In California governor's race, boring can be beautiful

Mark Z. Barabak, Tribune News Service

California is about to ease into the 2026 race for governor, and if you can pick any of the current candidates from a police lineup, either you work in Sacramento, have an unhealthy obsession with state politics, or both. That’s not to impute criminality on the part of any of those running to succeed the term-limited Gavin Newsom. (Not that a rap sheet is necessarily a detriment these days. Just look at our president-elect.) Rather, those bidding to become California’s 41st governor aren’t exactly a collection of name-in-lights celebrities. If they formed a support group, they could call it Candidates Anonymous.

For the record, those officially running are Toni Atkins, a former Assembly speaker and Senate president pro tem; Stephen Cloobeck, a Southern California philanthropist and businessman; Eleni Kounalakis, the state’s lieutenant governor; Tony Thurmond, California’s superintendent of public instruction; Antonio Villaraigosa, a former Los Angeles mayor; and Betty Yee, a former state controller.

There is talk of others possibly entering the contest. Attorney General Rob Bonta is often mentioned. Former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter has acknowledged eyeing the race. Vice President Kamala Harris, foremost among the possibilities, has done nothing publicly to either stoke or squelch speculation she might hop in after leaving office later this month. But even Harris and Porter, as well known as they are, lack anywhere near the candlepower of the two most famous bold-faced names who were elected California governor, Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Or even remotely disqualifying.

In fact, contrary to California’s glitzy image, Reagan and Schwarzenegger are the odd men out in a long line of drab, largely ho-hum candidates who have been elected to the state’s top office. Think George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Gray Davis, whose public personas might best be rendered in broad strokes of beige, taupe and, yes, gray. Even Jerry Brown seemed staid by the time of his return gubernatorial engagement, 36 years after he first took the oath of office. (There were no African safaris with Linda Ronstadt or quixotic tilts at the White House in his second go-round.)

“There’s a perception that somehow Californians are entranced with movie stars and TV stars, and to some degree that’s true,” said Garry South, a Democratic strategist who twice helped elect Davis governor. “But I don’t think that view really reflects accurately the way California voters feel about politicians.” The state electorate, it turns out, is a whole lot more pragmatic than the autograph-hounding, Hollywood-worshipping stereotype would suggest. Gale Kaufman, another veteran Democratic strategist, has sat through countless focus groups. She said whenever voters are presented the name of someone famous — speculation about this or that celebrity running for governor being a staple of California campaigns — “they immediately take it to the next phase and say, ‘Well, what would they do as governor?’”

Which suggests voters aren’t nearly as titillated by all that sparkle and shine as the political mentioners would like to think. Schwarzenegger, it should be said, was elected in 2003 under extraordinary circumstances, a drastically truncated campaign that lasted only a little over eight weeks. The fleeting time frame gave the movie super-duperstar a unique opportunity to leverage his fame and name recognition to replace Davis — who was recalled by voters on the same day — in a single fell swoop. It’s also worth noting that Schwarzenegger was not entirely a political novice.

His association with the Kennedy clan, through marriage to Maria Shriver, his chairmanship of the Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under President George HW Bush and, especially, his sponsorship the year prior of a successful statewide ballot measure promoting after-school youth programs gave Schwarzenegger a patina of political know-how that helped legitimize his candidacy.

Reagan, who was essentially washed up as an actor by the time he ran for governor, had an even longer and more thorough political resume than Schwarzenegger by the time he launched his 1966 campaign. Even then, Reagan was helped greatly by the restive climate stemming from the Watts riots, widespread campus unrest and voter fatigue shrouding the incumbent, Jerry Brown’s father, Edmund G. “Pat” Brown.

Campaign experience counts a great deal in California, a vast, unruly state with more than 22 million registered voters, notwithstanding the success of those two actor-turned-politicians. Other than Schwarzenegger, every candidate that followed Reagan had successfully run for statewide office at least once before being elected governor.

“It’s easy for people on the outside to think we’re celebrity-focused because of what they see from Hollywood and movies and television,” said Mark Baldassare, who has spent decades surveying voter opinions and now directs surveys for the Public Policy Institute of California. “But the reality is it’s a big state to govern, and it’s hard to win elections unless you’ve been in them before.” No one, least of all your friendly political columnist, has any clue what will happen in 2026.

It wouldn’t be a bit surprising if California voters opted for someone without the Hollywood looks, the flash or conspicuous national ambitions of the current governor — just as the leaden Deukmejian followed the flamboyant Brown, and the buttoned-down Brown succeeded the megawatt Schwarzenegger.