California Democrats experienced a surge of panic in mid-March with polling that showed a real possibility that two election-denying Republicans could end up running against each other for governor in November, because they were leading in the run-up to the top-two primary in June. The prospect is harrowing, if far from certain. Three Democrats in double digits were close behind—billionaire activist Tom Steyer and current and former congressmembers Eric Swalwell and Katie Porter — while five more in single digits split the rest of the vote.
In addition to that main fear, there’s added intra-party conflicts resulting from the situation. These burst into the headlines when a scheduled USC debate was canceled at the last minute, because all the candidates of color were excluded, while a white candidate with Silicon Valley billionaire support — San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan — was included despite polling no better than some of those excluded, most of whom have significantly more experience.
So it’s not just the prospect of a Trump ally leading a deep Blue state that has party activists and others concerned. At base, it’s the whole makeshift structure of California’s electoral politics, which has seen powerful popular and progressive advances—like the initiative—subverted by the power of money, and never adequately restored to their original purpose, as Richard Ellis described in his 2002 book, Democratic Delusions: The Initiative Process in America.
Ellis argued that the original Swiss version — which allows the legislature to propose an alternative for the public to vote on — does a far better job of responding to public concerns without generating new problems that can be even more difficult to fix. This happened most notoriously with Prop 13, which has benefited businesses far more than the homeowners it was supposed to help, while decimating local tax revenues, thus undermining local government.
Unlike the initiative, the top two primary is barely a decade old, and its potential failings are far more salient. But political professionals who’ve adapted to it see things differently than grassroots party activists. “Any kind of a system is defective and faulty in some way or another,” said Garry South, who’s run four gubernatorial campaigns. He expects some resolution, since “Gavin Newsom and his presidential campaign would suffer, I think, irreparably” if a Republican were to succeed him, as it would be seen as a repudiation of his leadership. So Newsom’s bound to do something about it, along with others such as Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. But that may take some time.
While it’s mathematically possible, “We’ve only had three same-party runoffs” in statewide races since the top-two system began, South noted, “and they’ve all been on the Democratic side.” The circumstances this time are unusual, he explained. Newsom has no clear-cut successor and the race involves “what I call a field of formers,” South said: candidates who — under California law — can’t identify themselves on the ballot by the former offices they’ve held. This situation is unlikely to repeat.
But downballot, same-party run-offs are far more common: in 14 of 80 state assembly races in 2024, for example, five of which were Republican-only. So grassroots party activists — who are more involved with lower-profile races, and do the vast majority of thankless political work — are more likely to see this crisis as an opportunity for change, starting with getting rid of top-two.
“It absolutely needs to be replaced,” Carrie Scoville, Vice President of Yes We Can Democratic Club, said flatly. “First of all, it was a Republican idea in the first place that the Democrats embraced it because they love the thought of having two Democrats in November and not having to worry about Republicans,” she explained. “But in the meantime, it’s so undemocratic, because it allows people outside the party that you’re a member of to be able to vote for your leadership and for your elected officials.”
It’s unfair to third parties as well, who “will never see the light of day in November, which is fundamentally undemocratic,” Scoville said. And, “It causes unnecessary infighting and charges to clear the field of candidates and charges to get candidates to drop out, which is again fundamentally undemocratic.” So it’s damaging to parties and democracy all around.
While pundits and people in general may criticize parties for polarizing politics, political scientists generally see them as vital to democracy.
“They present alternatives to voters and they help voters from one election to the next know which party is on their side generally, which party can represent them on the issues that they care about,” noted political scientist Suzanne Mettler said in a recent interview. “And they do the organizational work of getting out the vote. So, for those reasons and many others, parties are important.”
These reasons become especially evident on the local level, as Democratic club presidents in Torrance and Long Beach made particularly clear. While the governor’s race remains muddled, their local focus is clear.
In Torrance, Jimmy Gow explained, the club is tightly focused on ousting MAGA Republicans from city offices, which have the most direct impact on people’s lives, yet run in low-turnout elections where public information is scarce. “We are primarily focused on that because those are one-and-done. There is no November runoff or anything,” Gow said. “So for us locally, that’s really key.” They’re backing a slate of five candidates, so “If we’re successful, we will have essentially flipped the Torrance City Council. So that’s a lot of our emphasis.”
In Long Beach, club president Gregory Hollings explained they were still involved in the endorsement process, researching in advance of two endorsement meetings —April 9, dealing with local and judicial races, then in May, dealing with state and federal offices. “We started putting the process together in January,” but then had to wait until after the filing deadlines to move ahead.
“It is a lot of work,” he said. It’s time. It’s knowledge. You have to be well-informed. You have to have the time to be well-informed. You have to have the correct information to be well-informed, access to the right publications, the right people, the right data. And we’re all volunteers.”
In Torrance, Gow said, their club does tabling at the local farmers market twice weekly leading up to an election. They make it “pretty comprehensive, everything on the ballot,” he said. “So as soon as we say, ‘Voter guide! Get your voter guide! Judges and everything!’ people who are walking by will do a 180,” because that’s the most difficult to get and locally important kind of voter information there is.
In the governor’s race itself, “You have lack of money on the part of everyone really, except for Steyer,” a self-funding billionaire, South said. “We have roughly 14 media markets in the in the state of California including the second biggest in the country In LA and the fourth biggest in the Bay Area.” And to reach the whole state, “You have to buy Yuma, Arizona, Reno, Nevada and Medford, Oregon.” The amounts candidates have raised so far — $7 million, tops — are clearly inadequate. “You can blow that on a two-week media buyer in LA,” South said.
Swalwell may have an advantage here, Michael Lee-Chang, a college student party activist noted. “One of the main reasons he’s pulling so well is that he’s on MSNBC like every day,” Lee-Chang said. “He’s really portrayed himself, especially in media that he’s this Trump-fighting figure, when as a congressperson he’s probably your kind of average Central Valley congressperson.”
“Now more than ever, I do feel like it’s a battle about personalities and charisma,” he concluded.
Steyer reflects that in a different way. “It’s been ironic to watch a lot of the people who rail against billionaires supporting a billionaire,” he said.
“I think it’s fantastic that Tom Steyer has done a lot of work to improve the lives of Californians,” Hollings said. “My major problem is that he is a billionaire and my issue is how did you get to be a billionaire?” What he’s doing with his money now may be fantastic, but, “I believe a billionaire should never hold elected office, and part of the reason is that how did you get to where you are now? A lot that is subsidized by the taxpayers.”
Both Steyer and Swalwell have another problem that could emerge: both ran for President in 2020, with pathetic results. That speaks to high ambitions rather than a willingness to put in hard work. And governing California well is certainly hard work.
“I think candidates are saying a lot of things that they can’t deliver on,” Scoville worries, “We’ve heard it before. Gavin Newsom ran twice on single-payer healthcare,” she said, “The bill was stopped in assembly and not because of the assembly. The votes were there. It was because of the top. And because of healthcare interests, hospital interests that blocked it.” Which led her to say, “We also obviously need public funding of elections. We have it at the municipal level in some areas, in some cities. But we need it statewide, to be able to keep these lobbyists at bay.”
Along the same lines, Scoville said the Democratic Party should have gotten rid of the top two primary last November, at the same time it passed Prop 50 to allow for redistricting to counter Trump’s push in Texas and elsewhere. She hopes the current panic will finally convince party leaders to act. Beyond that, she’d like to see ranked choice voting, but … “Do I think the state is ready for that? No,” she said. “Ranked choice voting is something that’s starting at the local level and then coming up from there. It’s not something that starting from the top down.”
Lee-Chang can attest to that.
“I’m from Redondo Beach and we’re the [first] city in LA County to implement ranked choice voting,” he said. Their first election was in March 2025, and “It actually worked out fine.” San Francisco and a dozen other Bay Area cities have use it much longer. Advocates say that it allow people to vote for who they really want to, rather than who they think can win, and that it discourages negative campaigning and promotes more collegial, more collaborative campaigns instead.
“There’s actually a conversation in Long Beach right now about ranked choice voting and potentially getting something on the ballot,” Hollings said. “The more research I do, I do think it is a much more fair system…. I think people would be more engaged with voting.”
But here again, South as a consultant sees things differently.
“I’m totally opposed to ranked choice voting. I think it’s a terrible way to run elections because it fosters all kinds of behind-the-scenes collusion and games playing by candidates trying to either hurt or help another candidate,” he said. “There’s enough games playing that occurs in regular campaigns,” he added, speaking from decades of his own experience, and citing examples.
But advocates argue that such backdoor game-playing is less effective with ranked-choice voting, and that the more positive public tone encourages more participation and higher turnout.
There’s another problem South cited. “It just is too complicated,” he said. “I guess I’m old-fashioned I believe you need to make voters make a choice and the choice is not 1-2-3-4-5. The choice is who’s the best candidate running in this in this field for this particular office.”
South is right. He is old-fashioned. At least as far as American political elections are concerned. But when it comes to old-fashioned sports things like the Heisman Trophy and the Cy Young, a form of ranked choice voting has been around for donkey’s years. The same is true of NFL and NBA Most Valuable Player awards.
All of which is to say that Scoville is probably right. Ranked choice voting needs to grow locally and work its way up. People like South running or working on statewide campaigns have their hands full just trying to do their best in a challenging environment (14 media markets!) to say the least. It’s local party activists, clubs and elected politicians with a different set of challenges foremost in their minds who are going to lead the way.
In Torrance, there’s a relatively modest reform that ought to be made, Gow noted. “Our municipal [election] is linked to the primary. It’s something that should be corrected and it just never has. A municipal general election should be concurrent with the November general election,” he said. It’s a simple way of ensuring that the maximum number of voters are involved.
The silver lining on the dark cloud of Trump’s intensified war on voting is a heightened awareness of how important voting really is to protect everything else we value, and an increased interest in not just protecting what is, but in making it better—from the simple fix of switching Torrance’s elections to November to the more ambitious fixes of replacing the top-two primary, and introducing ranked choice voting from the bottom up. Who knows? As the governor’s race heads to the June primary, perhaps some of the candidates will even start talking about these ways of strengthening democracy themselves.