Grading the California governor’s debate, from best to worst

The California gubernatorial race is drawing national attention — and local voters are finally tuning in.

Democrats are looking for a new frontrunner after Eric Swalwell’s implosion — and they are desperate to avoid an all-Republican general election if the two GOP candidates stay on top.

Wednesday night’s debate was entertaining — but it won’t change much about the race. Both Republicans looked solid, while the four Democrats failed to stand out.

That is a major problem for Democrats.

Under California’s “top two” or “jungle” primary system, all of the candidates compete in a common primary, which will be held this year on June 2.

The first- and second-place finishers go on to the Nov. 3 general election, regardless of party.

Roughly 40% of the state, at most, votes Republican. The other 60% votes Democrat. (About one in four voters is registered as “No Party Preference,” but few actually vote for independent candidates.)

The two major Republican candidates are running neck-and-neck, and can expect to split their voters fairly evenly. So each has a chance at winning about 20% of the vote in the primary.

The four Democrats onstage, however, are also running close to one another. If they split their vote four ways, each would win only 15%.

And there are more Democrats still in the running, meaning their party’s vote could be split even further.

Unless one Democrat surges, or — ironically — one Republican surges, leaving the other in single digits, there is a chance that both Republicans could qualify for the general election.

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters

Democrats could be shut out of the governor’s race in November, unless they change the dynamic. They failed to do that at the debate.

Here are the grades for all the candidates:

Chad Bianco: A- The Riverside County sheriff delivered solid answers and leaned into his law enforcement profile. He did as well as he could in defending his decision earlier this year to seize ballots in Riverside County (“a basic, normal investigation”) due to reports of numerical discrepancies. One error: He looked petty in avoiding saying whether he would endorse his fellow Republican, if only the latter made the general election.

Steve Hilton: B+ Hilton clearly knows his stuff when it comes to policy. He honed in, for example, on the $24 billion that California has spent on homelessness, large portions of which have benefited politically-connected “nonprofits and crony developers” instead of people seeking housing. Hilton went head-to-head, often, with the Democrats, jousting with Katie Porter and Xavier Becerra. His one mistake was that he talked over opponents at times, leading moderators to intervene.

Matt Mahan: B He didn’t say much of interest, but he projected a sense of gravitas as the mayor of San Jose. Aside from Bianco, he was the only current elected official onstage. Mahan’s best answer came when he talked about data-driven steps that his city was taking to lower the cost of housing. “We, in government, were often in the way,” he acknowledged, adding that the city had made progress by speeding up the approval of building permits. He also acknowledged the importance of home ownership in upward mobility.

Katie Porter: C Her answers were well-rehearsed, and it took guts to remind the audience that she had apologized for throwing a tantrum at an employee. She added that she had apologized to her employee at the time, four years ago. (She did not mention walking out of a CBS News interview just last year when she was asked a reasonable question about how she planned to appeal to Trump voters.) But Porter seemed adrift on policy, and she inadvertently reinforced her abrasive image when she scolded Hilton, saying that she would school him if he were a student in her law school class.

Xavier Becerra: C- The former state attorney general helped himself by reminding anti-Trump voters that he had sued Trump — often — and won. But Becerra had the second-worst answer of the night when he gave Gavin Newsom an “A” for effort on homelessness. He came across as out of touch, and also struggled to defend his failure to act against Swalwell when he knew of “rumors” of his former colleague’s sexual misconduct. He said Democratic Party leaders had been powerless to act, given that the victims had not filed charges with police. That cannot be the standard in the workplace.

Tom Steyer: D Steyer was animated — too much so. He seems to think he has to overcompensate for being a billionaire by taking ever-more-radical positions. He surpassed Becerra for the worst answer, on whether he would give more of his wealth to the state: “Me paying more taxes is not the answer.” There were other awkward moments, such as when he tried to attack Bianco for supporting English proficiency tests for truck drivers (the federal standard). Steyer called that “racial profiling,” and tried attacking law enforcement as racist.

Joel Pollak is the opinion editor of the California Post.