Swalwell’s exit from California governor’s race has Democrats searching for a breakout candidate

California Democrats are left with extremely low poll numbers and an abandoned jar of mashed potatoes.

They’re picking up the pieces of their first-place finish in the California gubernatorial race after Eric Swalwell’s shocking exit following explosive sexual assault allegations.

The remainders aren’t pretty: a flawed group of Democrats with dismal poll numbers or their own series of scandals that created an opening for Republicans to score a rare victory in the two nonpartisan primaries on June 2.

The most promising Democrats in the race now are hedge fund billionaire and environmental activist Tom Steyer, who has struggled to come out of single-digit polls despite spending $100 million on his race, and former Rep. Katie Porter, who went viral in videos berating staff and is accused by her ex-husband of throwing a bowl of boiling mashed potatoes on her head.

“They’re not the Democratic A-team,” said David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University.

There are dozens of other Democratic primary candidates running for governor, all performing even lower than Mr. Steyer and Ms. Porter.

This has caused panic among Democratic Party leaders who fear they will be excluded from the November ballot if none of their candidates place first or second.

Mr. McCuan said internal polls he has analyzed show Democrats performing well enough to ensure at least one of them will appear on the November ballot. But internal polls also show that Republican Steve Hilton, who enjoys the support of President Trump, remains ahead in many surveys. These polls suggest a political opening that the Republican Party has not seen in decades in the race for governor of California, in part because the Democratic field is weak.

A SurveyUSA poll released Tuesday showed Mr. Steyer climbing to 21 percent and Mr. Hilton to 18 percent. The poll was taken just before Mr Swalwell’s fall, although some of the respondents were interviewed after the sexual assault allegations were reported by the media.

The rest of the Democrats, including Rep. Katie Porter, all scored below 10 percent. in the Survey USA poll.

Now that Mr. Swalwell has dropped out of the race following shocking sexual assault allegations, Ms. Porter expects to see a surge in support, according to campaign staff who say internal polls show her as the second choice among 46 percent of Swalwell voters.

She will undoubtedly face more scrutiny regarding her temperament. Several former employees accused her of creating a hostile work environment and berating them with foul language. And she went viral for all the wrong reasons in October after she tried to storm out of a CBS News interview after a reporter asked her how she planned to win over the state’s Trump supporters.

Court documents allege Ms Porter committed domestic violence against her former husband and threw a bowl of hot mashed potatoes at his head in 2006 during an argument over cooking. She denies the potato dumping allegation and says the divorce is controversial. She apologized for outbursts involving staff members, while portraying herself as an unapologetic fighter for working-class California.

“I am (still) the only candidate in this race who is neither a billionaire nor an acceptor of corporate PAC money. Our campaign is supported by tens of thousands of Californians. It is on them that the next governor should focus – not on themselves, not on their donors, not on insiders,” Ms. Porter said Monday, attacking the other Democrats in the race.

Mr. Steyer has already won back some of the support held by Mr. Swalwell and, thanks in part to his generously self-financed campaign, markets on Tuesday were predicting that he will handily beat other Democrats and advance to the November election.

An April poll conducted by Evitarus for the California Democratic Party showed Mr. Steyer with 11 percent support, just one point below Mr. Swalwell. His immense wealth allowed him to saturate the state with election advertising, helping him remain competitive in a crowded primary sector. Mr. Steyer, like other Democrats, aims to make California more affordable, and he has largely abandoned his anti-fossil fuel agenda.

The $100 million he reportedly spent on his race has mostly kept his poll numbers around the high teens or below, and his ultra-wealth from private equity funds that use the same tax loopholes he criticizes could hurt his appeal to voters.

“This state has a long history of not electing its own funders,” said one Democratic consultant. “It’s not a friendly place for people who are just trying to buy an election. People are wary of that.”

Other candidates in the low single-digit range are hoping to emerge from obscurity now that Mr. Swalwell has left the race.

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra failed to break out of the pack, despite being the only candidate in the race to have previously won statewide office. Mr. Becerra, who served as California’s attorney general from 2017 to 2021, had to defend his leadership following a scandal involving his former chief of staff, Deputy Attorney General Sean McCluskie. McCluskie was convicted of conspiring to commit bank and wire fraud and stealing $225,000 from Mr. Becerra’s campaign war chest. Mr. Becerra was not involved in the crime and said he knew nothing about it, but the scandal has raised questions about his competence.

The Survey USA poll showed good news for Mr. Becerra. He started with 4% support, but nearly doubled that, adding another 3% among those surveyed after the charges against Mr. Swalwell were announced.

Democratic San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan is trailing 4 percent in the polls but is preparing to storm the gubernatorial primary with a statewide blitz backed by wealthy donors. His team believes he can gain ground in the next three or four weeks, before the first day of mail-in voting on May 4.

Mr. Mahan is promoting his record as a successful executive leading California’s third-largest city and discussing his plans to make housing and health care more affordable in the state.

Matt Rodriguez, campaign manager for Back to Basics Independent Expenditure, a super PAC supporting Mr. Mahan, said he had the opportunity to jump into the race because, aside from Mr. Steyer, whose poll numbers are not particularly high, there is no clear favorite.

“No one else is able to break through,” he said.