By Ben Christopher and Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters
For all the talk of a governor’s race between two Republicans, or even two Democrats, it’s looking like voters are in for a typical partisan matchup in November.
In predictably Democratic California, there’s no need for a political science degree or a crystal ball to confidently predict the result of a general election face-off between Xavier Becerra, the current Democratic front-runner, and former Fox News host Steve Hilton, a Republican.
Despite the top-two primary system in which the two highest vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party, likely Democratic cakewalks abound further down the ballot after Tuesday’s election.
So why is it so rare in California, which hasn’t elected a Republican to statewide office since 2006 and where Democratic voters outnumber registered Republicans almost two-to-one, to put two Democrats on the ballot in the general election?
For all its political reputation as the left coast, California is simply not overwhelmingly Democratic enough to regularly advance two Democrats to the general election, said Andrew Sinclair, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College who has studied the effects of California’s top two.
With Democratic candidates regularly earning roughly 60% of the statewide vote, the electorate is sufficiently left-leaning to make the outcome of Democrat-versus-Republican general elections fairly predictable. But Democrats don’t make up quite enough of the vote share to push two Democratic candidates through the open primary except in somewhat unusual circumstances, he said.
“After about 60% to 65% Democratic vote share, it starts to get much more likely to get D-on-D races,” he said. In recent statewide races, the percentage of votes cast for the Democratic candidate has hovered around 60%, “right in the electoral dead zone,” said Sinclair.
The promise of top two
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
California’s unusual “top two” election system puts every candidate on the same primary ballot; the first and second place winners progress to the general election. The idea, approved by voters in 2010, was advertised as an engine of both political moderation and more meaningful choice. Both the Democratic and Republican parties were opposed.
Proponents argued that pulling candidates out of a purely partisan primary system would encourage them to appeal to voters across the ideological spectrum, rather than just the party base.
The new voting scheme would “change the dysfunctional political system and get rid of the paralysis and the partisan bickering” in California politics, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the proposition, said at the time.
In districts where one party dominates the field, allowing multiple candidates from that same party to compete was meant to make general elections competitive.
But if current election results hold — and with so many ballots still left to count, they may not — Californians don’t appear likely to see many competitive statewide races in November.
In Tuesday’s races for lieutenant governor, attorney general, controller and treasurer, a series of high-profile, well-financed Democrats are competing against Republicans who range from long- to longer-shot. In congressional contests in West Los Angeles and Napa Valley, where upstart progressives challenged moderate incumbents, the upstarts appear to have been boxed out, leaving the two veteran Democratic representatives, Mike Thompson and Brad Sherman, to face ill-fated Republicans.
A notable exception is the insurance commissioner’s race, in which two Democrats — Jane Kim and Ben Allen — hold the two top spots. The 2018 lieutenant governor’s race was also a Dem-on-Dem contest. It’s happened a few times in U.S. Senate races. But in most cases, a reversion to the polarized partisan norm is the rule.
That’s in part thanks to the primary electorate itself.
Fewer voters tend to turn out in June elections, and those who do tend to be committed partisans prepared to vote for one party or another. Though the top-two system is officially nonpartisan, Democratic voters treat it like a partisan primary, herding around the person they consider the strongest representative of their party, with Republicans doing the same, said Eric McGhee, a political researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California.
There may be a handful of “pure independents in the middle” who will swing between parties, moderating the outcome and potentially crossing party lines to put a centrist over the top.
But such voters are rare — especially in June.
Case in point: Matt Mahan, the moderate Democratic mayor of San Jose who ran for governor criticizing “extremism on both sides.” With his focus on pocketbook issues and promises to limit his own party’s state spending, Mahan was the “poster child” for a top-two system designed for “all those so-called people who are going to come to the middle,” said Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio.
“He got 4%,” said Maviglio, a top-two critic who voted for Mahan. “Voters are partisan, at the end of the day.”
Does the system create more moderates?
Californians are much more likely to see same-party general election contests in local races, where an individual district is more likely than the state as a whole to be overwhelmingly dominated by one party.
In congressional races in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento and across Los Angeles and in legislative races in liberal enclaves across California, two Democrats are on track to head to November.
USC political science professor Christian Grose said over the last decade, about a third of legislative general election races have been between two members of the same party.
Removing the choice between parties from the general election can have benefits like allowing voters to choose based on true policy differences or perceptions of competence rather than simply siding with a party, he said. But it can also invite voters to make choices based on “things not related to governance,” like gender or race.
In a 2020 paper, Grose found that congressional candidates in top-two states have an incentive to tack toward the center, suggesting the top-two system works as intended whether or not the candidates end up competing in a same-party general election.
And in a newly created purple district that runs northeast of Sacramento, former Republican turned independent Rep. Kevin Kiley appears to have claimed first place in his race. Running without official party backing may be easier under a nonpartisan primary system.
Shutouts and cynical games
There are obvious downsides.
Tom Charron, co-founder of the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition, says the top-two primary system is vulnerable to “cynical gaming” in which one candidate boosts the candidate they consider easier to beat in the general election.
Newsom did that in 2018 by tacitly steering Republican voters toward Republican John Cox, whom he viewed as a weaker opponent than fellow Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa.
Likewise, in the 2024 primary, a super PAC backing Democratic U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff put millions of dollars behind Republican candidate Steve Garvey, undercutting Democratic former Rep. Katie Porter’s chances.
Another possible problem popped up early in the life of the reform. In 2012, the first cycle after voters approved the top two, four Democrats crowded into a race to represent San Bernardino in Congress. Two Republicans did the same. The Democrats ended up slicing up the left-of-center vote so thinly that the Republicans won the top two spots, despite Democrats holding a modest voter registration edge.
A more egregious example took place 10 years later when too many Republican candidates vying to represent a deeply conservative state Senate district east of Fresno divided the GOP vote, leaving Democrats in the top two.
That perverse outcome was top of mind for many Democratic voters earlier this year when a glut of Democrats running for governor threatened to leave the top two spots to Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Bianco.
‘In some sense, the Democratic Party did everything they possibly could to make (a shutout) happen.’
Andrew Sinclair, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College
With Becerra and fellow Democrat Tom Steyer well ahead of Bianco in the vote count, the shutout didn’t happen, showing how unlikely it was, said Claremont McKenna’s Sinclair.
“In some sense, the Democratic Party did everything they possibly could to make (a shutout) happen,” Sinclair said. He pointed to a “low-quality field of candidates” likely to divide the vote evenly, the abrupt exit of front-runner Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell and the failure of the party or any of its California luminaries to endorse anyone.
If nothing else, the fear among highly engaged Democratic voters may have led a decisive number to vote strategically to avoid a shutout, Sinclair said.
Changes on the way?
Even though it was eventually averted, the prospect of a Republican governor in California in 2026 has led some to reconsider the top two.
Maviglio has filed a proposed ballot measure to repeal the top-two system and return to partisan primaries.
“The fact that there are any (same-party general elections) is simply undemocratic,” Maviglio said. “People have the choice between only one party, like they’re in the Soviet Union?”
In theory, Democrat-on-Democrat races are supposed to give voters a choice between distinct ideological options within the same party — a business-backed moderate, say, and a Bernie-boosting progressive.
In practice, voters are quite bad at making such distinctions, said McGhee at PPIC.
“The evidence we have of how voters view these contests is that they don’t have a clue who the moderate or the liberal is,” he said. “It’s always a good bet that voters are way way way less tapped into the nuances of what’s going on than you are if you’re interested in politics.”
Others are pushing for a third option — ranked-choice voting.
Charron, with the Ranked Choice Voting Coalition, said his group is advocating for California to move toward an Alaska-style voting system in which the top four or five primary finishers advance to a ranked-choice general election.
Ranked choice allows voters to rank their candidates by preference. If a voter’s top choice doesn’t receive enough votes to win, their vote goes to their second preference, then third, and so on. Several California cities already use it for mayoral contests, including Oakland and San Francisco.
Charron said the system encourages a more diverse field of candidates and gives voters more choice, since few would worry about being a “spoiler” for a fellow party member.
In May, the nonpartisan nonprofit Independent Voter Project helped launch a group aimed at bringing ranked choice to California via a constitutional amendment that could go before voters in 2028.
“It’s very exciting for us right now that these conversations are coming up because of some of the risks that we’ve seen in this primary season, in particular,” said Charron.
Kate Wolffe contributed reporting for this story.
Ranked choice voting solves so many problems. That’s why we can’t have it. If we did, we’d probably have a winner during the primary and just be done with it. How much would that save taxpayers? How much would that cost advertising platforms? How much of our sanity would be saved by not having to be bombarded with lying commercials and mailbox flyers that end up immediately in the recycle bin? It would be a win-win-win. We would be winning so much!
This quote from the article is exactly the same level of arrogance that got Trump elected the first time.
“In predictably Democratic California, there’s no need for a political science degree or a crystal ball to confidently predict the result of a general election face-off between Xavier Becerra, the current Democratic front-runner, and former Fox News host Steve Hilton”
You voted for Trump in 2016. Stop gaslighting and pretending you didn’t.
That’s not arrogance. It’s a celebratory announcement that California voters (mostly) are sane.
This revisionism is pushed by the Democratic Party. They were pushing the top two at the time, as was the GOP. The purpose was to eliminate third party voices. Remember the Dems were still smarting over Gore’s loss and wanted to blame it on someone else so they tried to point to Nader and the Green Party. By pushing the top two scenario Green Party and other “Third Party” voices were cut off at the primary, theoretically becoming impotent in the general election. Now the Democrats are looking to change to another system that would still advantage them. We need to remember that “primary” elections are nominating elections that the parties created to select their candidates in lieu of conventions or back room deals. The parties should not be controlled by state law as to how they get a representative to run under their banner. This would dramatically increase interest in the final elections. As it is now only the borrowing and generally corrupt two parties get to show up on that ballot. Go back to nominations by parties with each party able to put a candidate on the final ballot and let the people decide.
I think the the last line should read “boring” not “borrowing.” But who knows for sure.
Gore didn’t actually lose. Boy it would’ve been nice if the Dems had the cojones they needed. But then again the illegitimate SCOTUS (yes even then) had something to do with fixing that one.
“the illegitimate SCOTUS (yes even then)”
They’re the same people. From Gemini:
Four current U.S. Supreme Court justices have direct ties to Bush v. Gore (2000), either because they worked on George W. Bush’s legal team during the Florida recount dispute or because they directly participated in the historic 5–4 judicial ruling. [1, 2]
The connections of the current members of the high court break down into two distinct groups:
## Members of the Bush v. Gore Legal Team
Three conservative justices were young, up-and-coming lawyers in November 2000 who flew to Florida to build the legal strategy that successfully halted the recount. [3, 4]
* Chief Justice John Roberts: Working in private practice at the time, Roberts traveled to Tallahassee to advise George W. Bush’s legal team. He helped prepare arguments and offered counsel to the attorney who presented Bush’s case before the Florida Supreme Court. [3, 5]
* Justice Brett Kavanaugh: Kavanaugh was a key strategist on the ground in Volusia County, scrutinizing ballot irregularities and standardless recount processes. He helped draft legal briefs for the Bush campaign and famously appeared on national television outside the Supreme Court to defend their strategy on the eve of the decision. [2, 6]
* Justice Amy Coney Barrett: Early in her legal career, Barrett was an associate at a law firm assisting Bush’s litigation team. During her 2020 Senate confirmation hearings, she confirmed she spent about a week in Florida providing research and briefing assistance at the outset of the ballot dispute. [2]
## Deciding Vote on the Bench
* Justice Clarence Thomas: Thomas is the only current member of the Supreme Court who actually sat on the bench and voted in the case. He joined the 5–4 conservative majority that ruled the recount violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. He also joined Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s concurring opinion, which argued that the Florida Supreme Court had unconstitutionally altered state election laws. [1, 2, 7, 8, 9]
## Institutional Career Connections
The outcome of Bush v. Gore heavily shaped the career paths of the current court. Because George W. Bush ultimately secured the presidency, he gained the power to reshape the federal judiciary. [3, 5, 10, 11]
Following his inauguration, President Bush rewarded his campaign’s legal alumni. He appointed John Roberts to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals before elevating him to Chief Justice in 2005. He also brought Brett Kavanaugh into the White House as an associate counsel and staff secretary, eventually appointing him to the federal appeals court in 2006. Decades later, Donald Trump elevated Kavanaughand Barrett to the nation’s highest court, completing a bench populated heavily by the veterans of the 2000 election battle. [2, 3, 5, 6]
[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore)
[2] [https://gigafact.org](https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/were-three-of-the-sitting-supreme-court-justices-involved-in-the-bush-v-gore-legal-disputes/)
[3] [https://www.cnn.com](https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/17/politics/bush-v-gore-barrett-kavanaugh-roberts-supreme-court)
[4] [https://news.northeastern.edu](https://news.northeastern.edu/2020/11/02/the-ghost-of-bush-v-gore-may-haunt-the-2020-election/)
[5] [https://thegrio.com](https://thegrio.com/2020/10/18/supreme-court-bush-gore-alumni/)
[6] [https://www.washingtonpost.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/amy-coney-barrett-bush-gore/2020/10/10/594641b8-09e3-11eb-991c-be6ead8c4018_story.html)
[7] [https://www.wsws.org](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2000/12/sup-d22.html)
[8] [https://www.cnn.com](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/06/politics/supreme-court-rehnquist-independent-state-legislature-bush-gore)
[9] [https://www.c-span.org](https://www.c-span.org/liveEvent/?bush-v-gore)
[10] [https://www.queensbusinessreview.com](https://www.queensbusinessreview.com/articles/q6wmiyw77tet61b8apcr28lh90qr0j)
[11] [https://www.motherjones.com](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/10/supreme-court-2024-election-donald-trump/)
“Gore didn’t actually lose. Boy it would’ve been nice if the Dems had the cojones they needed.”
Eh? The whole reason for Bush v Gore with its corrupt ruling (https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/none-dare-call-it-treason/), and Roger Stone’s staged Brooks Brothers Riot where he shipped in GOP staffers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot) to intimidate vote counters is because Gore demanded a recount.
The GOP is a thoroughly corrupt enterprise which is heavily funded by its patrons, the corporations and uber rich. Blaming “the Dems” for the ensuing outcomes is a fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamics of American politics–but it’s very much what the GOP and its patrons want. See also Murc’s Law (unfortunately deleted from Wikipedia but discussed at https://www.salon.com/2022/12/02/uh-politico-biden-didnt-make-marjorie-taylor-greene-the-face-of-the-gop-did/).
You left out the rest of my comment in you quote. I fully understand WHY it happened. It is my opinion that they rolled over much too quietly. The fix was in without question. That single election changed the future direction of the US, and even the world. With my tinfoil hat on, I believe it was a conspiracy of epic proportion. The playbook of events that followed were predicated upon that R win.
I addressed both parts of your comment, in separate responses. You, OTOH, have completely ignored my points.
> This revisionism is pushed by the Democratic Party.
This is a blatant lie. The top two thing came from Abel Maldonado, who blackmailed the legislature into accepting it, and it was heavily pushed by Arnold Swartzeneggar.
> they tried to point to Nader and the Green Party.
Absolutely valid complaints. Nader, who took 90,000 votes in Florida, was heavily bankrolled by the GOP.
AI Overview:
That is historically accurate. California’s “top-two” jungle primary system originated from a high-stakes 2009 budget standoff where then-State Senator Abel Maldonado leveraged his decisive vote to force the Legislature to put the reform on the ballot. [1, 2]
The 2009 Budget Deal
• The Leverage: California required a two-thirds legislative majority to pass a budget.
• The Standoff: Facing a massive $41 billion deficit, Democrats desperately needed moderate Republican votes.
• The Ultimatums: Maldonado refused to provide the crucial final vote to raise taxes unless leadership agreed to his package of structural demands.
• The Price: He forced lawmakers to advance a constitutional amendment establishing an open, nonpartisan primary. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Schwarzenegger’s Role
• Strong Backing: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger aggressively championed the open primary concept.
• The Motivation: Schwarzenegger believed standard partisan primaries rewarded political extremists.
• The Goal: He wanted a system to elevate moderate candidates who had to appeal to voters across party lines.
• The Reward: Following the budget compromise, Schwarzenegger appointed Maldonado as Lieutenant Governor in late 2009. [1, 2, 5, 6, 7]
The Outcome
• Voter Approval: The legislature reluctantly placed the measure on the June 2010 ballot as Proposition 14.
• Passage: Voters approved the amendment.
• Implementation: The top-two primary went into full effect statewide in 2012. [8, 9, 10, 11]
AI responses may include mistakes.
[1] https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/world/state-political-drama-bad-sign-for-schwarzenegger/article_039048f3-043a-5739-88d1-1fb4796db47d.html
[2] https://www.kqed.org/news/12083839/what-is-californias-jungle-primary-and-why-does-it-matter-so-much-for-the-governors-race
[3] https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/state-senate-passes-budget-on-to-the-assembly/1885165/
[4] https://ballotpedia.org/Abel_Maldonado
[5] https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-cap7-2009dec07-column.html
[6] https://www.mercurynews.com/2009/11/24/schwarzenegger-chooses-maldonado-for-lieutenant-governor/
[7] https://www.npr.org/sections/politicaljunkie/2009/11/arnold_names_new_lt_gov_but_le.html
[8] https://cafwd.org/news/voters-want-choices-in-every-election-californias-top-two/
[9] https://www.kqed.org/news/123626/abel-maldonado-ends-campaign-for-california-governor
[10] https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_14,_Top-Two_Primaries_Amendment_(June_2010)
[11] https://blackvoicenews.com/2026/06/02/california-top-two-primary/
> generally corrupt two parties
Bothsidesers are despicable people and carry water for the thoroughly corrupt GOP.