The party chair said he was ‘appropriately concerned’ about governor’s race
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi takes a selfie with supporters during the California Democratic Party State Convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on Feb. 21, 2026. Christina House/LA Times via Getty
By Anabel Sosa, Senior California Politics Reporter Updated Feb 24, 2026 (SFGate.com)
At the California Democratic Party’s state convention in San Francisco this weekend, the Republicans loomed large.
The 5,000-person event, held this year at the Moscone Center downtown, is the party’s major endorsement event. The point was to emerge with a consensus as to which Democrat to back in the race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom. Yet what was most clear after the weekend of schmoozing was how split the party still is, as nine Democrats vie with two main Republicans to make it to the gubernatorial ticket in the general election.
“If there are two Republicans in the general election, they’ll come looking for the chair of the party. That’s usually how this works,” said Rusty Hicks, the chair of the California Democratic Party, during a press availability on Friday evening. He was referring to potentially being in the hot seat in his role as the leader of California’s Democrats if two Republicans lead the nonpartisan primary in June, which would shut Democrats out of the general election.
With less than four months to go until the June primary, the weekend event ended with no official endorsement of a candidate, leaving continued questions about who will lead California Democrats — and maybe California overall — going forward. But the prospect of a Democratic shutout in the governor’s race was a looming topic of conversation over the weekend, even while the party chair shrugged it off as a nonissue this early on.
“I think it’s also important for me to reiterate that I’m aware of, but not worried about that dynamic,” Hicks continued. At another point, he emphasized that he was “appropriately concerned” — as in to say, not overly so.
Yet a poll released last week revealed that two Republicans — Steve Hilton, a British-born former Fox News host, and Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff — have a significant edge in the race. Hilton garnered 17% of support, and Bianco got 14%, which tied him with the leading Democrat, Rep. Eric Swalwell, a multi-term congressman who represents the Bay Area. In California’s nonpartisan, ranked-choice primary system, the top two vote-getters in June regardless of party will move on to the general election in November.
Rep. Eric Swalwell addresses his crowd of supporters at Local Edition bar in San Francisco during the California Democratic Party State Convention on Feb. 20, 2026.Christina House/LATimes via Getty
The Republican edge is, in large part, because the remaining nine Democrats are splitting the support.
After Swalwell, the next most-supported Democrats in the February poll from Emerson College were former Rep. Katie Porter, who received 10% support, and Tom Steyer, the billionaire and former presidential candidate, who received 9%. After that was a slew of Democrats, including former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who received 3.5% support; San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who received 3.4%; former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who received 3%; former State Controller Betty Yee and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who each received 2%; and former California Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon, who received 0.6%.
Hicks did not specifically say any of those candidates should drop out. He did say, however, that those who continue to poll in the low single digits won’t “have the ability to get to the general election, but can make it incredibly hard for someone else to get there.”
But, polling only paints one part of the picture. Democratic delegates left the weekend with dozens of endorsements for other state races, but the governor’s race remains without one. In order for a candidate to get a party endorsement, they would need 60% support from the 3,500 state delegates. This could signal the discrepancy between delegates’ perceptions of what an eligible candidate should look like compared to what an everyday voter wants.
The top vote-getter was Swalwell, who managed to secure 24% of delegate support this weekend, mirroring his strong performance in the polls. In the running for second and third among the delegates, however, were Yee and Becerra, who got 17% and 14% of the delegate vote, respectively. That’s a huge divergence from their dismal support in the polls; RealClearPolitics’ polling average has Becerra at 4.5% support and Yee at just 1.5%.
Yee and Becerra both have the resumes to back their campaign visions. Yee has been the state controller and a member of the State Board of Equalization. She intimately understands the state’s tax system and has revolved her campaign around fiscal sustainability for both California’s government and residents. Becerra served as state attorney general before acting as health secretary in Joe Biden’s administration, with firsthand experience working during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has emphasized health care access as his reason for running.
One delegate, Larry Leonard from the Sonoma County Democratic Party, told SFGATE that Yee’s experience is why she was his initial pick.
“I used to really like Betty Yee, and I thought she’s great, and she’d do a good job,” he said. But after looking at polling, he said he’s considering a switch, in part for the greater good come November: “She’s down at 2%, so that changed my whole way of thinking because of the risk of splitting the vote. If she doesn’t get the endorsement, I hope she’s willing to drop out.”
Sandra Lowe, Yee’s campaign manager, was passing out Nerds candies at their booth because Yee is the “nerdy candidate,” she said. Lowe defended Yee’s continued presence in the race by saying there are still too many undecided voters for anyone to drop out. A lot can change, Lowe said, pointing to Porter’s numbers, which have already begun to drop. The Emerson College poll showed the former Orange County representative’s support dropping to 10% in February from 11% in the same poll in December.
“There’s a huge undecided,” Lowe told SFGATE. “With that big of an undecided, the race is still wide open.”
On Saturday, the convention schedule was split into morning and afternoon slots. Top Democrats, including Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Adam Schiff and San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, spoke. In the afternoon, a two-hour session entailed every gubernatorial candidate, and those running for other state positions, being given four-minute slots to make their spiel to delegates. The room was deafeningly loud, with music and delegates in the audience at times overpowering the candidates on stage.
Yet Porter did manage to make a splash, speaking bluntly and embracing profanities during her speaking slot. She waved around her infamous white board, which read “F—k Trump” and got more of a reaction from the crowd than any other candidates managed to get. She touted her platform on single-payer health care, less expensive housing, free child care for all and zero tuition at state universities.
“I’m excited about the race. It matters so much. I don’t think ever in California’s history has it mattered so much,” Suzanne Danis, a delegate for Canyon Democrats, a PAC that organizes in southern Orange County, told SFGATE.
Danis said that she is looking for two main qualities in a candidate. The first is whether they’re capable of running the fourth-largest economy like “a CEO”; the second is whether they know Washington, D.C., intimately and can protect California from a “vindictive” federal government.
Steyer and Swalwell, she said, both meet her criteria. Becerra is also a consideration for her if he can get an “increased buzz.” As for Porter — who hails from Orange County herself —Danis called her a “brilliant professor and a policy wonk” but said that, because she has never run an organization, “this is not her race.”
Steyer, a billionaire former investor who founded the San Francisco hedge fund Farallon Capital, is pouring upward of $40 million of his own money into the campaign, according to recent state filings. In his first month campaigning, he had 4% of support from voters, but he has since managed to snag major endorsements from labor and environmental groups. Add that to a considerable ad spend — Steyer was able to pay his way into airtime during the Super Bowl this month, which he used to promote his ideas around dismantling PG&E and lowering everyday costs — and he is now polling in the high single digits.
Hicks, without naming anyone, addressed candidates like Steyer or Mahan, a favorite of Silicon Valley tech backers, who may have an edge in fundraising.
“The question is, you can have all the money in the world, but if you don’t have a story to tell, it doesn’t matter,” Hicks said. “So the question is, do the candidates with the most resources have a story that voters are interested in?”
Steyer’s story, and his billionaire status, is one he will likely have to continue to defend, particularly in a time when billionaires are the target of a controversial wealth tax proposal. He’s previously said he’d vote for the tax, but on Saturday, he deflected questions about it and suggested that a proposal to close the corporate real estate tax loophole would bring more revenue to the state than a wealth tax.
Steyer told reporters that the potential for two Republicans in the general election is “really low” but a possibility, nonetheless. But the self-proclaimed progressive articulated a different fear: “I think there’s a very serious possibility that we’ll end up with an incredibly conservative Democrat and a Republican,” he said.
That conservative Democrat, he said, would be Mahan, the San Jose mayor and the most recent candidate to jump in the race. Mahan didn’t qualify for an endorsement from the party because he declared his candidacy too late, but he was present during the weekend convention anyway. He raised $7 million in his first week, largely from Silicon Valley backers who quickly rallied behind him. A political campaign committee paid for by some tech executives, and not affiliated with Mahan, also paid for a Super Bowl ad promoting him.
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Speech after speech, one thing was clear from the weekend: There is no amount of money, TV ads or grassroots door-knocking that could make the crystal ball any clearer. Everyone seemed to understand there are too many Democrats in the race, but no one seemed willing to say who should be the first to go.
Hicks, the party chair, tried to paint the overstuffed race as business as usual, saying it’d “be nice” if voter interest picked up and the field started winnowing because “we could clean this up real quick. But that’s not how it goes.”
Feb 24, 2026
Anabel Sosa
Senior California Politics Reporter
Anabel Sosa is the senior California politics reporter at SFGATE. She previously covered the statehouse and elections for the Los Angeles Times. She has a master’s degree in investigative journalism from UC Berkeley. You can reach her at anabel.sosa@sfgate.com.
