Swalwell Implodes Into Geyser of Toxic Waste; What Now?

1. Eric Swalwell ‘Splodes; Havoc Ensues

Over the weekend, news spread (at least among political activists) that long-awaited accusations that Rep. Eric Swalwell, who has been leading the polls among Democratic candidates for Governor, had finally been confirmed by at least one named (alleged, I have to say) victim. Swalwell quickly lost his campaign staff and most (if not all) of his endorsements. He remains on the ballot — both because neither literal nor figurative death can remove someone in a Top 2 primary, and because (to what seems like general surprise) he is currently saying that he’s staying in the race. (My guess is that he’s staying the the race to be better positioned to strangle Steyer with his own intestines. That’s probably a metaphor.)

This comes as Democrats are trying to avoid being shut out of the Top 2 primary — a concern that I expressed back when it was adopted could someday happen — in favor of both Trump-endorsed talk-show host Steve Hilton (who loves his talk-show hosts, which is a major reason that we’re at war with Iran and you’ve stopped making unnecessary car trips) and corrupt reptilian-yet-bumbling Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. For most of the year these two have been leading everyone in the race, except sometimes for Swalwell. And now Swalwell is, politically, clinically dead.

I’m going to be adding to this over the next few hours and maybe days, so check in for more.

2. State of the Race

As you’ll see above, the two leading Republicans have been well-placed to take the top-two spots and shut Dems out of the primary.

Swalwell remains in the race for now, but probably not for long. His proponents have been abandoning him in the hopes of keeping the stains off their clothes. Lots of people are now saying that his hitting on his employees was an open secret — I never knew about it, but then certain doors have been closed to me for almost a decade — but if it’s true then it’s likely to become a massive problem for lots of Democratic incumbents, potentially nationwide. And maybe Swalwell will be calling in favors from those who knew him in the past — and maybe engaged in similar activities. This will be a tremendous boon for Republicans if it prevents a Democratic House Majority; Donald Trump, as usual, lucks out despite being more scandalous than any dozen Democrats combined. Some people think that Swalwell should leave the race, others that he should leave the House, but I don’t think he can prevent disaster without leaving the country to someplace that doesn’t extradite. (I’m not suggesting that he leave for the afterlife, but I can’t promise that I never will.)

Wait — I got off track again. Back to the candidates. In the poll aggregation image above — from which I’ve taken out a new and suspect polling agency with a smaller sample and added back in a very good pollster — Steyer and Porter are both about two points behind Swalwell. I find it hard to believe that anyone who has been a fan of either would receive support from Swalwell supporters. Steyer seems — I need to ask Cheyenne Hunt about this! — have been the main proponent (and funder?) of the attacks on Swalwell. (Doing that is to his credit. Funding that is also arguably to his credit.) Concealing his doing that, though, is very much not to his credit. I doubt they’ll forgive easily. As for Porter, she seems to me that she is the head cheese of politics: there’s nothing inherently wrong with it, for non vegetarians, but it’s very much a specialized taste. If you’ve seen Porter and she’s not to your taste — and I really don’t want to dwell on why that is — you’re probably going to search hard for something else on the menu (or just go home.)

But the other menu items, for now, are limited! The first is Xavier Becerra, at 4.5%, who I’ll skip for now. Then comes Antonio Villaraigosa, supported by PORAC (the cops’ organization) and unions, most of them Building Trades, but also the Labor Federation. He is — how do I say this nicely? — not the guy that you want to send to the voters after you kick out someone for sexual harassment, because his really was an open secret. (There’s talk that the next campaign will be to point the harsh spotlight on him — but there’s a difference between him and Swalwell: Swalwell threatened Steyer’s candidacy; while Villaraigosa protects him by sucking energy from Becerra.)

Matt Mahan, at 3.5%, is the obvious likely beneficiary of the Silicon Valley money that was going to Swalwell. He is a threat to move up the ranks because of it — but he’s far more conservative than any other Democrat in the race. He claims to be working miracles in San Jose, but San Jose residents say they’re mirages.

Betty Yee, at 2.75%, is a favorite of female voters and has a powerful advocate in Eastern LA County’s Hans Johnson. But she has not yet been able to move up and has been behind about 2 points behind Becerra and 1 behind Mahan. It’s not impossible for her to gain traction, but it does seem improbable. In my opinion, she spent too many years on the Board of Equalization, which should not even exist but survives mostly as a pasture for has-beens, and that’s not enough to brag about.

Tony Thurmond, at 1.25%, has an outside change — but unfortunately for him what it’s outside is the bounds of reason.

So that brings us back to Xavier Becerra, last clocked at 4.5%. I’m on a Facebook claque (not even a group), with a lot of progressive to radical activists, and when Swalwell started sputtering I looked at the field and asked myself who would be positioned to move up if Porter was stuck (her slogan could be “at least MY pattern of abuse of my subordinates wasn’t SEXUAL“) and voters wanted someone with actual governance experience rather than Steyer. (I’m not the only one who suspects that Steyer had this story on Swalwell long ago — people keep saying that it was an “open secret,” so with the degree of research his team obviously did they should have found it — and tried to get him out of the race more gently with attacks his residency before releasing the hounds on him, either arranging for Cheyenne Hunt to do the public work or simply getting lucky that he didn’t have to leave his own fingerprints.) Steyer was sitting at about 6-9% — 5-11 points behind Swalwell until the last week of February — and still hasn’t risen all that much. So my question was: where were those voters going to go?

The obvious best match-up against Steyer and Porter — about whom I believed voters who weren’t with them had already considered and rejected — looked like Becerra. [MORE TO COME]