GOP candidates opt out of state’s U.S. Senate race
Republicans have virtually opted out of California’s U.S. Senate race, clearing the way for an all-Democratic contest in November.
While the official list of candidates for the June 5 primary, released late Friday night by Secretary of State Alex Padilla, includes 11 Republicans among the 31 candidates challenging Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, there’s much less there than meets the eye.
None of those GOP hopefuls has reported raising a single dollar for a primary run, according to the Federal Election Commission. Compare that with the $9 million Feinstein had in her campaign account at the end of 2017 or the $359,000 Democrat Kevin de León, a state senator from Los Angeles, reported.
Even Democrat Alison Hartson, an Orange
County progressive and the longest of long shots, is sitting on $164,000 for her primary campaign.
“If there was criminal malfeasance in politics, this is it,” said Tony Quinn, a former Republican consultant and an editor of the nonpartisan California Target Book, which analyzes state races. “There are plenty of Republicans looking to vote for someone with an ‘R’ after their name . ... Someone could have spent $1 million to get on slate cards and then finish second.”
The GOP’s candidate woes don’t end with the Senate race.
In the contest to replace termed-out state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, there’s not a Republican on the ballot, although Steve Poizner, who served in the post for four years as a Republican, is running as an independent.
The state treasurer’s race, which has a job open since Democrat John Chiang opted to run for governor, has Peninsula Republican Greg Conlon and Jack Guerrero, a GOP councilman from Cudahy in Los Angeles County, on the ballot, but neither has reported raising any money for the campaign. By contrast, San Francisco Democrat Fiona Ma, a member of the state Board of Equalization, has $1.6 million in the bank.
While the state superintendent of public instruction is ostensibly a nonpartisan job, it hasn’t worked out that way. Tom Torlakson, the current schools chief, is a former Democratic state legislator, just like his two most recent predecessors. The only candidates who have raised any money for the race, Richmond Assemblyman Tony Thurmond and charter school advocate Marshall Tuck of Novato, are both Democrats.
Two Republicans, retired South Lake Tahoe Judge Steven Bailey and Los Angeles attorney Eric Early, are running for attorney general. But the little-known and underfunded candidates face an uphill battle against a pair of Democrats, appointed Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Jones, the outgoing insurance commissioner, who each have name identification and more than $3.1 million in the bank.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When asked in July why so few bigname Republicans were running for office, GOP party Chairman Jim Brulte argued it was nothing more than a temporary aberration and certainly no reason for Republicans to panic.
“There are candidates. You just don’t see them on the secretary of state’s list yet,” he said in a Chronicle interview. “The fields aren’t firm yet. This is a better conversation in January than it is now.”
January now has passed, along with the March 9 filing deadline, and the Republicans’ candidate situation hasn’t improved much. Democrats hold every statewide office, and GOP leaders would be hard-pressed to point to a 2018 contest where that is likely to change.
“There are a number of good Republican candidates running for U.S. Senate in California,” said Matt Fleming, a party spokesman. But he didn’t say which of those 11 GOP hopefuls he was talking about or suggest that the party plans to help one or more of those candidates with either cash or serious party support.
In California’s top-two primary system, every candidate appears on the same ballot and only the first two finishers, regardless of party, advance to the fall election. That means if Democrats sweep the first two places in the Senate primary, Republicans would find themselves shut out of a top-of-the-ticket race in November, which could be very bad news for the party’s chances elsewhere on the ballot.
Primaries and special elections around the country already have shown a troubling drop in turnout by Republicans, many of them unhappy with President Trump and his policies, said Quinn.
“To keep marginal seats, Republicans need a strong turnout,” he added. If an all-Democrat Senate race keeps disgruntled Republicans at home, “it could be a disaster at the congressional and legislative level.”
Not all the GOP efforts turned out poorly. While Republicans were unable to recruit a well-known, top-tier candidate in the governor’s race, where Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown is termed out of office, the party’s prospects there seem to be improving.
While Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to be the frontrunner, recent polls have shown Republican John Cox, a San Diego-area businessman making his first try for public office in the state, moving into second place and a possible spot on November’s ballot.
In the contest to replace Newsom as lieutenant governor, Republican Cole Harris, a Pasadena businessman, showed just how serious he is when he dropped $1 million of his own money into his campaign earlier this month. Democrats Jeff Bleich, Ed Hernandez and Eleni Kounalakis also have more than $1.1 million each in their campaign accounts.
Republicans also have challengers to Padilla, the secretary of state, and Controller Betty Yee, ensuring that neither of the incumbents will go unchallenged.
In congressional contests, however, Democrats are worried that they have too many challengers. With Democrats both here and in Washington, D.C., looking to flip a number of the state’s 14 GOP-held seats, there’s concern that an unruly gang of candidates might step on each others’ campaigns and make it easier for a Republican to win in November.
In the seven Republicans seats that are at the top of the target list, there are 33 Democrats on the primary ballot, many of them with plenty of money and backing. For party leaders, that hints of a nasty and expensive political June brawl that could hurt the Democrats in the fall.
Party leaders already are working to trim those numbers. Last week, for example, Democrat Laura Oatman dropped out of the race against Orange County Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, although her name will stay on the ballot. She urged other challengers to get behind Democrat Harley Rouda.
If that doesn’t work, in that district and others, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has said it’s willing to put its collective thumb on the scale to back the candidate its members believe has the best chance of winning.
“The DCCC reserves the right to get involved in the Democratic primary” and support one candidate, Drew Godinich, a committee spokesman, said in a January interview. John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth