governors

Today we discuss Texas, overreaction and the voluminous field of candidates for California governor.

Is there anyone who is not running for governor?

I’m not. And neither are my two cats. At least they weren’t as of this morning, when we discussed the race before breakfast.

That leaves us somewhat short of the 135 candidates who ran in California’s 2003 recall gubernatorial election. But not by much.

I count nearly a dozen serious candidates, with possibly more to come. Why so many?

Opportunity.

This is the most wide-open race for California governor in decades. By comparison, you’d have to go back to at least 1998, when Lt. Gov. Gray Davis surged past a pair of moneybag candidates, Al Checchi and Rep. Jane Harman, in the Democratic primary, then stomped Republican Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren in November to win the general election.

Now, as then, there is no one who even remotely resembles a prohibitive front-runner.

Polling in the governor’s race has shown former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter and Chad Bianco, Riverside County’s Republican sheriff, narrowly leading the field. But with support for both in the middling 13%-to-21% range, we’re not talking about a pair of world-beaters.

Like nature, political ambition abhors a vacuum.

Speaking of moneybags…

Tom Steyer!

Yes.

After making a bundle as a hedge fund manager, the San Francisco billionaire and environmental activist has been panting after public office for years. Running for president didn’t work out in 2020, even after Steyer spent more than $345 million on his effort. (That’s close to what the Dodgers spent on their 2025 payroll.)

So now Steyer is running for governor, a move he appeared to telegraph by airing nearly $13 million in self-promotional ads that, oh yes, supported passage of Proposition 50, the Democratic gerrymander initiative.

What are his chances?

Longtime readers of this column — both of you! — will know I make no predictions.

But California voters have never looked favorably upon rich candidates trying to make the leap from political civilian to the governorship or U.S. Senate. In fact, over the last 50-plus years, a gilded gallery of the well-to-do have tried and spectacularly failed.

Perhaps Steyer will display the policy chops or the razzle and dazzle they all lacked. But his launch video certainly didn’t shatter any molds. Rather, it presented a stereotypical grab bag of redwood trees, potshots at Sacramento, multicultural images of hard-working-everyday-folk, a promise to fight, a pledge to build more housing and, of course, a dash of profanity because, gosh darn it, nothing says “unbridled authenticity” like a political candidate swearing!

Maybe his fellow billionaire, Rick Caruso, will show more creativity and imagination if he gets into the governor’s race.

At least Democrats have been showing signs of life.

Indeed. Dare I say, the party’s mood swing from near-suicidal to euphoric has been quite something.

Winning gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia — not by a little, but a lot — and prevailing in down-ballot contests in Pennsylvania and Georgia had a remarkably transformative effect. (Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory in sky-blue New York City was no big surprise once the democratic socialist prevailed in the primary.)

Literally overnight, Democrats seized the momentum heading into the 2026 midterm election, while Republicans have begun scrambling to reposition their party and recraft its messaging.

All that being said, even before their buoyant off-year performance those widespread reports of Democrats’ demise were greatly … well, we’ll leave that Mark Twain chestnut alone. As analyst Charlie Cook points out, 2024 was a deeply disappointing year for the party. But it wasn’t a disaster.

Democrats gained two House seats. There was no net change in any of the 11 gubernatorial races and legislative contests across 44 states ended in something close to a wash. The party lost four Senate seats — and control of the chamber — but three of those losses came in the red states of Montana, Ohio and West Virginia.

“This is not to argue that Democrats had a great night in November 2024, but it certainly wasn’t a massacre or a party-wide repudiation,” Cook wrote in a recent posting. “If voters had intended to take it out on the party as a whole, the results would have looked quite different.”

Rather than a wholesale takedown of Democrats, the result seemed very much a rejection of President Biden and, by extension, his hasty replacement on the ballot, Vice President Kamala Harris.

What does that mean going forth?

If you’re asking whether Democrats will win control of the House or Senate…

Yes?!?

…I haven’t a clue.

Democrats need to gain three seats to take control of the House and both history and Trump’s sagging approval ratings — especially as pertains to the economy — augur well for their chances. The president’s party has lost House seats in 20 of the last 22 midterm elections and, according to Inside Elections, the fewest number of seats that flipped was four.

That’s why I thought Proposition 50, which sets out to all but decapitate California Republicans in Congress, was a bad and unnecessary move, effectively disenfranchising millions of non-Democratic voters.

An appeals court last week tossed out a Republican gerrymander in Texas, putting Democrats in an even stronger position, though the legal wrangling is far from over. The Supreme Court temporarily blocked the decision, pending review. And still to come is a high court ruling that could gut the Voting Rights Act and yield Republicans a dozen or more House seats nationwide.

So the fight for control is far from decided.

As for the Senate, Republicans stand a much better chance of keeping control, given how the seats contested in 2026 are located on largely favorable GOP terrain.

But until the votes are counted, nobody knows what will happen. That’s the thing about elections: they help keep wiseacres like me honest.

SACRAMENTO — So far, gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra has escaped the bright spotlight focused on Gov. Gavin Newsom in the money pilfering scandal involving their former top aides. But that could change.

It seems only a matter of time before one of Becerra’s campaign rivals seizes the federal fraud case for attack fodder. I can hear it already: “If the man who wants to be governor can’t protect his own political funds, he shouldn’t be trusted to safeguard your tax money.”

That might not be fair, but this is big-time politics. And the word “fair” isn’t in the political dictionary.

Neither Becerra nor Newsom is implicated in any wrongdoing.

Newsom has drawn heavy media attention because his former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, is the central figure in the criminal case. Newsom also has made himself into a national political celebrity and the leader in early polling for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. That makes him prime news copy.

Becerra is low-profile by comparison, although he has achieved a very successful and respectable career: U.S. Health and Human Services secretary under President Biden, California attorney general and 12-term congressman.

It was Becerra’s dormant state political account that allegedly got pilfered of $225,000 while he was health secretary.

Federal prosecutors allege that Williamson, former Becerra chief of staff Sean McCluskie and Sacramento lobbyist Greg Campbell illegally diverted money to McCluskie’s wife, funneling the loot through shell companies for bogus consulting services.

McCluskie and Campbell both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and have been cooperating with the federal government.

Williamson, who allegedly fleeced Becerra’s political kitty when she owned a government relations firm before joining Newsom’s staff, pleaded not guilty to bank and tax fraud charges. Besides raiding Becerra’s account, she’s accused of falsifying documents involving a COVID small-business loan and claiming $1 million in personal luxuries as business expenses on her income taxes.

After news of the case broke last week with Williamson’s arrest, Newsom’s office said the governor suspended her last November after she informed him of the federal investigation.

There also was a sophomoric attempt by a Newsom spokesperson to link the federal case to the combative relationship between President Trump and the California governor. It’s true Trump has been targeting his “enemies.” But this three-year FBI probe began under the Biden administration.

Becerra issued a statement saying that the “formal accusations of impropriety by a long-serving trusted advisor are a gut punch.” He also said he had been cooperating with the U.S. Justice Department‘s investigation.

The federal indictment alleges that McCluskie and Williamson misled Becerra about how monthly withdrawals from his political account were to be used.

The account stash of nearly $2 million was raised for a 2022 attorney general reelection campaign that never occurred because by then Becerra was health secretary. But the money could be used in some future state race, such as for governor.

Political operatives I talked with were stunned that $225,000 could be siphoned out of a politician’s campaign account without him noticing.

“Did the account have no one watching it except the consultants who were pilfering from it?” asked veteran Democratic consultant Garry South. “Those of us who have run campaigns are scratching our heads. I can’t imagine how this would happen.”

I asked the Becerra campaign.

A spokesperson replied that the health secretary had authorized payments for “campaign management” after being misled by trusted advisors.

Also, the spokesperson added, Becerra was counseled by a Health and Human Services attorney to distance himself from any “campaign or political activity” prohibited by the federal Hatch Act and ethics rules. So he delegated responsibility for managing the account to advisors.

And he got snookered and ripped off.

Will it tarnish Becerra’s image and hurt his campaign for governor? We don’t know yet. But probably not that much, if any. His only sin, after all, was trusting the wrong people and following an attorney’s advice.

Even big scandals don’t seem to damage politicians in this era — Trump being the unfathomable best example.

It could crimp Becerra’s fundraising if potential donors wonder where their money is actually going and whether anyone credible will be watching it.

The gubernatorial race is still wide open without a real front-runner. No candidate is captivating the voters.

A late October poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies showed paltry numbers for all candidates. Former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter led Democrats with 11% support among registered voters. Becerra was second with 8%. A whopping 44% of those surveyed were undecided.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Blanco, a Republican, was first overall with 13%. But no Republican need apply for this job. California hasn’t elected a GOP candidate to a statewide office since 2006.

Becerra has as good a shot at winning as any current candidate. He was the leading Democrat among Latinos at 12%.

But he’ll need a better answer for why he may have allowed $225,000 in donated political contributions to be grabbed and illegally spent by people he trusted.

If you agree with filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu that Tom Cruise “doesn’t just make movies — he is movies,” then the Oscar that Cruise received at the motion picture academy’s annual Governors Awards wasn’t just long overdue. It was a restoration of balance, a necessary correction, not to mention a nod to the sheer weight of Cruise’s body of work in the collective imagination.

When multi-hyphenate Debbie Allen, herself an honoree, worked in a reference to the “tighty-whities” Cruise wore sliding across the floor in “Risky Business” into her own acceptance speech, you could understand why he received the night’s longest ovation. He really is movies. In one way or another, he completes us.

Cruise, 63, was still shaking hands and posing for pictures long after the ceremony ended Sunday night. He may in fact still be in the Ray Dolby Ballroom, listening to people tell him giddy and sometimes teary stories of when they first saw him in a movie. After Iñárritu introduced him, Cruise delivered a gracious, cinema-booster speech, at one point asking everyone in the room who had worked with him to stand.

“I carry you with me, each of you, and you are part of every frame of every film I have ever made or ever will make,” Cruise said. And yes, he was in alignment with Iñárritu. “Making films is not what I do. It’s who I am.”

Trailblazer Wynn Thomas, widely recognized as the first Black production designer in film, and Dolly Parton also received Oscars at the Governors Awards ceremony. These honorary Oscars, once part of the televised Academy Awards, were spun off into their own event in 2009.

Parton, 79, was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Health issues, which led to a postponement of her December Las Vegas residency, prevented Parton from attending in person. But she thanked the academy by video, saying, “We didn’t have too much to share, but my mama and daddy showed me that the more you give, the more blessings come your way. And I have been blessed more than I ever dreamed possible, like with this award tonight.”

Lily Tomlin, Parton’s “9 to 5” co-star, gave a delightful, digressive introduction. Capping the presentation, Andra Day sang a spine-tingling cover of Parton’s classic “Jolene.”

The Governors Awards are not televised and, as Will Arnett, introducing the evening, noted, “There are no commercial breaks. The orchestra is not waiting to play anybody off. There is nothing stopping us from doing this until the sun comes up.” The relaxed nature of the show gives honorees room to roam with their speeches and also offers current Oscar contenders a chance to schmooze with voters.

In one corner of the ballroom, you might find filmmakers Richard Linklater, Noah Baumbach and Joachim Trier engaged in a debate over who is better, Jean-Luc Godard or Francois Truffaut, a French New Wave throwdown inspired by Linklater’s sly homage “Nouvelle Vague.” Across the room, Sydney Sweeney, meeting Cruise for the first time, compared notes on broken bones. Outside, Iñárritu told director Ryan Coogler (“Sinners”) about his upcoming movie, starring Cruise. (“It sounds crazy,” Coogler said.)

Cruise was on everyone’s mind, except perhaps Spanish filmmaker Oliver Laxe, director of the superb thriller “Sirāt,” who did not know the actor was receiving an honorary Oscar. People offered me their favorite Cruise movies. Director Eva Victor (“Sorry, Baby”) went with “Edge of Tomorrow.” Shih-Ching Tsou (“Left-Handed Girl”) chose “Top Gun.” (“I fell in love,” she says.) And Coogler went with a wild card, picking the compulsively rewatchable 1988 comedy “Cocktail.”

“It was my parents’ favorite movie, so I saw it all the time,” Coogler says. “I know it’s nonsensical.”

Ethan Hawke, who made “The Last Movie Stars,” a six-part documentary on Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, recalled how Newman didn’t want his honorary Oscar in 1986. He hoped to win one outright. A year later, he took the lead actor trophy for “The Color of Money,” which, yes, co-starred Cruise.

“Cruise should have won for ‘Magnolia,’ one of the best performances of my lifetime,” Hawke told me. “My suspicion is that this will be the first of many Oscars for Tom Cruise. He’ll get this honorary one and then four more in the next 20 years.”

Thomas, it could be argued, should have won a competitive Oscar years ago for any number of movies, including his striking work creating the single block setting in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood for Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.” Relating his journey to becoming a visual storyteller, Thomas recalled growing up in “one of the worst slums of Philadelphia,” sitting on his front stoop reading Shakespeare, James Baldwin and Tennessee Williams, immersed and transported.

“The local gangs looked down on me and called me sissy,” Thomas said. “But that sissy grew up to work with some great filmmakers.”

Presenting Allen with her Oscar, “Wicked’s” Cynthia Erivo said “to know Miss Debbie is to know that she refuses to let dreams fade and has a determination to make them happen.”

“I myself am fortunate enough to consider her my auntie,” Erivo added.

Allen’s five-decade career includes choreographing the Oscars seven times, as well as films including “Forget Paris” and “A Jazzman’s Blues.” Her producing credits include Steven Spielberg’s 1997 historical drama “Amistad.” She’s probably best known as an actor on the ’80s television series “Fame,” for which she also served as a choreographer. Her nonprofit dance academy is a Los Angeles institution.

Allen namechecked the Dodgers, her husband (the Los Angeles Lakers legend Norm Nixon) and, of course, Oscar.

“It’s like I got married … sorry, Norm,” she said, cradling the statue. “I’m definitely taking him to work with me and keeping him close to remind me, not of what I’ve done, but what I get, need and have to do.”

SACRAMENTO — So far, gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra has escaped the bright spotlight focused on Gov. Gavin Newsom in the money pilfering scandal involving their former top aides. But that could change.

It seems only a matter of time before one of Becerra’s campaign rivals seizes the federal fraud case for attack fodder. I can hear it already: “If the man who wants to be governor can’t protect his own political funds, he shouldn’t be trusted to safeguard your tax money.”

That might not be fair, but this is big-time politics. And the word “fair” isn’t in the political dictionary.

Neither Becerra nor Newsom is implicated in any wrongdoing.

Newsom has drawn heavy media attention because his former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, is the central figure in the criminal case. Newsom also has made himself into a national political celebrity and the leader in early polling for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. That makes him prime news copy.

Becerra is low-profile by comparison, although he has achieved a very successful and respectable career: U.S. Health and Human Services secretary under President Biden, California attorney general and 12-term congressman.

It was Becerra’s dormant state political account that allegedly got pilfered of $225,000 while he was health secretary.

Federal prosecutors allege that Williamson, former Becerra chief of staff Sean McCluskie and Sacramento lobbyist Greg Campbell illegally diverted money to McCluskie’s wife, funneling the loot through shell companies for bogus consulting services.

McCluskie and Campbell both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and have been cooperating with the federal government.

Williamson, who allegedly fleeced Becerra’s political kitty when she owned a government relations firm before joining Newsom’s staff, pleaded not guilty to bank and tax fraud charges. Besides raiding Becerra’s account, she’s accused of falsifying documents involving a COVID small-business loan and claiming $1 million in personal luxuries as business expenses on her income taxes.

After news of the case broke last week with Williamson’s arrest, Newsom’s office said the governor suspended her last November after she informed him of the federal investigation.

There also was a sophomoric attempt by a Newsom spokesperson to link the federal case to the combative relationship between President Trump and the California governor. It’s true Trump has been targeting his “enemies.” But this three-year FBI probe began under the Biden administration.

Becerra issued a statement saying that the “formal accusations of impropriety by a long-serving trusted advisor are a gut punch.” He also said he had been cooperating with the U.S. Justice Department‘s investigation.

The federal indictment alleges that McCluskie and Williamson misled Becerra about how monthly withdrawals from his political account were to be used.

The account stash of nearly $2 million was raised for a 2022 attorney general reelection campaign that never occurred because by then Becerra was health secretary. But the money could be used in some future state race, such as for governor.

Political operatives I talked with were stunned that $225,000 could be siphoned out of a politician’s campaign account without him noticing.

“Did the account have no one watching it except the consultants who were pilfering from it?” asked veteran Democratic consultant Garry South. “Those of us who have run campaigns are scratching our heads. I can’t imagine how this would happen.”

I asked the Becerra campaign.

A spokesperson replied that the health secretary had authorized payments for “campaign management” after being misled by trusted advisors.

Also, the spokesperson added, Becerra was counseled by a Health and Human Services attorney to distance himself from any “campaign or political activity” prohibited by the federal Hatch Act and ethics rules. So he delegated responsibility for managing the account to advisors.

And he got snookered and ripped off.

Will it tarnish Becerra’s image and hurt his campaign for governor? We don’t know yet. But probably not that much, if any. His only sin, after all, was trusting the wrong people and following an attorney’s advice.

Even big scandals don’t seem to damage politicians in this era — Trump being the unfathomable best example.

It could crimp Becerra’s fundraising if potential donors wonder where their money is actually going and whether anyone credible will be watching it.

The gubernatorial race is still wide open without a real front-runner. No candidate is captivating the voters.

A late October poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies showed paltry numbers for all candidates. Former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter led Democrats with 11% support among registered voters. Becerra was second with 8%. A whopping 44% of those surveyed were undecided.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Blanco, a Republican, was first overall with 13%. But no Republican need apply for this job. California hasn’t elected a GOP candidate to a statewide office since 2006.

Becerra has as good a shot at winning as any current candidate. He was the leading Democrat among Latinos at 12%.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Front-runner or flash in the pan? Sizing up Newsom, 2028
CA vs. Trump: At Brazilian climate summit, Newsom positions California as a stand-in for the U.S.
The L.A. Times Special: Indictment of ex-Newsom aide hints at feds’ probe into state’s earlier investigation of video game giant

Until next week,
George Skelton

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