My book, Build or Die: How America Suffocates Its Cities and What to Do About It, will be published by Princeton University Press on December 8, 2026. Preorder the book now from Bookshop.org.
This is just a quick one because I’m neck deep in final edits for Build or Die. But I did want to post a few reflections on the sorry state of California’s gubernatorial race.
That race took an especially sordid turn late last week when the San Francisco Chronicle reported credible allegations that Eric Swalwell, the Democratic frontrunner, had sexually assaulted at least one staffer in his congressional office. (Swalwell resigned over the weekend.) But even before the evidence against him came to light, the Democratic field was in a sorry state. On the merits, all the candidates hovered somewhere in a narrow band between “absolutely not” and “okay, fine, I guess?”. The failure of any one of them to break ahead of the pack—along with the failure of the California Democrats’ half-hearted attempts to persuade some of the no-hope contenders to drop out—raised the odds that the two main Republicans in the race could grab the top slots in the jungle primary, locking Democrats out of the November runoff and forcing the voters of a deep blue state to choose between a MAGA candidate and an even more MAGA candidate. Only Trump’s inexplicable decision to endorse one of the Republicans and thereby anoint a clear frontrunner on the GOP side may have saved Democrats from a lockout.
All of which makes one wonder how Democrats ended up in such an embarassing (or, as of last week, far worse than embarassing) position. California is a big state with no shortage of talented, ambitious Democrats. So why does the party’s gubernatorial bench look so dire?
One reason is that we currently find ourselves in a very Californian version of the Year of the Four Emperors that followed the collapse of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. The Julio-Claudians had ruled Rome since the establishment of the empire under Augustus circa 27 BCE; in 68 CE, the dynasty came to an ignominious end with the assassination of Nero, leaving no obvious successor. Over the course of 69, various claimants marshalled their armies and jockeyed for the throne, but no one was able to consolidate power until Vespasian finally restored some semblance of order near the end of the year.
No one has been assassinated, but California similarly finds itself foundering in the aftermath of a dynasty’s extinction. For the state’s entire post-war history, every single Democratic governor has been either a member of the Brown family or someone connected to the Browns: Pat Brown from 1959 to 1967, Jerry Brown from 1975 to 1983, Gray Davis (Jerry’s former chief of staff) from 1999 to 2003, Jerry again from 2011 to 2019, and finally Gavin Newsom (Jerry’s lieutenant governor) from 2019 to the present day.
Of the four, Newsom had the weakest dynastic claim; lieutenant governors and governors do not run on the same ticket, and by all accounts Jerry did not think much of his heir apparent. But Newsom was closely connected to another Brown: Willie Brown (no relation), the former Assembly Speaker, San Francisco Mayor, and foremost practitioner of machine politics in the California’s modern history. It was Willie who helped mold the early political careers of both Newsom and Kamala Harris.
So Newsom is a sort of transitional figure, poised between the end of the Pat/Jerry Brown dynasty and whatever comes next. But he has shown little interest in succession planning, much less California politics in general. Kamala Harris would have been the obvious choice for a successor, but she opted not to run, probably because she wants to take a third crack at running for president in 2028. Attorney General Rob Bonta, another strong contender, also opted out of running; after it became clear that he was staying out of the race, some California Democrats made a hail mary attempt to draft Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, but she also demurred.
In an organized party system, Democratic elites might have been able to coordinate internally and put forth a consensus pick to replace Newsom; at the very least, each distinct party faction could have put forth their own candidate. (To my great frustration, the demurral of both Bonta and Wicks means there is no clear YIMBY favorite in the race, even though most of the candidates are making pro-housing noises.) But American political parties are anemic, and they’re especially anemic in California, thanks in part to institutions like the jungle primary. To borrow a term from the political scientist Julia Azari, the Golden State is a land of strong partisanship and weak parties; most voters and elected officials are Democrats, but the California Democrats have few mechanisms for enforcing anything resembling party discipline. No one is in charge.
A lot of readers will probably regard that as a good thing; isn’t it better to let the people decide, rather than party elites? But it’s difficult for voters to reach any sort of satisfying decision when they are presented with choices that are so underwhelming and indistinct. And that’s not even the worst case scenario when it comes to a weak party system; the worst case scenario is that an authoritarian demagogue like Trump pulls off a successful coup within one of the major parties.
That isn’t likely to happen in California, but the state may have just gotten alarmingly close to electing a serial abuser as governor. To be fair, Swalwell was the choice of many party elites as well: he snagged early endorsements from Senators Adam Schiff and Ruben Gallego, along with almost 20 other House members. He also rose to prominence in the House thanks in part to the stewardship of Nancy Pelosi.
All of which raises another question: what did all of these Democratic leaders know, and when did they know it? Since the news about Swalwell broke, a number of congressional staffers and journalists have suggested that his alleged misconduct was an open secret in Washington. His top supporters should be made to publicly explain whether they knowingly endorsed someone they knew might be a rapist to govern the largest state in the country.