The other CA

Super interesting episode on the California state election, which is WIP (primaries tomorrow).

First of all, CA has term limits, which means Gavin Newsom (who almost married Trump's daughter!) cannot run again. He is widely expected to be a serious candidate in the 2028 federal election, assuning there is one.

Second: under CA's system, there is a statewide primary in which anyone can vote. Normally primaries are party-specific and happen on different dates, but not in CA. The top two from the primary go on to the general. The primary is tomorrow; the general is in November.

Third: bizarre as it sounds, it is entirely possible for the top two candidates to be from the same party! Though this did not happen in 2018 (there was one Democrat and one Republican).

Fourth: all this applies to most high level offices - not just governor. Eg. federal senators are also elected under this system.

As for the stories you hear about CA being a horribly mismanaged left wing hellscape: while the Republicans obviously exaggerate this, I am sorry to say that, in Economist opinion, this is broadly speaking true - specifically, that it is so difficult to build anything, due to laws enacted decades ago, that CA really is suffering (compared, most directly, to TX) on many Economisty metrics.

That means that it is entirely possible that the next governor could be Republican. I tend to think of CA as being forever Democrat, but actually, Schwarzenegger (a good governor, in Economist opinion) was the last Republican (he left in 2011 after serving two terms, the limit). Reagan (governor 1967-1975) was also Republican, of course.

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