California Governor’s Race Heats Up: How Trump’s Endorsement Changed the Top-Two Primary Dynamic

This is a lightly edited transcript of the May 6 edition of Right Now With Perry Bacon. You can watch the video here or by following the show on YouTube or Substack.

California’s Governor’s Race: A High-Stakes Top-Two Primary

Perry Bacon (host of The New Republic’s Right Now):

I’m Perry Bacon, the host of The New Republic show Right Now. We have a great guest who’s really up early in the morning. This is David Dayen, the executive editor of The American Prospect. It’s one of those magazines—like The New Republic—that is left of center and tries to cover the news from a pro-democracy perspective. David has done some great work, particularly in chronicling economic policy. If you follow him on Twitter or Bluesky, you’ll see he’s one of the best. He also runs a fantastic magazine. I’m really honored that David’s joined me today. So, David, thanks for being here.

David Dayen:

Thanks for having me, Perry.

Bacon:

So, I want to start with the big picture: You’re one of the few people writing about national politics who’s based in California. I wish we had more people interested in the state, because—as we know—it’s the biggest and most important in the country. What I want to talk about first is the governor’s race there. It’s heating up, and voting is about to begin. My first question is: A few weeks ago, the big worry was that the two Republicans would finish ahead, locking Democrats out of the general election. But I think that’s no longer the case, in part because Donald Trump solved that problem.

Dayen:

Yeah. It’s a combination of two things. First, Donald Trump helped solve the problem by endorsing one of the two Republican candidates. The initial fear was that there were essentially two prominent Republicans in the race, alongside up to eight prominent Democrats. California uses what’s called a top-two primary system. On your primary ballot, you see all candidates—Democratic, Republican, Decline to State—regardless of your own party affiliation. There are actually 62 candidates on the ballot. You vote for whoever you want, and the top two advance to the general election, regardless of party.

In a state where 65% of the electorate might vote Democratic and 35% Republican, if those two Republicans split the Republican vote, they could each get around 17-18% of the total vote. That would make it nearly impossible for any of the eight Democrats to surpass them, resulting in a general election with only two Republicans as the top choices. Under the state’s statute—created by a 2010 voter initiative—write-in candidates aren’t allowed in the general election. So, the general election ballot would feature only the two top vote-getters from the primary.

That was a very real concern, particularly when