California voters opening their ballots for the governor's race face a choice among sixty-one candidates, a field so bloated it includes a man who legally changed his name to Barack Obama, a pest-control worker running as "LivingForGod AndCountry DeMott," and multiple candidates who have already dropped out of the race entirely.
Ballots must be cast, dropped off, or postmarked by June 2. And somewhere in that forest of names, voters are supposed to find the handful of contenders who actually have a chance at running the nation's most populous state.
This is what passes for democratic governance in Sacramento: a system with a filing fee under five thousand dollars, minimal qualification standards, and a randomized ballot order that guarantees confusion. The result is a ballot that looks less like a serious election and more like a phone book.
Only eight candidates are polling above one percent, as KTLA reported. Two are Republicans: Steve Hilton, a conservative commentator, and Chad Bianco, the Riverside County Sheriff. The other six are Democrats: former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer, former Representative Katie Porter, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and State Superintendent Tony Thurmond.
That's eight names out of sixty-one. The remaining fifty-three are, by any honest measure, not competitive.
Some aren't even trying anymore. Former Congressman Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race and resigned after sexual assault allegations came to light. Former State Controller Betty Yee ended her bid and endorsed Tom Steyer. Both still appear on the ballot. A voter who marks either name will have cast a vote for a candidate who no longer wants the job.
California's system does nothing to remove withdrawn candidates or warn voters in a clear, prominent way. The ballot just keeps growing.
The barrier to entry for the California governor's race is remarkably low. A prospective candidate needs to file an intention statement with the secretary of state's office, submit campaign finance paperwork establishing an account for contributions and expenditures, and disclose income tax returns for the past five years. The filing requirements from the secretary of state also call for a fee of $4,918.58, unless the candidate can gather 6,000 petition signatures, in which case the fee is waived.
Beyond that, the candidate must be an American citizen, a registered voter, and free of felony convictions for bribery, embezzlement, extortion, theft of public money, perjury, or conspiracy to commit any of those crimes. The candidate also cannot have served two terms as governor since 1990.
That's it. No threshold of public support. No demonstration of organizational capacity. No minimum fundraising benchmark. No requirement that a candidate have any relevant experience, any policy platform, or any realistic path to governing a state with a $3 trillion economy.
The result is predictable. Sixty-one people qualified. The overwhelming majority are unknown to voters and irrelevant to the outcome.
Among the more colorful entries is Barack D. Obama Shaw, a Democrat whose full name appears on the ballot. He changed his name after being inspired by the first Black president. He is not, to be clear, the former president, but his name on the ballot is a gift to confusion, and California's system did nothing to prevent it.
Then there is LivingForGod AndCountry DeMott, running without a party affiliation. His work experience includes pest control and service as a chaplain. His platform opposes ICE raids and the vehicle miles traveled tax. Whatever one thinks of those positions, the name alone suggests the ballot has become a venue for personal expression rather than serious governance.
Voters disillusioned with both major parties also have options from the Libertarian Party, the Peace and Freedom Party, and the Socialist Workers Party. The field is wide. Whether it is deep is another question.
California doesn't even list candidates in the same order for every voter. The state follows a randomized alphabet procedure that shuffles the order of names depending on assembly district. The candidate who tops one voter's ballot probably isn't the same as someone a few counties away.
In a race with eight or ten candidates, randomization is a reasonable safeguard against the well-documented advantage of being listed first. In a race with sixty-one names, it turns the ballot into a scavenger hunt. Finding a preferred candidate's name, KTLA noted, "isn't easy."
For voters who follow politics closely, this is an annoyance. For casual voters, the ones most likely to be swayed by name recognition or ballot position, it's a recipe for accidental choices, wasted votes, and disengagement.
The lopsided party breakdown tells its own story. Six of the eight frontrunners are Democrats. Only two Republicans, Hilton and Bianco, are polling above one percent in a state where the GOP has been locked out of statewide office for years.
California's top-two primary system means the two highest vote-getters advance to a general election regardless of party. In a field this fragmented, with this many Democrats splitting the vote, the math creates an outside possibility that two Republicans could advance, or, more likely, that the Democratic vote scatters across six credible candidates and dozens of vanity entries, producing an outcome that reflects organizational muscle rather than broad public preference.
Either way, the system rewards name recognition and fundraising over substance. Tom Steyer, the billionaire, picked up Betty Yee's endorsement after she exited. Xavier Becerra carries a Cabinet-level title. Katie Porter built a national profile through congressional hearings. The lesser-known Democrats on the ballot, and the fifty-odd candidates nobody has heard of, are largely along for the ride.
A state that prides itself on progressive governance cannot design a ballot that serves voters well. The filing threshold is so low it invites vanity candidates. The withdrawal process leaves ghost campaigns on the ballot. The randomized ordering, layered on top of sixty-one names, makes the simple act of voting harder than it needs to be.
None of this is accidental. California's political class benefits from confusion. Incumbents and establishment-backed candidates with high name recognition thrive when ballots are cluttered and voter attention is scattered. The people who pay the price are ordinary Californians who show up, open an envelope, and face a wall of names they don't recognize.
The secretary of state's office sets the rules. The legislature could raise the qualification bar. Neither has acted. The result is a governor's race that treats the state's highest executive office like an open-mic night.
Sixty-one candidates for governor of California. A pest-control chaplain, a name-change tribute act, and two people who already quit. If this is how the Golden State picks its leaders, the voters deserve better, and the political establishment has no incentive to give it to them.
