In governor’s race, a battle of opposites for No. 2 slot
The two candidates fighting it out in the polls to be the second and final contender to advance to the general election in the governor’s race couldn’t be more different politically. But they do have one thing in common: They seem a bit insulted when asked to describe how they diverge.
“Oh, come on,” Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa said during an interview with The Chronicle’s editorial board Monday when he was asked to outline his differences with Republican John Cox.
“Villaraigosa and I? How much time do we have?” Cox said less than 90 minutes later when sitting in the same chair before the board.
Cox, a millionaire businessman from Rancho Santa Fe (San Diego County), has never held public office, even
though he’s run four times previously, mostly in his native Illinois. Villaraigosa has not only led the nation’s secondlargest city as mayor of Los Angeles, but also served as speaker of the state Assembly.
They were virtually tied in the latest survey by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California: Cox had 15 percent and Villaraigosa 13 percent. Both trailed Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who was backed by 26 percent of the likely voters surveyed.
Twenty-four percent of both Democrats and Republicans in the poll said they hadn’t made up their minds. But don’t expect Villaraigosa and Cox to be battling over the same undecided voters.
“No, not at all,” said Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data, which provides voter information to campaigns and pollsters in both parties. “They are both fighting for voters in silos. One is looking for them in the Republican silo, one is looking for voters in the Democratic silo.”
The challenge for Villaraigosa is that he is battling two other major Democratic candidates — former state schools chief Delaine Eastin and state Treasurer John Chiang — as well as Newsom for those undecided Democrats. Cox is fighting only one other Republican candidate — state Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach (Orange County) — for the uncommitted GOP voters.
On policy issues, Villaraigosa and Cox differ across the board, nowhere more sharply than on immigration.
Villaraigosa, whose father immigrated from Mexico, believes in a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and supports California’s sanctuary state law. Cox does not back either. He supports President Trump’s desire to build a wall on the U.S.Mexico border; Villaraigosa does not.
Sanctuary state policy “sends the wrong message,” Cox said. “We’ve got to have our public officials and our law enforcement working together. That doesn’t mean I want Gestapo going into everybody’s home and yanking illegal aliens out of their houses. I don’t want that. I don’t think any Republican worth his salt wants that.”
But Cox said he didn’t know what he’d do with the estimated 11 million people who are in this country illegally.
“I’m going to let the parties in Washington thrash that out. I’m going to lend my voice at the right moment,” Cox said. “I want a situation that people can live with. I’ll be governor of a state where a whole lot of people have cut in line, and I don’t believe in making them citizens.”
Cox lumped Villaraigosa in with Newsom and others who are career politicians looking to move up the ladder. Villaraigosa shouldn’t move up, he said, given what he left behind in Los Angeles.
“The streets are a mess. The homeless situation is worse. He’s running for governor to get a promotion — and look at that city,” Cox said.
Villaraigosa said Cox isn’t the non-politician that he presents himself to be.
“He’s always talking about the politicians, the politicians and the politicians, and (yet) I think he’s run a half dozen times in two different states and lost every time,” Villaraigosa said. “He’s a decent guy. I don’t think he’s as right-wing as he talks. I just think he’s trying to compete with Travis, who is from another planet.”