With Harris Out, X Factor Looms in ’26 CA Governor’s Race

 With Kamala Harris opting out of the 2026 race for governor of California, attention now turns to the remaining announced Democratic candidates in the field in this overwhelmingly Democratic state.

There are six significant and arguably viable Democrats running, including Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis; Tony Thurmond, the incumbent state superintendent of public instruction; former secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra (also a former attorney general of California and member of Congress); former member of Congress Katie Porter; Toni Atkins, a former president pro tem of the state Senate and former speaker of the Assembly; former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (also a former Assembly speaker); and Betty Yee, current vice chair of the California Democratic Party and a two-term state controller.

There are also two or three other unproven Democrats who have announced, none of whom have ever held public office. And there might be other Democrats who jump in, too, spying an opportunity now that Harris is out.

For the time being, there will likely be no obvious frontrunner among the current field, with all currently polling in the single digits, and none of them comes with significant statewide name identification or political base. In a recent poll conducted by the University of California Irvine, released in early July, every one of the Democratic candidates other than Harris were in single digits – and the leader after Harris, with only 9%, was someone who isn’t even a candidate at the moment: Los Angeles businessman Rick Caruso, who ran for mayor there in 2022.

Kounalakis, despite being the incumbent lieutenant governor and having been elected to the office twice, came in at a measly 2%. Porter, who ran for the U.S. Senate in last year’s statewide primary election, showed up at just 6%. Sitting Superintendent of Public Instruction Thurmond, also a state officeholder in his second term, didn’t even register.

But there is a big X factor hanging out there for all of the candidates not named Eleni Kounalakis: the prospect of her super-rich father, Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, starting to throw millions of dollars into a putative independent expenditure to buy her name ID and try to move her into position as a leader in the polls. Word on the street for quite some time – spread by Kounalakis’ supporters themselves, apparently to make the rest of the field think twice – is that Tsakopoulos has parked $50 million he is willing to spend to try to buy her the governorship.

And lest anyone write this off as an idle threat, let’s not forget that he outright bought Kounalakis her current job in 2018. He poured more money into a so-called independent expenditure on her behalf than was raised and spent in total by her Democratic run-off opponent in the race for lieutenant governor, Sen. Ed Hernandez, who was 10 times more qualified than she was.

The Fair Political Practices Commission, the state’s political campaign-spending watchdog and regulator, has made crystal clear that any attempt by an immediate family member to fund a putative independent expenditure is presumed to be “at the behest of,” and coordinated with, the candidate it’s intended to benefit – and thus a violation of the California Political Reform Act.

And, come on, one’s own father would be one of the most immediate family members. It defies reason and common sense that a candidate’s own parent, who lives in the same city, who’s the grandparent of her kids, whose company she ran for years, and which is still paying her, could conduct a truly independent expenditure without any communication or coordination with his own daughter – which is the determinant of whether an expenditure is actually independent of the candidate.

They got away with it in 2018 because Kounalakis’ Democratic run-off opponent declined to file a complaint or raise hell about it, which he was fervently urged to do by those of us who understand the law and knew it didn’t pass the smell test as a truly independent expenditure.

And lest we Democrats forget, Kounalakis and her father already stuck us with one terrible nominee for governor, their business crony Phil Angelides in 2006. He was on the ropes in the Democratic primary, out of money and off the air, way behind a far better candidate. Then the two of them came in overnight with a $10 million so-called independent expenditure that saved Angelides, got him back on TV, and won him the nomination. After running an atrocious campaign, he got creamed that November by 17 points, in an otherwise great year for Democrats, in which they took back both the U.S. Senate and House, and won a majority of governorships.

Democrats should expect and demand that the remaining candidates for governor fight it out fairly and squarely, making their best case to the voters, using their fundraising success as one measure of their appeal to the Democratic electorate, and ultimately to the state of California.

The governorship of the largest state, with more people than the continent of Australia, and an economy that is the fourth largest in the world, should not be determined by a filthy rich sugar daddy – quite literally – putting his moneyed thumb on the scale.

Garry South is a veteran Democratic strategist who has run four campaigns for governor of California, including both of Gray Davis’ winning races, Steve Westly’s primary campaign in 2006, and Gavin Newsom’s first race for governor in 2008-09, before he withdrew from the race. 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/08/01/with_harris_out_x_factor_looms_in_26_ca_governors_race_153124.html