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Rafael Perez: The tragic state of California’s gubernatorial race

April 14, 2026

The election to choose the next governor of California is approaching and should now start clearing up a bit following the withdrawal of Representative Eric Swalwell after several women accused him of sexual assault and inappropriate behavior.

So far I’ve spoken to Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, political commentator Steve Hilton, billionaire and climate activist Tom Steyer, ex-LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, and former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. I’ve also reached out to Katie Porter, Betty Yee, and Tony Thurmond. Porter, Swalwell, and Thurmond ignored my invitation.

The sheer size and influence of California make the governor’s race highly consequential for both residents of the state and the country, which makes it all the more unfortunate how utterly uninspiring the field is.

I invite you to read my columns about each candidate for greater detail, but here’s a quick summary of why California is virtually guaranteed to suffer from at least four more years of incompetent and perhaps even malicious leadership.

Chad Bianco couldn’t answer a few simple questions from me without becoming angry and yelling out of frustration, demonstrating all of the restraint of a pubescent boy. As I concluded from my interview with the Riverside County sheriff, “Bianco has done so much with what God gave him and he should be proud, but this is as far as he should get.”

Steve Hilton insists on employing trashy Trumpian rhetoric that is characteristic of dishonest and morally corrupt politicians – adding to his crooked aura, his running mate Gloria Romero, who I also spoke to, is an unprincipled conspiracy theorist whose opinions bear no resemblance to reality. A decent candidate who is genuinely looking to improve the lives of Californians would need to interact with Romero for only a few short moments before judging that she should be nowhere near public office, let alone their choice of running mate.

Tom Steyer is too focused on bringing about idealistic policy outcomes to be sensitive to the worldly conditions that will make their implementation detrimental. Antonio Villaraigosa’s vision for California is unfocused and underdeveloped. Xavier Becerra is in a friendly competition with Steyer to see who can propose the most destructive agenda and his track-record in public office is highly objectionable (protecting criminal cops, threatening journalists, leading an HHS that terribly handled immigrant children, etc.).

Matt Mahan received a favorable review from me but it was less that he is a particularly excellent candidate and more that the alternatives are so poor that it’s difficult to imagine the bar being any lower. Contributing to California’s dreadful outlook, despite the financial backing of Silicon Valley, Californians seem entirely disinterested in Mahan – he has consistently polled at an abysmal 3%.

Katie Porter has not accepted the opportunity to defend her record but there is plenty we can discern from her time in Congress. Her solution to everything is more government spending – in Congress, she consistently supported larger and larger budgets suggesting that she would be the agent of fresh irresponsible fiscal decisions in California.

She supports every fantasy that has stifled the ability of California to reach its full potential – increasing minimum wages, more bureaucracy, more taxes on businesses and the wealthy (she complains that Trump’s tariffs are passed on to consumers but refuses to acknowledge the obvious logical step that so will her taxes).

Her temperament has also been called into question – her husband accused her of verbal and physical abuse, she berated her own staff on camera, and she stormed out of an interview after becoming visibly frustrated at an entirely mundane question from a journalist. As with Bianco, Porter may have a bit of trouble controlling her emotions, which would be an unfortunate trait for our next governor to have.

If all of this seems overly harsh and pessimistic, it would only be so if looked at through the eyes of a population suffering from Stockholm syndrome, desensitized by an eternal succession of poor leadership and lured again by the false promise of change.

The fact that any voters in California have indicated in polls that they support any of these candidates is a symptom of a political system where politicians exploit the all-consuming nature of everyday life for regular Californians. Our options are limited to those whose constitutions compel them to seek out power and no one has the time to properly evaluate the options – even when you do, you find only mediocrity.

Is this truly the best that the great state of California can do? It appears so.

Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. He is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Rochester. You can reach him at rafaelperezocregister@gmail.com.

Orange County Register

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Rafael Perez: The tragic state of California’s gubernatorial race

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