All's Well That Ends Swalwell

There was a huge upheaval in the California governor’s race, and it’s so sad and awful on many levels.  The major sexual misconduct scandal with Eric Swalwell turned the race inside out.  And “misconduct” is the polite term since there were charges of sexual abuse and rape against Eric Swalwell by four women, including one in his office.  He was leading among Democrats, ballots have been printed for the primary, and early voting starts in just three weeks, on May 4.  Election Day is June 2.

Beyond dropping out of the race, the reaction by House MAGOPs calling for him to resign his seat in Congress has been gallingly, though grotesquely humorously hypocritical.  Their stated outrage has been that they believe the accusations, and America deserves better and that there’s no place in Congress for such action.  And while they’re right of course, their outrage would mean so much more if they had ever expressed one single word of fury at Trump who not only has had 12 women made accusations of sexual abuse against him (who apparently MAGOPs don’t believe) – but he was literally adjudicated guilty of rape by a jury in court after being allowed a full defense.  But not a peep ever from MAGOPs about wanting Trump to resign his office, or filing impeachment charges because America deserves better and there’s no place in government for him.
 
For that matter, a woman accused Pete Hegseth of rape, but it seems MAGOPs don’t believe her either.  Maybe one accusation of rape isn’t a high enough standard for their hypocritical souls.
 
Yesterday, Swalwell did resign, after pressure by Democrats to do so.  Pressure that these outraged MAGOPs never once put on their own member Tony Gonzales...until they were essentially forced to by Democrats' action against one of their own, and now Gonzales, finally, has resigned.  (For anyone concerned, just know that Swalwell's resignation won’t affect the makeup of Congress.  He’s in a very Democratic district and won his 2024 election by 36 points -- 68-32%.  So, a Democrat will be elected in his district to replace him.

That brings us to the point of this today, how it all impacts the California governor’s race.
 
California has what’s called a “jungle primary.”  All candidates run in the primary, regardless of party.  And unless someone gets above 50% of the vote, there is a runoff of the top two.  No write-in votes are allowed.
 
The concern among Democrats this year is that there are about eight major candidates splitting the vote, and just two main MAGOP.  All polls have had one of the MAGOPs in first place, while Swalwell and the other MAGOP have flip-flopped between who would get the second position.  And now Swalwell is out.
 
Democrat Tom Steyer is fairly close in fourth place (now third place), with former Congresswoman Katie Porter behind him, though a bit back.  With the other Democrats further behind.  Not out of it, especially now, but hanging on by their fingertips.
 
A “downside” for me is that this would make Tom Steyer the top candidate for Democrats – and while I think he has generally good positions, he has zero experience, and I think is unqualified.  His only “credential” is that’s he’s a billionaire who’s self-funded his campaign, having spent $100 million so far.  That said, whatever his limitations in politics, his positions are pretty good, and he would be 100% better than any of the two MAGOPs.

All this said, let’s take a look at what I think might end up happening.
 
For starters, I actually think that in some ways, odd as it may seem, Swalwell leaving the race helps ensure that a Democrat will get in the top two.  I’ll explain why in a moment.

And know, too, that even if worse comes to worse and the unlikely happens, and a MAGOP wins the California governorship, Democrats have veto-proof supermajorities in the state legislature – and may even expand that in the general election – and so there will be little damage that a MAGOP as governor could do.
 
But losing the governorship would still be dismal.  However, this is why I don’t think that will happen.
 
Though Swalwell’s name will remain on the ballot, his dropping out gives the maximum amount of time for word to get out to all those who were supporting him, and for all the other candidates to adjust their campaigns to go after those votes that now just opened up.
 
And that’s the most important thing – previous to all this, Democratic officials were anxious for the party’s candidates at the bottom (with no chance) to drop out in order to open up their 2-3% support and let the leading candidates pick that up.  But with Swalwell dropping out, that’s no longer working with just 2-3% of the votes, but rather something like 13 points that now can get split up and go to the other candidates – most likely those around the top…which should push one of them into the top two position overall, which is all that is needed to get into the two-person general election.  And as I said, if a Democrat gets in the top two, he or she will win.  And for that matter, Democrats have a real chance now to get both two top spots.

Okay, we’re going to get into numbers now, so bear with me.
 
In an average of the four major polls taken, Swalwell was in second place overall behind a MAGOP, with 13.5% -- to the MAGOP’s 17%.
 
The next closest in third place overall was a MAGOP with 12%.
 
Then came Tom Steyer at around 12% and Katie Porter at 10%.  (I also like former Attorney General Xavier Becerra a lot – maybe even most now – but he’s next at only at 4%.)

So, it’s not unreasonable to think that Steyer and Porter will get most of Swalwell’s votes, with Becerra some.  But let’s be somewhat conservative.  Let’s say, that Steyer and Porter each get 5% of Swalwell’s support, Becerra gets 3% and all others split the minimal rest.  I don’t know if it will split this way, but it’s not an unreasonable guess.

That gives Steyer 17% and Porter 15%, both far ahead of the second MAGOP who only has 12%.  Not enough for both of them to get in the general election, but easily enough for one of them, to run against the top MAGOP who also has 17%. 
 
But (and this is very important) – 24% of voters are undecided!  And since California is strongly Democratic, almost two-to-one, and there are far more (good) Democrats running, it’s fair to think that most of those undecideds will break for Democrats.  And in the end, they’ll likely go for one of the frontrunners, which tends to be the case.  Which means there’s a reasonable chance (or even, perhaps, a very good chance) that two Democrats will pick up enough “undecided” votes to both get into the general election, pushing out the MAGOP.  But one almost certainly will.

And further, then add in the little-mentioned factor that these polls have just been about “Who do you support?”, not “Likely voters.”  And this Mid-Term, all polls across the country show that Democrats are overwhelmingly more motivated to vote than MAGOPs.  Which means that the poll support for the two MAGOP candidates are less likely to translate to voting support, compared to motivated Democratic voters, furious at Trump’s MAGOP party. Which makes it even more possible-to-likely that two Democrats will get into the final two. 
 
But this is the most important thing now:  it doesn’t even matter if two Democrats finish in the top to.  If only one Democrat is on the general election ballot against a MAGOP in California, Democrats outnumber MAGOPs in the state by about 61-39, so the Democrat will easily win.  Especially this year.

And if Eric Swalwell didn’t have a scandal and stayed in the race, while I think he’d have finished in the top two, and maybe even two Democrats would have (as the undecided votes got cast, and more-motivated Democrats voted) – I wouldn’t have sworn to the certainty of that.  Only the likelihood.  So, as a purely political matter – and this scandal is about much more than pure politics – I oddly think Democrats are in even better position in the election.

This is just a total guess, so who knows?  But -- I think the guesses are based on realistic, actual numbers and very fair assumptions.

So, as ghastly as this awful news is about Swalwell – most of all, far most of all for the woman -- as a pure political matter, this is the best political result for Democrats, with him dropping out.