Up until the last minute, Democrats in ultra blue California were on the ropes in the governor’s race and local elections, with boisterous Trump-style candidates making huge strides with populist arguments.
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But then the long, dark shadow of President Donald Trump fell over angsty voters, and weekend news reports reveal something changed. The New York Time reports this has plenty to do with the violent thrashing of a fading MAGA star.
The California governor’s race was in question for embattled Democrats due to high inflation and state taxes, and there was no guarantee that Democrat Xavier Becerra would advance to the general election for California governor. But on Friday, Becerra surpassed Republican former Fox News host Steve Hilton. And s of Friday evening, the Times reports he was leading the race with 26.7 percent of the vote, with Hilton at 26.4 percent. These numbers did not reflect the scrum preceding poll results in the weeks leading up to the vote.
Meanwhile, Democratic Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman is closing in on Trump-endorsed reality TV personality Spencer Pratt, cutting his lead to about 3 percentage points, according to the LA Times, as both vie for second place in the mayoral primary.
This breathing room for Democrats — however potentially fleeting — should not be so easy to come by, say critics, with California’s burgeoning homelessness and taxes. But it appears Trump-style personality and reality star-pizzazz may not be enough to easily carry a candidate over the finish line after all.
Political scientist Jonathan Bernstein told the New York Times on Friday that Trump’s reality-star demeanor is deflating into empty showmanship before voters thanks to Trump’s personal failure to deliver on his own political promises.
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“Trump’s main politically relevant skill is that he’s actually a really good reality TV star. He’s very good at grabbing attention,” said Bernstein. “ … [But] Trump is an inept president, so he mostly squanders the attention he gets — and at least half the time, he winds up drawing attention to things that don’t help him at all.”
“We never know what’s really going on in a president’s head, but it seems to me that Trump thinks winning elections is like winning a prize — the United States of America — to do with as he pleases. But what actually happens in elections is that the voters hire you to do a job. It’s a job with some 340 million bosses. And like all jobs, it has constraints and obligations.”
And judging by the horrific polling numbers Trump has been turning out for most of 2026, voters are not approving of his job.
“Trump, as far as I can tell, just doesn’t see that. Which, among other things, seems to mean that he actually gets worse at all of this as he goes along,” said Bernstein.
Couple that with a few Trump endorsements of GOP candidates in a state that generally hates him, and Democrats appear to be finding an edge that should not easily exist.
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