have done. (One problem is the public’s eyes glaze over when thinking about the details of fiscal policy.) Her apparent plan was to think that the public would be impressed by her pretty good placement in a California Democratic Party (CDP) delegates-only vote. Notably, Yee was recently the Vice-Chair of the CDP (there are two, but she was the one who would have replaced Chair Rusty Hicks if he left office) so that position has given her outsized influence. So on top of everything else, the CDP vote was sort of a “home game” for Yee — and she still finished only third.

(As an aside, these caucuses are similar to the notorious ADEM meetings where about a third of the delegates are chosen, where the way to win is literally to get buses full of voters to show up and vote in person. This is largely a matter of logistics and will — and has very little to do with ability to attract votes from the regular population. In this case, that meant getting voters to a northern California CDP meeting, far away from the state’s major population center. (\Yee has some excellent supporters who helped to stack the ranks at the convention.) But depending on winning — and people respecting the result of — this wacky sort of contest was a vulnerable plan.)

Yee seems to have been motivated by becoming California’s first female Governor — which would be a nice and glorious thing, but which would also be a stronger argument without Katie Porter in the race — and it’s second non-white one (the first being Romuldo Pacheco, a Latino born in Santa Barbara became Governor after an incumbent’s resignation and served from February to December in 1875.) But here’s the rub: If her CDP triumph was a pathway to victory, why wasn’t it working already? She’s had a fair test of it. She was trying to publicize it, right? Yee apparently believes that the problem has not been that (1) her standing in the CDP vote wasn’t such a great accomplishment and (2) that her background is just not that compelling to those outside of or uninterested in state government, but simply that not enough people have heard about it and understood it yet. That’s a thin reed on which to hang one’s candidacy — and the fate of this election.

To be even fairer to Yee, she was probably propelled to stay in mostly by her age. In four years, if a Republican wins or if a Democrat doesn’t run for re-election, she’ll be 72, which is late to start a Governorship. (Jerry Brown’s second term started at 72, but he was a special case.) She’s not a self-funder like Steyer, nor is she much of a fundraiser, nor is her former position, as Controller, that high-profile. Were it not for the threat of a Top Two shutout, she would have little to lose by staying in the race; but now she risks losing respect from all quarters — especially if she splits the vote enough to keep us out of the runoff.

A side note: In researching Yee’s history, I came across something disturbing that I didn’t expect and sort of wish I hadn’t found, because, while I wish she hadn’t filed and wish she could mitigate that damage now, I certainly don’t hate her.

Her website says: “As Governor Gray Davis’ Budget Director [emphasis added], Betty was responsible for helping craft California’s state budget and guiding it through the legislative process in one of the largest and most complex economies in the world.” I originally thought that this meant that she was in a formal agency position, like head of the Department of Finance — but she wasn’t. She was apparently an aide inside Davis’s office, without responsibilities other than as a personal advisor, who “helped” (to an extent we don’t know) craft and enact at least one budget. That’s a nice position to have, but what she actually accomplished is hard to identify, measure, and evaluate. At any rate, it’s not the equivalent of running a state agency, which to me is what “Budget Director” conveys. (Google “who is California’s Budget Director?” and you’ll come up with the name Joe Stephenshaw, the Director of the State Department of Finance. Then look for Gray Davis’s Department of Finance appointment — it’s not Betty Yee.) I expect that a large number of people have had this sort of advisory position. I also suspect that Yee could have competently filled such a position, and that sexism and racism of that era may have held her back. That is unfair — but she’s lagging in the polls and helping Republicans win the Governorship won’t make it feel any better.

B. Antonio Villaraigosa and Xavier Becerra

Former Assembly Speaker Villaraigosa and former Health and Services Secretary Becerra sort of have to be considered as a unit, because they are two sides of the same coin. Villaraigosa is a big-city machine politician who derives his support mostly from unions and their allies; Becerra is a good-government type supported largely by Democratic Party reformers. Villaraigosa is three years older and probably will be too old to run for a first term in 2030. He’s also arrogant and probably resentful of the favored politician whom he may view as a pesky younger brother who didn’t have to fight his way to the top. It’s an open question in my mind whether Villaraigosa is more motivated by wanting to be Governor or not wanting Becerra — who would likely be top-tier without Villaraigosa in the race — to become Governor rather than him. It may feel like an affront to his dignity. One watchphrase of this site in previous elections has been “Ye shall know them by their supporters” — and that really works well here!

Becerra’s supporters are a collection of mostly liberal and reformist legislators. From Congress, Salud Carbajal, Raul Ruiz, Gil Cisneros (!) and Tony Cardenas. From State Senate, Eloise Reyes, Melissa Hurtado, Bob Archuleta, and Sabrina Cervantes. From Assembly, Juan Carillo and Sharon Quirk-Silva. And from Labor, the Labor Union and various medical workers’ groups.

They are from different political worlds — and they reflect their candidates. My guess is that Villaraigosa’s supporters are furious that Becerra hasn’t given way to their candidate. It is effrontery! So the blame here may rightly belong with them rather than him — as they see political power as involving steamrolling the opposition. That they’re willing to lose the Governorship over it, though, is surprising. Either way, it’s Latinos generally who are the main losers in this race and in a future of rule by a Republican Governor who will kowtow to MAGA.

Becerra and Swalwell are probably the candidates I feel closest to politically — but I would honestly rather that Becerra drop out of the race now and endorse one (or more) of the three frontrunners and let Villaraigosa claim the mantle of “the Latino candidate” and just let him fail. Neither of them are likely to be Governor anyway; he can at least be a hero.

I want to pause for a moment here to present Villaraigosa with a special “The Titanic is unsinkable!” award for making the single uttering the single stupidest prediction of this entire race. He has predicted that a Top Two shutout won’t happen because <strong>Donald Trump would come to the Democratic Party’s rescue</strong> by endorsing either Bianco or Hilton in Primary Day <strong><em>Why the hell would he do THAT?</em></strong> His ideal outcome is that they are TIED with more votes than any Democrat! Trump may run loose at the mouth at some point, but he has certainly been instructed to say only that Bianco and Hilton “are both great candidates” and that he’ll leave it to the voters of California — and if he makes a statement favoring one of them it will quickly and forcefully be walked back or counteracted with an equally nice statement about the other one. Republicans win right now by playing possum about their own candidates and making sure that their support levels are as equal as possible, while wrecking whichever Democrats seem to be getting the most traction.</p>

3. Being Satisfied With Knowing You’ve Got Someone Else to Blame

That above is, of course, a nod to the lyrics of the late great Canadian (and briefly Californian) Gordon Lightfoot, in his song “Carefree Highway.” (The lyrics preceding it are the clunky “This thing that we call living is just …” — well, nobody’s perfect.) And it turns out that we definitely do have “someone else to blame” for this thundercluck: someone who could lay down the law, but won’t, because he has other things on his plate.

<strong><em>A lot of this is Gavin Newsom’s fault, because he has the influence t change it.</em></strong> Yes, the Democratic Party failed to endorse — so it’s their fault first — but that failure was almost a given, since consensus was likely. Newsom is, among other roles, <em>the party’s leader</em> in this state. As such, he had an obligation to <i>at least winnow the crowd</i> of candidates by anointing only half of them with his seal of approval. (It would be a lot easier for Mahan, Thurmond, Yee, and either Becerra or Villaraigosa to stand down if it came as a face-saving direct request from the Governor!)

But Newsom is running for President, so he hasn’t wanted to piss anyone off — and now he’ll have pissed <em>everyone</em>off when disaster strikes! This neglect could seriously cost him the Presidency — as Bianco or Hilton undo the record of accomplishments he’s running on. Maybe there’s still time.

Others with the stature to winnow the field, even if it is not their formal place, include:

• Kamala Harris
• Nancy Pelosi
• Adam Schiff (if he were inclined to endorse or co-endorse Porter)
• Alex Padilla (who with or without the Latino Caucus could help break the Latino candidate log jam)

Again, these figures don’t have to say who they want to WIN, they just who has to “GET OUT!”

I would particularly like to see a caucus of Latino leaders come up with a joint consensus of which Latino candidate (or both! — anything to avoid this crash!) should stand down. But it has been in no one’s interest to inject themselves into the process. (If there were exceptions, I’d love to hear about them.)

At any rate, the competition between them has done a disservice to Latinos, because either of them alone would likely make the top tier. But I suspect that the current top trio would strongly prefer Becerra, if asked — which matters when it comes to why might be the recipient of their support if the unexpected happened (as we’ll discuss below).

I blame Villaraigosa most: I think that he robbed Latinos having a viable candidate out of vanity and spite. Without him, Becerra gets about 8% — maybe more, given that without his older antagonist in the race his candidacy would have looked more promising and he could have raised more money and good press. There’s an argument that Becerra should have been the one to swerve, given that Villaraigosa was obviously more likely to drive into the collision — given his advanced age, lower numbers, vanity, pugnacity, and sense of entitlement — and while I really dislike that argument I can’t say it isn’t true. Becerra should probably give up the campaign and endorse one or more of the three frontrunners now and reap the accolades rather than be a part of this pile-up, but I leave that to his conscience.

3. The Worst Is Yet to Come

Many people don’t understand why action (or technically “inaction”) was required by last Friday in order to fend off the worst of what’s coming. The problem is that anyone who made it onto the ballot is now fair game for use by Republicans to confuse and repel Democrats. A “negative ad” is one that simply attacks one candidate — but that’s not especially efficient, because they’re going to vote for someone. But this turns them into comparative ads, where the message becomes “don’t vote for Steyer, vote for Thurmond (or Mahan)” — juxtaposing the the candidate they want to help and to hurt on the issues.

We have opened up Pandora’s Box — and opened the door to what may someday be viewed as the Golden Age of “rat-fucking” — that’s a real term for political dirty tricks, including ones that are legal. Remember: while lies may be actionable, innuendo and advertising tricks are fine. So they don’t have to say that Tony Thurmond specifically accused Katie Porter, let’s say, of racism. They can just send glossy mailers — or targeted online ads, or commercials, but I’ll just to refer to them as “mailers” — to Black women with a photo of Tony Thurmond on the left half, quoting him railing against the racism of trying to get non-white candidates to drop out — and then have a picture of Porter on the other half where they may put words into her mouth, but will more likely use innuendo: “Katie Porter wanted minority candidates to drop out! Tony Thurmond resisted!”

Such a mailer can be classified for campaign finance purposes as support for Tony Thurmond — the candidate who at this point is least threatening to the top two Republicans! It is in essence a wasted vote — although if Thurmond somehow picked up steam, that could change! — and wasted Democratic votes are what Republicans most want! The purpose of all of these efforts is to — while carefully watching the polls for late shifts — move people away from voting for one of the top three Democrats. Mailers will be sent to women, ostensibly supporting Betty Yee, that viciously attack Porter for wanting to get rid of her — and she may well have an actual quote they could use. (Then, if Yee were to pick up steam, they could do the same thing in reverse.)

Republican ads can do the same for voters who might favor Steyer or Swalwell — no assertions, just innuendo. Older, union, and working class Latinos will get mailers focusing on Swalwell’s effete upper-class constituency and positions, which will be that much stronger once the comparison presented is to Villaraigosa. Younger good-government Latinos, among other voters, will get ads slamming Swalwell and comparing him unfavorably to the more experienced Becerra. And it’s not as if they will do only one of these things: they may do virtually all of them, probably designating each potential voter with information on which non-first-tier candidate they like most — information that they could obtain through a nominal “poll” or an online interview — to push them towards the desired outcome that does not threaten Bianco and Hilton. Their goal is to splatter Democratic votes in all possible directions but the top three.

I expect that Republicans may be doing a whole lot of promotion for poor Mayor Matt Mahan — so long as his numbers remain low! We could see mailers where Mahan and Hilton agree on an issue or three, contrasting them to Steyer and Swalwell. We could see Latinos being sent mail decrying Democratic racism against Latinos with Villaraigosa and Bianco agreeing on a pro-Latino position that Steyer and Swalwell would reject. *and* will point out that one of their two leading Republican candidate is Bianco (not noting that he’s *Italian* rather than Latino!)

And of course, there will likely be numerous mailers to young voters comparing Butch Ware to the three frontrunners, because he too can be used to target them. Perhaps Ware and Yee would be juxtaposed, in three different mailers, against each of the three frontrunners, in which the two challengers’ positions agree with each other but disagree with the leading Democrats. (This is why I think that at some point Ware may pick up steam based on Republican ads. Votes for him will take away only from Democrats. He’s more distinguishable than the others and — as with Mayor Mamdani — establishment Democrats might NOT vote for him over Hilton in the general election!)

Again, the game for Republicans is solely to keep Democratic-leaning votes from going to any of the three front-runners! While Democrats have only a small number of strategies left to try, Republicans may have hundreds, which they can deploy all at the same time!

This can only happen because so many people stayed in the race! If, say, Mahan and Thurmond had not filed, it would limit the number of attacks they could do without helping the three frontrunners. If Yee and Villaraigosa had also dropped out, then they would only have one option — Becerra — to avoid the top three; but then Becerra might have been able to make it a Top Four. As it is, if Becerra picks up steam, we’ll see lots of mailers promoting Villaraigosa over him.

The Democrats’ huge blunder, driven by individual vanity and ambition over a collective goal has opened up the door to perfectly legal and fairly ethical (grading on the Republican curve) anti-Democrat dirty tricks. If Thurmond stays in the race, they’ll send out flyers to Black voters celebrating Thurmond and pushing for Black voters to vote for him and attacking the viable Democrats for their supposed racism. Same with Yee and Asian voters.

Even with a negotiated “settlement” of people dropping out of the race, this will happen even if someone who filed last week drops out tomorrow.  We’ve opened a carnival for rat-fuckers — and it’s our own damned fault!

4. Can Help Come From Any Tier?

Here’s the best I can do with possibilities.

A. The Binding Poll

1. Septuagenarians Tom Steyer and Antonio Villaraigosa must agree to serve only one term, if elected, relieving the pressure on the 65-to-68-year-olds to stay in.
2. Unless the field becomes narrowed down to four candidates by then, CDP will commission a poll of from a universe of 10,000 randomly selected Democratic-registered voters (for greater precision of results). The first question will be if they intend to vote in the Democratic primary for Governor; the second question is “for whom?”, with names of Democratic and Republican candidates who received at least 1% in the latest 3 polls names being to respondents in “ballot alphabet” order. Calls will be made between 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. each day from Thursday April 16 and 9:00 p.m. on April 18. An initial 5000 voters will be selected to contact. If fewer than 2500 responses are obtained, the poll may continue to add up to two more tranches of 2500 to its sampling universe until 2500 responses are collected. The result will be announced by no later than 4:00 pm on Sunday, April 19.
3. Any candidate can withdraw at any time and endorse another; half of their support will be added to that candidate for calculation purposes.
4. Betty Yee wants to make her pitch, so she is given until April 16 to get into the Top 3 slots (or Top 4 if it is within 1% of Top 3.)
5. If Mahan, Thurmond, Villaraigosa, Becerra, or Yee, are not in the Top 3, or within 1% of it, they will withdraw from the race on April 20, and may endorse as they wish.
6. If more than one person not currently in the Top 3 is within 1% of the Top 3, then they can endorse another candidate to break the tie. If the tie remains, and no quick resolution can be reached, then none of them will be added to the Top 3.

B. Unexpected Kingmaking (or Queenmaking)

Democrats collectively received about 50% of the votes in the latest polls. Republicans seem to be on track to receive about 36-40% of it — so potentially 18-20% each if they remain evenly matched. So Dems need just one candidate — doesn’t matter who — to reach 20% and avoid the runoff shutout.

Let’s presume for a moment that candidates can direct their voters to their own endorsed choice.

Swalwell now has 15% (including Calderon’s (0.7), so about 5% short of relative safety (at least before the coming Republican barrage). Looking only at the lower tiers, one of the Latinos and literally anyone else (or both Thurmond and Mahan) would put him over the top. Interestingly — and Yee in particular should attend to this — Yee and Mahan and Thurmond combined only have 7.4% — not enough to lift anyone but Swalwell to 20. Porter needs 8.3% more — and that won’t come from only the lower tiers. She’d need them plus one of Yee, Becerra, or Villaraigosa. Steyer is in a worse position yet. He needs 11% — and it would require four of the lower tier candidates — two of whom are currently in a death struggle.

The implication is that if there’s a deal to be made — it’s more likely to involve the upper tier. And, in fact, if it were severe enough it might knock both Republicans out of the runoff!

3. Best Jujitsu Ever!

As things stand — I need to re-emphasize that! — literally any coalition between two of the top tier candidates guarantees that a Democrat will make the runoff, if the level really is 20%. The top tier candidates are all good-government types, so ideology doesn’t seem like a huge issue here — it’s ambition and personalities. But if, let’s say, Steyer decided (and was able to) send his support to either Swalwell or Porter — almost everything changes. We would switch to seeing a contentious Republican primary (because now they’re only fighting for one spot!) and there’s no point in spending money slamming every possible combination of Democrats, because the strategy will have evaporated and they will have better places to spend their money than this race. But something else changes too. Just like Republicans want Democrats to waste their votes, Democrats would like Republicans to waste their ammunition! Every mailer using Becerra to attack Swalwell lacks punch if Becerra isn’t in the race and can just hold a press conference laughing at them.

That big post-Tax Day poll is still a good idea — but it might need some amendment. Maybe its results shouldn’t be released to the candidates (because of leaks) for awhile — though leaks could be fixed by leaking different fake results (like Spanish letters) to different candidates to leak to the media. But meanwhile, Democrats can ignore all the rat-fucking because it will ultimately help them! It might be useful to inform some of the more truculent candidates — Yee, Mahan, Thurmond, Villaraigosa — that yes indeed the poll shows that they are going to lose. (I mean, I can promise them that right now — but the polls will be more convincing.) In fact, if there is a deal worked out between the three main candidates — it should probably be held back until maybe three days before voting starts.

Then again, some news I’ve been withholding from you may change all of that. Remember that question I posed at the top of this post, about who was the last one to file papers?

According the Sacramento-based The Observer, quoting a Cal Matters story that so far I can’t find on that site, “Steyer became the last to officially file on Friday, the deadline for submitting candidacy paperwork.”

It seems unlikely that Steyer’s delay would be based on some desire for drama, given that that filing could have been derailed by a car accident. It seems more likely that it reflects serious hesitation about whether to file.

If so, the obvious question is whether he wanted to derail Eric Swalwell. Steyer has spent several attacking Swalwell about his California residency, a conflict that may have been resolved today by a sworn statement by his landlord (which may, of course, be challenged) that he does live in California. While Steyer did go ahead and file, he’s also the only candidate (aside from perhaps Matt Mahan) who has the money to rectify such a mistake, if it was one. But the only obvious way for him to stop Swalwell would be for him to endorse Katie Porter, putting her up to 20.7%. Giving it to a fellow progressive like Becerra, for example, let alone Yee, wouldn’t suffice.

My guess is that ultimately — not yet, likely subject to negotiations and timing — that is exactly what will happen. If it does, I hope that they keep the lid on it long enough to keep the Republicans guessing!

4. But Steyer doesn’t support Porter, then what?

What ought to happen is that the candidates should figure out that they belong in natural coalitions, which will give the weaker candidates some power. Here are some of them.

a. Girl Nerds

It’s past time for Yee to recognize that she’s not going to become Governor, but that she can have a great role supporting her fellow girl nerd Porter. They may find a male playmate or two in Mahan, Thurmond and even Becerra. Even without Becerra, let along Steyer, that would put the Girl Nerds faction at 19%

b. Moderates

There’s no real leader of the moderates faction, but together they have some factional power. The Moderates in the race are Villaraigosa (the obvious pick to carry the flag), Mahan, and maybe pissed-off Thurmond as well. That’s only 8% between them, but it might give them some negotiating strength. The atom bomb would be if they defected to a Republican, probably Hilton if any. The real think that could put fuel in the tank is if Newsom came out for Villaraigosa as well — possibly dooming his Presidential ambitions in a different way, in which event a combination among the top-tier trio would be almost certain.

c. Swalwell vs. Porter Gang Fight

As noted, Steyer and Yee go to Porter’s side. Becerra most likely to Swalwell’s. Where do Villaraigosa, Mahan, and maybe Thurmond go? My guess is that it will be wherever the people endorsing Villaraigosa want them to — and they would be up for <s>sale</s> grabs! (I meant “grabs”!) My guess is that this could give us that Dem-on-Dem runoff that we’ve been talking about. Given that neither is a “lesser evil” from their perspective, Republicans might have to sit that one out. (Maybe they’ll work on repealing Top 2!)

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, MARCH 11

(This will probably at some point become a lead-in to the next chapter in this saga.)

1. The Emerson College poll has been updated.

Here’s that website I told you to watch, with some interesting (and generally positive) updates.

• Swalwell is up 3% in Emerson, from 14% to 17%. He is up 1.0% in the 3-poll index average (“3PIA“) and is now tied with Blanco for 1st place at 15.3%
• Blanco is down in Emerson from 14% to 11%, falling 1.0% in the 3PIA to 15.3%
• Hilton fell from 17% to 14% in Emerson, falling from 15.3% to 14.3% in the 3PIA
• Porter fell from 10% to 8% in Emerson, and from 11.7% to 11% in the 3PIA
• Steyer rose from 9% to 11% in Emerson, rising from 9% to 9.7% in the 3PIA
• Becerra fell from 4% to 3% in Emerson, falling from 4.0% to 3.7% in the 3PIA
• Villaraigosa was stable at 3% in both measures
• Yee was stable at 2% in Emerson and remains at 3% overall
• Mahan was stable at 2% in Emerson and 2.7% overall. (My guess is that that will rise, given his ads)
• Ware didn’t register in Emerson and remains at 2% overall. (My guess is that that will rise)
• Thurmond fell from 2% to 1% in Emerson and is now at 1.3% overall

Overall, in investment terms, this poll suggests that we’re seeing a “flight to quality”: Swalwell and Steyer are up and Porter, Becerra, and Thurmond — along with both Republicans — are down. (Porter remains in second place among Dems, though) This isn’t to disparage Porter and Becerra, two of the three who would be most likely to get my vote — but just that the shock of a possible Top 2 shutout has sent people towards the safest Democratic candidates — front-runners Swalwell and Steyer. This one poll robbed Porter of half her overall margin over Steyer, though! I don’t know why people though she was a worse bet then Steyer — maybe it was his money? — but there’s an old saying that you should never read too much into a single poll. Unless, perhaps. you are a news source, in which event you gotta keep the audience entertained!

2. The CDP WILL be polling on the race! (Just not the best way)

The CDP will start doing weekly (or so) polls to let the candidates see their progress with the public. The news came out after I suggested that they to polling to try to get people to leave the race. But it’s a very different strategy. It’s like a process of slowly humiliating trailing candidates to give up rather than telling them “time’s up” and thanking them for playing.

Let’s try a different metaphor: They want to send many drone strikes at the trailing candidates to “picador” them out of the race. I don’t think that this will work as well as one massive poll — with enough respondents to give a definitive result — that would be the “matador-level” event that could lead them to say “no mas.” One problem with their path is that their weekly-or-so polls will necessarily have a smaller sample size — and thus a larger amount of random error — than the one huge poll I envision. That poll would be an occasion — with a very low margin of error — enough of one to represent the time to transform the race.

But there’s a more fundamental problem yet. Some voters are highly cathected to (emotionally bonded with) their candidates; they want to leave a mark somewhere — like a result totals published after a primary that will show how much support they had. These voters may just never be satisfied — and we can just hope that we won’t end up needing them. But what either strategy can do is to dampen the allure of this sort of grand gesture so that it’s not an inspiration for others.

One addition is that the CDP could raise money for each of the trailing candidates’ campaigns — and let people know that it will involve contributions of no more than $100 intended to go, after the primary, towards their retiring their favored campaign debt. Make these results public. That might satisfy people a little bit more.

3. It’s the Time of the Season for Meddling!

We’re going to start to see ads, mostly from Republicans, to mess with their opponents. Those ads I mentioned above for Butch Ware, aimed at the young and progressive and anti-Zionist, for example. That would suck up a lot of votes! Or, ads for Matt Mahan (the Democratic candidate they’d most welcome). Or for Betty Yee, with so many activists appearing to be aggrieved on her behalf, despite her low poll numbers. Anything that might roil the waters, they may try! MORE LATER!