California Democrats Will Have To Campaign On Their Record This Fall
The June election is over (but for a lot of counting that won’t change some key outcomes) — and it just made November a lot more interesting for the people who’ve been running CA into the ground…
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Two Races. Two Accountability Moments. Zero Excuses Left.
The June election has delivered two fall matchups that California Democrats were not expecting to have to fight: Steve Hilton against Xavier Becerra for governor, and Spencer Pratt against Karen Bass for mayor of Los Angeles.
Neither race is going to be polite.
For years, Democrats have run California and its largest cities — the Legislature, the agencies, the budgets — and then acted as if the results were somehow beyond their control. That dodge gets a lot harder now.
Becerra is not a fresh start. He is the continuation candidate. The same ideology, the same governing class, and the same excuses — while carrying the full weight of the Newsom era on his back.
In Los Angeles, Pratt has done something that civic groups, editorial boards, and political insiders failed to do for years: force Karen Bass to defend her record. Her first term has been defined by homelessness, public safety failures, bureaucratic paralysis, and the Palisades fire disaster. Bass expected a reelection campaign. She is getting a trial.
Hilton and Pratt face real math. California is blue. Los Angeles is bluer. Democrats have registration, money, unions, and institutional inertia on their side.
But Democrats also have something else.
The record.
And the record is ugly.