California Democrats spent the last two decades turning the Golden State into a one-party paradise. They gerrymandered the maps, implemented a “top two” jungle primary designed to eliminate Republican candidates before the general election, and congratulated themselves for engineering a system so rigged that no Republican has won statewide office since 2006. And now — because God has a sense of humor and California Democrats apparently don’t — that same system is about to hand the governor’s mansion to a Republican for the first time in twenty years.
You cannot make this up. Eight Democrats are running for governor. EIGHT. They were told to drop out. They were begged to drop out. The California Democratic Party literally issued a public plea for low-polling candidates to consolidate. Every single one of them looked at their 4% poll numbers, looked in the mirror, and said, “But I’M the one.” Meanwhile, the two Republicans in the race — former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — are sitting at the top of every poll, grinning like two guys who just found out the other team benched itself.
Here’s how California’s genius primary works: everybody runs on one ballot, top two advance to the general, regardless of party. When Democrats designed this system, the idea was that in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one, the general election would always feature at least one Democrat — probably two. What they didn’t plan for was the possibility that their own party would be too arrogant, too fractured, and too addicted to identity politics to rally behind a single candidate.
So what do we have? Katie Porter, the progressive darling who lost her Senate bid. Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate activist who already failed spectacularly at running for president. Eric Swalwell, the congressman best known for his relationship with a Chinese spy. Xavier Becerra, who spent the last few years running HHS into the ground. And four more Democrats you’ve never heard of, each convinced they’re the chosen one. They’re splitting the Democratic vote eight ways while Hilton and Bianco consolidate the Republican side like professionals.
Trump dropped his endorsement of Steve Hilton on Truth Social Sunday night — “COMPLETE & TOTAL ENDORSEMENT” in the classic all-caps style we’ve come to know and love. And honestly? Hilton’s pitch is pretty simple: California is broken. Homelessness is the worst in the country. Crime is out of control. Gas is over five bucks a gallon. Your electricity bill looks like a car payment. People are leaving the state in U-Hauls at a rate that would make a moving company CEO weep tears of joy. And every one of those problems was created, maintained, and defended by the same Democratic establishment that now can’t figure out how to run a primary without tripping over its own ego.
The CNN headline from this weekend was priceless: “Why California Democrats are sweating the race to replace Newsom.” SWEATING. In the bluest state in America. A state where Biden won by 29 points. They’re sweating because they built a machine so efficient at eliminating competition that they forgot how to actually compete. They haven’t had to earn a vote in so long that when it finally matters, they’ve got eight candidates fighting over who’s the most progressive while the actual voters — the ones paying $6 for a gallon of milk and stepping over needles on the sidewalk — are looking at the Republican column for the first time in a generation.
The Democratic response has been, predictably, to panic in the most Democratic way possible. Instead of picking a candidate and rallying, they’re finger-pointing over debate eligibility rules, arguing about identity politics, and accusing each other of not being woke enough. One analysis called it “a deep study of Democratic dysfunction.” That’s not a conservative blog — that’s the actual political press watching this trainwreck unfold.
And here’s the beautiful irony that makes this whole thing sing: the jungle primary was THEIR idea. They championed it. They celebrated it. They told us it would create “more representative democracy” and “reduce partisanship.” What it actually did was create a system where the party that controls everything can lose everything if it can’t get out of its own way. Which, as it turns out, it can’t.
The June 2 primary is less than two months away. If two Republicans make the top two — and right now, polling says that’s a real possibility — then California Democrats won’t even have a candidate on the November ballot for governor. Not in a swing state. In CALIFORNIA. The state that gave us Pelosi, Newsom, Kamala Harris, and the nation’s highest taxes.
We’ve spent years watching California Democrats lecture the rest of the country about how to run things. How to handle homelessness (let it explode). How to handle crime (decriminalize it). How to handle energy (ban everything that works). How to handle elections (rig the primary system). And now their own rigged system might be the thing that finally, mercifully, ends the streak.
I’m not saying a Republican will definitely be California’s next governor. But I am saying that the fact we’re even having this conversation — in April, in California, with Democrats in a full-blown identity crisis — is the most satisfying political development of 2026 so far. And we’re only in April.
Pass the popcorn.
