California waits for Harris decision in governor’s race

Suspense over whether former Vice President Kamala Harris will jump into California’s 2028 gubernatorial race is effectively freezing the field in her home state as Democrats weigh potential successors for term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).

Harris has shrugged off the chatter and has yet to signal her post-White House plans, but she’s nevertheless topping early polls, and her potential to take the frontrunner slot looms over other candidates.

“The race is on hold until she makes her decision,” California Democratic strategist Steven Maviglio said. “It's been very difficult for the other candidates to raise money, get endorsements … and it’s had an impact on all the other offices in the state, because they're sort of dominoes.”

Fresh off her loss in November's presidential race, Harris faces questions about her next political move.

She has deep ties to the Golden State, having served as San Francisco district attorney and then state attorney general; she is the first woman, first African American and first Asian American in both offices. She went on to represent California in the Senate until she was tapped to join the Biden administration.

“VP Harris has dedicated her career to the American people over the last several decades, and it’s clear she is not done serving,” a former Harris aide told The Hill. “No matter what path she decides moving forward, she will have an army of people ready to support her.”

Harris pushed aside questions about a gubernatorial run in early February as she visited areas impacted by the Palisades Fire, stressing she’d just gotten back from her tenure in Washington and wanted to connect with her community.

But Harris’s experience, national name recognition and major fundraising chops position her well for a statewide campaign.

“She’d be the presumptive favorite,” Maviglio said. “I don’t think there’s anybody that would measure up to her status.”

She also has support across the state.

Christian Grose, a political science professor at the University of Southern California, said Harris is “freezing the field because the other candidates aren't quite as cross-cutting in terms of their geographic support.”

A November poll from the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, found the former vice president with a big polling lead. A February survey from Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics/The Hill also found she “would start as the clear favorite” if she jumped in, according to polling director Spencer Kimball.

Without Harris, “the primary is wide open,” Kimball said in an analysis. 

Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis (D) and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond (D) have been running since 2023. Former State Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, former state Controller Betty Yee and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), who tried for governor against Newsom back in 2018, are also in the Democratic race. 

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco became the first major GOP candidate to launch a bid this month. 

The Harris question isn’t keeping the already-declared candidates from campaigning in earnest. But endorsements and big fundraising dollars are “probably on a holding pattern” right now, Grouse said.

“If you're a major Democrat in the state who's not running for governor, you may not want to jump in and endorse someone right now if you think Harris is going to enter later, because you might want to endorse her, or you may just want to stay on the sideline,” Grouse said. “So I think some of the pretty strong candidates on the Democratic side are having a little bit of trouble getting traction and endorsements until we know who is going to be on the rise.”

Other possible candidates — for the governorship or other offices in the state — may be lying in wait.

Former Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), who left the House to try unsuccessfully for the Senate last year, led a late September poll from a trio of California universities, when Harris was running for the Oval Office. But Porter noted late last year that a Harris run could have “a near field-clearing effect on the Democratic side,” as reported by the Orange County Register.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) in February decided against a run for governor and told Politico he’d support Harris if she ran, saying her candidacy “would be field-clearing.” 

David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University, argued few Democrats would “want to go to battle against the former vice president.”

On the GOP side, President Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell has said he “may not be able to resist” running if Harris gets in.

“If Kamala Harris runs for governor — I believe that she has such baggage and hundreds of millions of dollars in educating the voters of how terrible she is — that it’s a new day in California, and that the Republican actually has a shot,” Grenell said in February. 

Another name being floated is former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, a businessman-turned-politician who was a registered Republican until 2011 and has become a vocal critic of how California handled the wildfire fallout this year.

“There's two potential 800-pound gorillas getting in,” said Matt Rodriguez, a longtime Democratic strategist based in California, of Harris and Caruso.

“I do think the amount of money that [Caruso] would bring to the table would give some people either second thoughts about getting in or just sort of reshape the race, simply because it’s an extraordinarily expensive state, and he’s the one guy who automatically has enough money to run whatever type of campaign he wants,” Rodriguez said.  

California notably has a top-two open primary system, meaning candidates of all parties will appear together on next year’s June primary ballot. That means it’s possible that two Democrats could advance to the general in an intraparty fight, or the race could see a more classic Democrat-on-Republican contest.

The last time a Republican won California’s governorship was 2006, when former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) scored reelection. And although Trump made inroads in California in November, the state has gone blue in the presidential race every cycle since 1992. 

Flipping the governor’s mansion would be a tough mission for the GOP, but the party may nevertheless aim to chip away at Democrats' edge in the race. 

“They sense an opportunity because of the L.A. fires, because of the backlash against [Los Angeles Mayor] Karen Bass, because of the backlash against Gavin Newsom, and the destruction of the fires. This is a political opportunity,” McCuan said of the GOP. 

Some in the Republican Party also may be hoping to bait Harris into the race either to keep her from running for the White House or to pull more attention to the race. 

“Everyone's waiting to see what the [former] vice president does, because she is such a heavyweight of funding, of support,” McCuan said. “The great unknown, the elephant in the room is whether Kamala Harris decides to get into the race.”

Alex Gangitano contributed.