The first rule of thumb is: Don’t get too many results.
The brave people who bother to cast ballots in these first-round races are primarily a group of engaged voters, and reaching conclusions with such a small minority is a losing game.
So however the final results for June are tallied, the lessons learned won’t translate easily to the many voters who will inevitably turn up in November. But if this election doesn’t tell us much about what the voters will do, it does tell us something about the Democratic Party that runs this state: It’s a mess, to put it mildly. And no, that’s not entirely the fault of the “jungle” premise.
The traditional rules seem to be broken (not a bad thing) and new ones have yet to emerge. The old guard has lost control, and perhaps vision, and the result is a lot of people willing to abdicate seniority and a wait-and-see mentality to try their luck – especially young progressives.
Sometimes that chutzpah works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s a mirror of the national trend of Democratic infighting and how fractured the party has become as it tries to figure out who it stands for and who it supports ahead of the 2028 presidential election.
“I feel like I’m fighting the big forces of the establishment, but it is,” said Sen. Scott Wiener recently told me. “Sometimes we see a kind of rejection mentality, and some ideas are not welcome, and new people, new voices are not welcome, and that has forces that play out in many different areas.”
Wiener, who could be considered the king of the bouncers, recently took first place in the San Francisco-based race to represent the 11th Congressional District, a seat held by Nancy Pelosi since 1987, when Wiener was 17 years old.
By most accounts, Pelosi and Wiener had a pretty good relationship until last year, when she entered the race before announcing her retirement. Although Wiener has made it clear for years that he plans such a run when Pelosi steps down, Pelosi is an icon in the city, beloved by voters and as unrepentant as the queen of the old guard.
Announcing his campaign before he had officially made that decision — or even had a chance to choose a successor — sent shockwaves through the political atmosphere. When Pelosi endorsed Supervisor Connie Chan in May, it was seen by many as a sign of her displeasure. Chan, who struggled to get points in the primary, came in second place with Pelosi’s promotion and will face Wiener in November.
Across the country, there were other races with up-and-coming competitors. In Southern California, Jake Levine, a progressive Democrat who served in the Obama White House, replaced Brad Sherman. Sherman, a 71-year-old who has served nearly 30 years in Congress, soundly beat Levine by more than 20 points.
In Sacramento, there is Mai Vang, a progressive City Council member, who is challenging Rep. Doris Matsui, another member of the old guard house. Vang is tied for second place with a Republican challenger as the remaining votes are counted.
And then, there is the governor’s race itself, which included a determined and unruly field even before the fiasco of Eric Swalwell’s sexual misconduct scandal that the Democratic Party of the country began to conduct its polls in an apparent effort to ensure that some of the opposition to the blue came out. It didn’t work. Notably, progressive Katie Porter and centrist San José Mayor Matt Mahan stuck it out until the bitter end. But senior guard candidate Xavier Becerra came out on top.
If these races have a lesson, it’s that different Democratic voters want different things, but the party hasn’t figured out how to accommodate that without offering a middle ground.
“This is a big question for the Democratic Party, about how big of a tent they want to build,” said Irene Kao of Courage California, a progressive advocacy group.
He said it is “a good analogy” that many powerful challengers have gone on to come forward, because it allows candidates outside the party’s power structure to find an audience and voters, even if they ultimately fail.
And where the voters go, the party will eventually be forced to follow. That doesn’t necessarily mean a more progressive Democratic Party, but it might mean more inclusive if it wants to attract the kind of less informed and less inclined voters that make or break national elections.
“People are sick of games, and they’re sick of people trying to get their own way,” Wiener said. “People want choice.”
