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Notwithstanding the California Republican party’s well-intentioned anointment of Sen. Pete Wilson as its gubernatorial nominee, it is no secret that he continues to have an uncomfortable relationship with the conservative wing that dominates it.

As we move closer toward the general election, conservatives across the state, and particularly in vote-rich Orange County, are now asking the question, “What would a Gov. Wilson offer to conservatives?” Some have already answered that question, and for them, the answer is: not much.

This could spell disaster in November, especially if the slickly packaged former mayor of San Francisco, Dianne Feinstein, wins the Democratic Party nomination over liberal Establishment candidate Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp.

Last March, the California Republican Assembly, the largest volunteer, grass-roots Republican organization in the state, adopted a vote of no-confidence in the senator. Pro-life and pro-family organizations–an integral part of winning Republican coalitions–are openly hostile to his candidacy. The conservative Young Americans for Freedom has already gone on record against him. In a futile but symbolic gesture, YAF even put up one of its own, Jeff Greene, to challenge the senator in the June primary.

So far, these are but chinks in the formidable Wilson campaign armor. Though most state conservative leaders are publicly backing Wilson, many are clearly wondering what happened to the Reagan Revolution in California. How is it that the one-time, anti-Reagan moderate mayor from San Diego might now become head of the party in the very state that produced “The Gipper”? (This frustration explains, in part, the enthusiasm among conservatives for the “renegade” primary campaign of “charter” Reaganite Bay Buchanan for state treasurer against the incumbent, Tom Hayes, who was appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian.)

Conservative Republicans have always been suspicious of the “progressive” mayor of San Diego. To begin with, they have never quite forgiven then-Mayor Wilson for campaigning for President Ford against favorite son Ronald Reagan in the 1976 New Hampshire presidential primary. These suspicions contributed to Wilson coming in a poor fourth in the Republican primary for governor two years later. By 1982 he learned a lesson. He then campaigned in the U.S. Senate Republican primary against several Ronald Reagan conservatives, including Rep. Barry Goldwater Jr. and Robert K. Dornan. While Goldwater was preoccupied with trading off his father’s name and latecomer Dornan was in search of campaign funds, Wilson preemptively blitzed the airwaves with commercials tightly wrapping himself around support for President Reagan. Fellow candidate and “first daughter” Maureen Reagan was particularly galled. So were others. But it worked, and Wilson won what was clearly the make-or-break election of his statewide political future.

Once in the Senate, Pete Wilson went on to very smartly, and sincerely, carry the banner of many issues important to conservatives. From his berth on the Senate Armed Services Committee he defended the Reagan military buildup, railed against the Soviet threat and became an ardent spokesman for the Strategic Defense Initiative. He helped protect California’s defense industry, the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and even got Mayor Feinstein to support home-porting the nuclear-powered battleship Missouri in liberal San Francisco. Wilson strongly backed the freedom fighters in Nicaragua and Afghanistan and was up front in his defense of Oliver L. North.

Occasionally, but never reliably, Wilson has voted with conservatives on key social and family-oriented issues. For these things and more, Wilson avoided a primary challenge from the right and deservedly received virtually unqualified conservative support for his 1988 reelection.

The problem now facing gubernatorial candidate Pete Wilson is that those defense and foreign policy issues so essential to his overall appeal to conservatives are no longer available to balance out his generally moderate-to-liberal campaign positions on many social, domestic and environmental issues. Unfortunately, the messages from his campaign and the press seem only to highlight the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-prayer in school, anti-growth, higher transportation taxes, costly mass transit, and other big-government elements of his platform (including the creation of another costly government Cabinet department to deal with the environment).

As a result, his yeoman efforts on behalf of the speedy-trial initiative seem pale. To many conservatives, the Pete Wilson of 1990 sounds a lot like the Pete Wilson of 1978.

Unlike Sen. Wilson’s 1982 race against Jerry Brown or his 1988 reelection against Leo T. McCarthy, this year every conservative vote will matter–a lot. So, too, will the crossover votes of conservative Democrats who today keep many Republicans in office. We cannot afford to have any one of them sit at home or cast a protest vote for a third-party candidate.

What is of added danger to Wilson is that conservative Democrats are being told that Feinstein is a candidate they can finally support. Who’s kidding whom? A conservative Democrat mayor from San Francisco is about as believable as Dana Rohrabacher being appointed head of the National Endowment for the Arts. Yet the liberal Southern California media persist in mislabeling the Lady from Babylon by the Bay largely because of her “traitorous” support for the death penalty. Look for a finely tuned “come home” message from the Feinstein campaign to conservative Democrats in November.

When the media are not calling her a conservative, they frequently remark that on substantive issues there is little difference between Feinstein and Wilson. Strike another blow to a proven Republican campaign axiom: Fail to differentiate yourself from your Democrat opponent and you lose.

Wilson’s recent campaign commercials do not help. He emphasizes his environmental record, support for mass transit and the need to control those nasty developers. At best it seems an ill-timed ad for the primary season. At worst it emphasizes management, not leadership, and is not conservative on either count. Better he should first shore up his traditional Republican credentials.

The senator should probably not count on the evils of a Democratic-controlled reapportionment process to give him an added loyalty boost, either. Voters have shown either an inability to understand the issue or often view it in partisan terms. But if a state commission on reapportionment is created by the voters on June 5, the argument that a Republican governor is needed to keep the Democrat Legislature honest will be moot.

Finally, the precedent exists for an electorally significant percentage of the conservative vote to be cast in protest for a third-party candidate. That occurred in the Zschau-Cranston race. Despite a strong Republican Party sales effort aimed at ensuring conservative backing for the former moderate Rep. Ed Zschau, including four trips to California by President Reagan (two in Orange County alone), the word went out to the fall-on-your-sword conservatives to cast a protest vote for the pro-life American Independent Party candidate Ed Vallen. Vallen received nearly double the normal statewide and Orange County AIP vote that year (1.5%). Zschau lost to Alan Cranston by only 1.4%. While there are important differences between the seasoned Wilson with proven statewide electability and newcomer Zschau, the point is that a small electoral shift could prove fatal to him in a close race.

Despite what some political pollsters and self-appointed media opinion makers would have us believe, the successful Reagan electoral coalition has not dispersed. Nor have their beliefs in traditional family values, small government, low taxes, free enterprise and equal opportunity for that chance at the American dream taken a back seat to child care, global warming and acid rain.

Pete Wilson, known for waging smart, well-financed campaigns, has some reassuring to do on the right. To win in November, he has to count on every conservative vote in Orange County–and it is not clear yet that he is going to get them.

Eddie Martinez can’t stand Donald Trump. So when Eric Swalwell entered the race for California governor, Martinez had his candidate.

“I liked the way he took Trump on, the impeachment thing in Congress,” Martinez said of the former Bay Area congressman, a Trump nemesis who served as one of the House prosecutors in 2021 when Democrats held the wayward president to account for the second time.

Then, suddenly, Swalwell’s campaign collapsed under the weight of allegations of abuse, including charges he sexually assaulted a former aide. With Martinez’s choice out of the running, the Democrat turned to the candidate who’d been his second pick all along, Xavier Becerra.

Martinez has been familiar with Becerra for decades, going back to when the former congressman, state attorney general and Biden Cabinet member was in the state Assembly. To his credit, said the 65-year-old retired public relations strategist, Becerra has largely kept clear of controversy and there’s never been a whiff of personal scandal — an important consideration after Swalwell’s spectacular self-destruction.

On top of all that, Martinez said as he prepared to drop his mail ballot at a post office in Alhambra, it would be nice for California to elect its first Latino governor in modern times. It’s been, Martinez observed, more than 150 years.

With the gubernatorial primary entering its final two weeks, a contest that had been stubbornly formless has finally gained coherence. Becerra, who’d been widely given up for dead as he foundered near the bottom of polls, has unexpectedly emerged as the Democrat to beat.

“He has the most experience,” said Ruben Avita, a 57-year-old actor who leans Democratic and is tilting toward Becerra over hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer. “At this point,” Avita said as he waited to catch a double feature at a cineplex in Monterey Park, “I want someone with a proven track record.”

Among the Republicans running, Trump’s pick — conservative commentator Steve Hilton — seems firmly ensconced atop the GOP field.

“He’s got a lot more common-sense approach than any of these other idiots,” said Wayne The Flame — yes, he explained, that’s his legal name —which, while not exactly a ringing endorsement, still counts as a vote.

The Claremont independent, retired at 73 after a career selling motorcycles and hot rods, described Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the other major GOP contestant, as a racist and dismissed the entire Democratic field with a string of epithets. “Dumb—,” he said of the voters who keep putting the likes of them in power.

Peaches, a chihuahua/boxer rescue, stands alongside her owner, Wayne The Flame

If not terribly enthused, at least The Flame has made up his mind. Many voters remain undecided — or, at least, not entirely wed to a candidate.

Some are holding on to their ballots longer than usual, awaiting any last-minute developments and weighing the election odds as though wagering in a high-stakes game of poker.

Like many Democrats, Bryce Dwyer’s concern is that Hilton and Bianco will seize both spots in June’s top-two primary, advancing to a November runoff and giving California its first Republican governor in 16 years.

A 40-year-old project manager at the Getty Research Institute, Dwyer held his 2-year-old daughter as his son, 6, romped on a pleasant afternoon in Sierra Madre’s Memorial Park. Across the street, the bells of Christ Church chimed the hour.

“None of the Democrats are putting forth anything that is making me excited,” said Dwyer, who’s ruled out Becerra (he doesn’t see much there) and is deciding between Steyer and former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter. He’s trying to cast his ballot strategically, the East Pasadena resident said, and “it’s the first time in a while I haven’t really had a clue who I’m going to vote for so close to election day.”

Democrat Priscilla Vega of Monrovia has yet to settle on her candidate for governor

This is a deeply unsettled season in California, with precious little hope the next governor — whoever he or she turns out to be — will make things better anytime soon. That mix of discouragement and discontent surfaced repeatedly, like a dull ache, in conversations with dozens of voters across the San Gabriel Valley.

The region’s ethnic and economic diversity — from the working-class neighborhoods of Pomona through the Asian-majority suburbs to the mountainside mansions of San Dimas and Pasadena — make the valley a prime battleground in the race for governor.

Alana H., who asked not to use her last name, said she wasn’t even bothering to vote.

She ticked off some reasons: The soaring price of gas and rising cost of, essentially, everything else. The fear her college-age daughter will never be able to buy a home in California. Worse, is her loss of faith. She no longer believes in the promise, once taken for granted, that each generation will improve its lot over the last. And, Alana said, she’s not alone: “Anyone who’s an average person is in the same boat, we’re all just trying to stay afloat.” Standing in front of the post office in Alhambra, the 52-year-old paddled her arms as though to keep from sinking.

Jaunenito Pavon, in his Glendora wine and chocolate bar, would like California to elect a governor who could unify the state. He’s still deciding on a candidate

The politicians in both parties are “so out of touch,” she said, “all they’re doing is fighting over this and that, when everyone I know doesn’t care what party you’re in. They just want to put food on their table. They want their kids to have a better life.”

Shelby Moore has some of the same concerns. Forget about ever buying a home, said the 30-year-old California native, a Democratic-leaning independent. It’s no small feat scraping up money for rent. “I’ve lost almost every single friend that I went to high school or college with,” Moore said between waiting tables at a Mediterranean restaurant in Glendora. “They’ve all moved out of state.”

Shelby Moore, 30, a waitress in Glendora, said all her friends from high school and college have left California because it’s so expensive.

She’ll definitely vote, Moore said, though she doesn’t know for whom. One of the Democrats. Someone who’ll work to make California more affordable and keep people like her friends from being priced out.

In Claremont, Eric Hurley was another undecided Democrat. He attended last month’s gubernatorial debate at Pomona College, where the 56-year-old professor teaches psychological science and Africana studies. Otherwise, he’s been too busy to pay much attention to the race.

But it’s important, Hurley said, that whoever wins “keep fighting the good fight and standing by our liberal principles. I would hate to see someone in the governor’s office start capitulating to what the current administration is asking.”

Democrat Eric Hurley is undecided in the governor’s race. But he wants someone who’ll stand up to the Trump administration.

Others seconded that notion, that California needs to stand as a bulwark against Trump and his excesses, such as the draconian crackdown that has terrorized the state’s large immigrant population.

But there’s not a great appetite for the sort of performative pushback that’s won the current governor a wide audience on social media and boosted Gavin Newsom’s political stock as he positions himself ahead of the 2028 presidential campaign.

Jennifer Harris, 56, is a single mom in Monrovia who oversees payroll at a food manufacturing company. She has to stretch each of her dollars to make ends meet; soon she’ll be shelling out $30,000 a year for her daughter to go to college. Buying a home, Harris said, is out of the question.

She confessed to chuckling at the governor’s memes — an over-the-top oeuvre that includes Newsom as super hero, Newsom as religious beacon, Newsom as romance-novel hunk — and his other cheeky jabs at the president. “But that’s not an adult way to handle it,” Harris said between errands in Monrovia’s quaint shopping district. “It’s not solving any problems.”

Better, she said, for the next governor — she hasn’t decided whom she’ll support — to focus on practicalities: improving the economy, making housing and healthcare more affordable, dealing with homelessness and the underlying mental health issues.

Jennifer Harris said Gov. Newsom’s over-the-top social media presence is amusing. But she wants the next governor to focus on more practical things.

Britnee Foreman echoed that sentiment.

The 41-year-old, who lives in Azusa and works in the music business, was meeting a friend, Priscilla Vega, 43, for lunch in Monrovia. Along with a meal, the two Democrats shared their concerns about inflation and income inequality.

“Memes are great for publicity,” said Foreman, who’s deciding between Becerra and Porter, based on their policy experience. (Vega, a lifestyle marketer, has yet to narrow down her choice.)

Britnee Foreman says the next governor needs policies “with teeth,” not an active social media presence.

“But I prefer policy,” Foreman went on. “I don’t want them just to be the popular person out there on social media. It’s great if they’re tweeting and have a cute little Insta-story. But I need their policies to have teeth and actively move us forward. And not just look like it’s moving forward.”

After nearly eight years, amid widespread unease, California seems ready to put the Newsom era in the past. It’s just not clear what path voters will choose, or which candidate they’ll prefer to steer the state toward, hopefully, a better place.