‘No obvious frontrunner.' Why Harris' exit has scrambled the race for California governor

Los Angeles Times

2 days ago

For months, candidates in the race to become California's next governor had waited for a pivotal question to be settled: Will former Vice President Kamala Harris run or not?
With Harris' announcement this week that she's out, a new question arose: Who's the front-runner now?
Because of Harris' star power, the answer is far from simple. For months, other candidates saw their campaign planning and fundraising undercut by the possibility she would run, meaning the race got a big reset seconds after Harris made her announcement Wednesday.
Some political observers give the nod to former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, who appears to have a small leg up over her opponents.
Porter was the only Democrat to receive double-digit support in multiple polls when Harris was not included in the field.
A prodigious fundraiser while she was in Congress representing an Orange County district, Porter reported a strong infusion of cash in the months after launching her campaign in March, and said she raised $250,000 in the 36 hours after Harris' announcement.
'The enthusiasm we're seeing from donors at every level shows that Californians know how critical this race is,' Porter said in an email blast.
Other candidates — including Xavier Becerra, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration and a former California attorney general — have also tried to assert that, with Harris out, they are moving up.
'BECERRA CAMPAIGN BUILDING MOMENTUM IN 'WIDE OPEN' RACE,' read the subject line of an email sent Friday by the Becerra campaign, saying he is 'well-positioned to unite a broad swath of voters around his plans to make health care and housing less expensive and more accessible.'
Outside observers, however, said that none of the candidates really stand out from the pack at the moment.
'That these remaining candidates are jockeying for bragging rights about who may be the front-runner — it's to be expected, but it's ludicrous,' said Garry South, a veteran Democratic strategist who has worked on a number of past gubernatorial campaigns, including for former Gov. Gray Davis.
'With Harris opting out, there will likely be no obvious front-runner among the remainder of the current field for quite some time,' South said. 'None of these candidates start out with statewide name recognition.'
With such a wide-open field, factors such as endorsements and communication strategies will be important to watch, experts said. So will the candidates' ability to raise money and use it to broaden their appeal.
'I would start spending money on social media, on television advertising, on every single platform I could find to build up my name ID,' South said, but 'none of them have enough money to do that at the moment.'
With Harris out, will she back someone else?
'Obviously if she did endorse, that would be a big plus' for whichever candidate she rallied behind, said John Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College.
Harris has long relationships with several of the candidates in the race. A source familiar with her thinking told The Times after Harris bowed out that she was still considering whether and how to approach the governor's race.
Other endorsements could affect the race as well. Hours after Harris announced her decision, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the influential former House Speaker, appeared on CNN to endorse Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, whom she has known for years.
'We have many great candidates, one in particular Eleni Tsakopoulos, whom I support,' Pelosi said, referring to Kounalakis by her maiden name.
Kounalakis' father, the wealthy developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, helped bankroll an independent expenditure committee supporting his daughter's 2018 campaign for lieutenant governor. Political observers are watching to see if he dumps money into a similar effort backing her gubernatorial campaign.
Pitney said Pelosi's opinion 'would carry a lot more weight' if she were still speaker. He said it 'isn't necessarily going to sway a large chunk of the electorate,' but could be important if it sways Bay Area donors.
A former GOP legislative aide and national party staffer who renounced his membership in the Republican Party the night Trump was elected in 2016, Pitney said that endorsements are far from a determining factor in today's political landscape.
'I hesitate to rule anybody out, because very often candidates seem to come out of nowhere — like Mamdani in New York City,' he said, referring to the sudden rise and stunning upset primary win of 33-year-old democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in the New York mayoral race.
Pitney added that experience in government and administrative leadership also matters, but could also cut against candidates at a time when many voters are frustrated and want something new.
For example, Antonio Villaraigosa, the former state Assembly speaker and L.A. mayor who is in his 70s, 'obviously has a long history, but that long history is both an advantage and a disadvantage,' Pitney said.
Villaraigosa has said his campaign is 'about the future.' But voters 'may not regard him as a fresh face,' Pitney said.
None of the current candidates for governor have the same profile as Harris. In fact, they are broadly unknown to huge swaths of the electorate.
That means they have their work cut out for them, Pitney and South said — namely in terms of fundraising.
South said that there 'is no question that the Democratic donor base has basically been sitting on their haunches waiting to see what Harris is going to do.'
But, he said, he hasn't seen any sign yet that donors have picked a favorite candidate now that she's out, either — which is a problem for candidates with little or no name recognition.
'None of these candidates in the remaining field with Harris out have enough money in the bank to run a statewide campaign for governor,' he said.
South said that could change if Kounalakis gets another major infusion of cash from her father and once again taps her personal wealth.
At the same time, there could also be a 'huge blowback' from that sort of splashy family spending, South said, especially if Kounalakis' opponents pounced on it as distasteful.
'We have not tended in this state to elect moneyed people who try to buy the governor's race,' he said.
South said he is watching to see if big Bay Area donors decide to back Porter 'because of her profile as a progressive.'
Los Angeles developer and 2022 mayoral candidate Rick Caruso 'could be a force' if he were to enter the race, Pitney said, because 'he has prominence in Southern California and also has a lot of money.'
The most recent fundraising reports, which were due Thursday night, shine a light on candidates' coffers — but only through the end of June, well before Harris dropped out.
The Democrats who do not have the potential to self-fund their campaigns reported having millions of dollars in cash on hand as of June 30, including some who transferred money from prior campaign committees to their gubernatorial accounts.
Former legislative leader Toni Atkins reported having $4.3 million in the campaign, while raising $648,000 and spending $549,000 in the first six months of this year.
Villaraigosa raised $1.1 million and spent $550,000 this year, but reported $3.3 million cash on hand based on fundraising he did last year.
Becerra had $2.1 million in the bank after raising $2.5 million and spending $449,000 in the first six months of the year.
Porter reported raising $2.5 million and spending $449,000 since launching her campaign in March. She said she has $2.1 million in the bank.
Unlike the other candidates, Porter's campaign revealed her fundraising because her filing on the state disclosure website didn't show any dollar figures.
Spokesman Nathan Click said her number of small-dollar donors crashed the state's system, and that they had been working with state officials to get the documents displayed on the secretary of state's website all day Friday. He said most of Porter's 34,000 donors contributed less than $200 each.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco reported raising $1.6 million and spending $609,000 this year, leaving him with $1 million in the bank.
A few candidates reported mediocre fundraising numbers, but have personal wealth they can draw on.
Kounalakis raised just over $100,000 and spent nearly three times as much during the first half of this year. She has more than $4.6 million on hand and millions more in her lieutenant governor campaign account, although some of that money can't be transferred because of campaign finance rules.
Businessman Stephen J. Cloobeck, a Los Angeles Democrat, raised about $160,000 and spent $1.5 million — including more than $1 million on consultants. He had about $729,000 on hand at the end of the period. He also said he made a $10-million contribution Friday that he said 'turbocharged' his campaign.
'One of my many advantages is that I'm not a politician and I am not compromised,' Cloobeck said.
Former Fox News host Steve Hilton, a Republican candidate, raised about $1.5 million, of which $200,000 was a personal loan. Hilton spent about $1 million and has a little less than $800,000 in the bank.
At the lowest end of the fundraising were former state controller Betty Yee, who raised almost $238,000 and spent $255,000, with $637,000 on hand; and state schools superintendent Tony Thurmond, who raised about $70,000, spent about $180,000 and had almost $560,000 on hand.
Both Yee and Thurmond told The Times last month that fundraising had slowed while Democratic donors waited on Harris to make a decision.