Right Now with Perry Bacon: Inside the Unpredictable California Governor’s Race

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Yet the customer was tested on Shopify.com to DE. This is right now with Perry Bacon presented by the DSR network. Perry Bacon. I'm the host of the new Republic show right now. We have a great guest who's really up earlier in the morning.

This is David Diane. He's the executive editor of the American Prospect. We just one of these magazines like the new Republic that is like left to center and trying to cover the news and a pro-democracy perspective. And David has done some great work if you keep following him on Twitter or Blusk guy.

One of the best chroniclers of about economic policy, particularly, but he runs a great magazine. I'm really honored that David's come on. So, David, thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me, Perry.

So I want to start with the big, you're the rare person to write about national politics who is based in California. I wish we had more people who are interested in California because as we know it's

the biggest and most important state.

And so what I want to talk about first is the governor's race there and you're just beating up. The voting is going to start pretty soon. And my first question is like a few weeks ago, the big worry was the two Republicans would finish ahead and Democrats would kind of locked out of that.

“But I think that's no longer the problem in some ways because Donald Trump solved that problem.”

Yeah, I mean, it's a combination of two things. So one, yes, Donald Trump helps solve the problem by endorsing one of the two Republican candidates. The fear was that there are essentially two prominent Republicans in this race. And at the time, there was up to eight prominent Democrats.

And the way that we do elections in California is with what they call the top two primary. So on your primary ballot are all the candidates. Democratic Republican declined to state, no matter who you are, you see all those candidates. They're actually 62 candidates on the ballot. And you vote for whoever you want, Democratic Republican doesn't matter.

And the top two advanced regardless of party. And obviously, this is a state where you could see 65% of the voting public vote Democratic and 35% vote Republican. But if those two Republicans in the governor's race got essentially an equal amount of votes, they would have 18, 17% of the electorate, and it would be hard for one of those eight Democrats

to get more than that. Therefore, creating a situation where even those 65% of the electorate voted Democratic, they'd only have the choice of two Republicans for governor in the general election. And under the statute, this was created by initiative in 2010. And under that initiative, you can't write in anybody.

So in the general elections, just the two were on the ballot.

“So that was, yes, a very palpable fear, I think, particularly when the polls started coming”

out, showed the two Republicans essentially neck and neck, and other Democrats who hadn't really gained traction behind them. Now, two things happen.

The first is, as you say, Donald Trump endorsed Steve Hilton, who is a Fox News commentator,

former advisor to the British Parliament under David Cameron, and he endorsed Hilton, Trump endorsed Hilton over this guy, Chad Bianco, who is the Riverside County Sheriff, and an oathkeeper, an admitted oathkeeper, and, you know, kind of a mad guy. So you would expect if Trump endorses one over the other for those two candidates to split. And indeed, in the polling, we're seeing Hilton pull much higher than Bianco now.

So that gives an opportunity for one Democrat to get into that top two. The other thing that happened, obviously, is that Eric Swallwell, who was running essentially in that top tier of Democrats, he had to drop out. So for obvious reasons. And so when Swallwell dropped out that narrowed the field, another candidate that he dropped

So the Democratic field has consolidated a bit while the Republican field has stratified

a bit.

“And so that fear is lessened, although it's not, it's not completely empty.”

I mean, you could still see this happen. So I've been looking at the polls some and there's a lot of buzz out there about the race. But it appears from where I'm sitting and not close to the race, they had a lot of the slow, well, boat went to a hobby or a basera, the former Biden administration officially used to be in the leadership in the house.

Is there what you see? And secondly, what do you think there was?

It wasn't like Swallwell and Doris Bossera.

Yeah, it's a very interesting dynamic. You saw this happen almost immediately and incredibly inorganically, I would have to say, where all of a sudden there was just all this buzz happening on the basera side after he was in the race for a year with essentially nobody talking about it. So what is going on here?

It was very apparent from reporting that Swallwell had the support of the kind of news some faction in California politics, which is aligned with these consultants who kind of run California politics, one that's called Bayer Star Strategies, there are a few others. They have essentially held the main seats in California for some time going back to Jerry. They're clients.

That's right.

Kamal Harris, Kevin Newsom, Alex Padilla, Jerry Brown, all same consultants, same major

people behind them. And all of a sudden, so Swallwell was kind of their guy, I mean, they, they, I don't feel like even Swallwell supporters would admit that he didn't really have a lot of connection to the state in terms of the state political structure. Famously, there's a CNN story that shows that he was up in Sacramento and he was looking

at the reconstruction of the Capitol building and he said, what are they doing, putting up condos? He didn't even know that they were redoing the state legislature, the state Capitol building out there. So he was kind of a puppet, he had no sort of firm beliefs to that state.

I mean, it made me feel that one thing. The Newsom faction, but Newsom was news of himself behind the scenes as well, I thought Newsom was pretty newsual with my head. Not, yeah, not in any definitive way, but people who worked with him in the governors see both politically and also even his aides were working with Swallwell.

But when that ended, they all moved to Bacera and they moved very quickly to Bacera, including bare star strategies and some of these other consultants and things, Newsom's his digital director. So the guy who is, you know, putting together this Newsom persona online moved to Bacera after Swallwell dropped out.

“So this created, I think a lot of his buzz was kind of internally generated.”

But, you know, he fits into a role that you could see why, just as a superficial level, why he would take off a little bit. This is a very heavily Latino state. He is the main Latino candidate and Tonya Virgoes is also running, by the way, Bacera and Virgoes have run in races against each other for 25 years.

They were in the 2001 L.A. mayors race against each other. But Bacera has actually held public office a lot more recently than Virgoes, who's just kind of been out of office for 10 years. So, you know, obviously a strong Latino candidate and then someone with connections to the Biden administration, he was the Attorney General of California, he was the HHS director.

So he's running on that resume. And so he has sort of risen as Swallwell fell.

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The show is on the best of the best of the best of the best of the best of the best of the best. The enderate check out from Shopify for either the shop or diner website, visit social media and UberIDOT's vision. The buzz about Bacera has been that he was not particularly effective in the job's he's held. The discussion was that he wasn't a great HHS secretary. My reading was sometimes the White House was sort of blaming him for things they sort of ran.

“Do you assess him as being sort of a weak public official?”

Yes. He was not a competent HHS secretary.

Maybe not necessarily for some of the reasons that he's being attacked for, but because HHS, which is a sprawling agency, was the absolute weakest on the kinds of policies that the Biden administration was trying to do in terms of taking on corporate America in terms of providing better changes to that particular system. So there was the one famous thing I haven't written about this, but maybe I will.

That people in my neck of the world talk about is that there was a town hall, like a big event in the Biden administration,

around pharmacy benefit managers. These are the middle men that make drug prices higher. And it's a major kind of problem and obstacle to lowering drug prices within the pharmaceutical transaction chain. And Bacera was there along with Leena Khan and Leilbrainer and many others. And they get Bacera about five minutes to speak. And it becomes very clear from the discussion that he doesn't know what a PBM is that he is.

And this is the Health and Human Service of Secretary and he's talking about prescription drug negotiations in Medicare. He's talking about everything, but the thing that this meeting was supposed to be held for. And it just it felt indicative of someone who was a little bit checked out in terms of the major issues involving health care. Now, you know, Xavier Bacera was an ally of Nancy Pelosi. He's a member of the progressive caucus was in Congress for many, many years, but didn't, you know,

and he has a record of supporting single payer, for example, however he didn't really have a huge connection to health care.

“Like, why was he made the Health and Human Services Secretary?”

He was the attorney general of California. Maybe that's a justice department and a log, but not necessarily HHS. There was, there have been claims and these are documented. This isn't me talking that he was pushed forward by the Congressional Hispanic caucus that they wanted a spot in the cabinet. And he became the guy. And not a lot got done on health care during that four year period.

And I think, you know, we heard apparently after the debate last night, one of the CNN commentators say that, you know, every Biden cabinet official will tell you the same thing that he wasn't particularly effective. And in terms of like ideology, I mean, I guess you and I are people who want to see corporate power reigned in a more populist, do we're going to part of the government would say that. So in this instance, is Bacera, the least transport compare to Katie Porter and Steyer as a CERA,

probably the most established one of the three people that people that are probably president of CERA. Yeah, I can push it.

“I think he's adopted, you know, that framework from the consultants who are supporting him.”

And there are two kind of major things that have come out over the last week or so that speak to that.

That is the oil company that is very big here. It used to be called standard oil of California. He received a maximum donation, which in California for governor is $39,200. He has since said that Chevron is not the bad guy. Obviously gas prices are going up all over the state. There's high as six and seven, even eight dollars a gallon. And he said they're not the bad guy and I need shit.

We need Chevron, et cetera. So that raised some eyebrows.

And then the second thing is that he's received support from the California Medical Association,

which is sort of the state analog to the AMA, the American Medical Association, which represents doctors and is certainly, you know, one of the forces opposed to moving to a single payer system. And there's some audio that's been reported on or meeting that's been reported on with Bacera, where he has essentially said that single payer is not right for California anymore. This is after a 30 year record in the House supporting single payer bills.

So those two things gave this sense that he is sort of moving back into a more comfortable, mainstream democratic position that won't challenge power in much funding that way. So if he's kind of running as the main, you're saying he might have been arrested in other countries.

But if he's running as the mainstream candidate, why are the wouldn't wire sales call, let's say Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom.

I saw Harris endorsed people for other races but not this government.

“If he's the mainstream democratic candidate, why are they trying to push him over the top?”

Which are some sort of... I mean, this has been really fascinating within the state political structure, this entire race. So, you know, there was talk at the beginning that Tom LaHarris would get in. The race was kind of frozen seeing whether or not she was going to run or not. She eventually decides that she's not going to.

Then it seemed like the interest shifted to a woman named Eleni Kunalakis, who is the lieutenant governor right now.

And a big time fundraiser in ally of Pelosi's and Pelosi let's slip on a CNN show.

Right after Harris dropped out that she said, "I'm supporting Eleni Kunalakis." But Kunalakis couldn't get any traction and she decided to run for treasurer instead. So, she dropped out of the race. So, the establishment was left with nobody. And then late in the race, Swallow gets in, they figure, "Okay, we can work with him."

So, they migrate to him behind the scenes without any kind of public, you know, Pelosi didn't support him. Newsom didn't support him, not publicly. But then he implodes. And so now it's a move to Bessera. And I couldn't--

Not a strong move, not a public move. Not a strong move, not a strong move. Not a strong public move.

“And I think that I think the establishment in California,”

those kinds of people are very dissatisfied with their candidates. And they, you know, I don't know if it's internal politics or being afraid to get involved with someone who might falter like a Swallow. Well, I mean, that's a cautionary tale, right? If Newsom and Pelosi had all gone all in on Eric Swallow, who was a Pelosi kind of protege. Right.

And then that happens, you know, that's a real problem. And maybe they're thinking, well, I don't want to jump in on some other candidate after, you know, one spit and tries shy kind of thing. So maybe that's it. Let's move to the more progressive candidates, like what do I say that? So I'll start with Katie Porter, who, you know, she famously, she worked with a Senator Warren, some on her staff.

When she was a member of Congress, she was very known for taking on corporations in her hearings, particularly. But her campaign, the thing I, I know most about is like this, what I consider kind of a goofy proposal to exempt everyone from taxes with who makes less than $100, which might be good for the working class, but it's probably not good economics, ultimately. And so I'm curious, like, what's your, I thought she'd be a progressive candidate with strong ideas.

“I don't perceive her as running that kind of campaign. What is your reason what she's doing?”

Yeah, I would agree with that. So, you know, Porter came out. She obviously ran for Senate in 2024. She gave up her house seat. There was a lot of corporate money that was arrayed against her, particularly from the crypto industry and Adam Schiff won that race. And so then she migrated almost, you know, fairly short order. She migrated to run for governor.

Kind of being ill of her being very mean to say I ever got a win really mineral.

When viral and she kind of hasn't recovered from that.

“And there are these attempts to recover that, yes, I think, are really terrible economics and they fit with something that's happening within the dam.”

In the Democratic Party where you're seeing a lot of candidates maybe 2028 hopefuls saying, we need to do our own tax cut. We have to respond to no tax on tips and we have to do our own big tax cut. And the one that order is chosen would eliminate about 65 to 70% of the tax base in California in terms of in terms of the individual tax rate. And it's actually the same tax plan that Steve Hilton is running on. Steve Hilton is running on exempting the first $100,000 taxes.

So, you know, in the choice, it's kind of the choice between Republican and Republican light.

Porter, you know, represented an orange county district, a very affluent orange county district in Congress. She has always kind of played footsie with these anti tax kind of proposals.

She was one of the people on on the state and local tax deductions or salt. She was someone who wanted to exempt the higher rate of of state and local taxes from federal taxation. And so, she's had this blind spot on taxes. She kind of is the product of where she's living and and and the politics around taxes in orange county. So, I think that's part of it. But she hasn't really distinguished on many other issues either and her campaign seems to be a bit stuck in the month.

I guess I get what I'm trying to get it is I have viewed her as good. I thought she's going to run this sort of, I have a plan. A list of the Warren style campaign where Warren didn't win the primary, but she's still out of useful interesting stuff in 2020 still.

“I don't perceive Porter has doing that either. Are you hinting that the corporations that the 2024 race kind of spook her?”

She's worried if she goes anti-corporate the corporations and the big money will tell her to beat her. So, sort of, you sort of alluded to that in getting it. Yeah, I mean, I think that's part of it. I think also she just doesn't have a firm belief. That Californians will go along with her on some of that stuff. She has, you know, and and and on taxes, I think she just has a bit of a blind spot.

So, I think you put those all together and it's little pieces of the whole. But, you know, it's interesting that we've heard from other campaigns that, yeah, there are more of these. Porter, you know, dustups with her staff and we're going to drop more of those out. They haven't really had to because she's just kind of been, yeah, so it's kind of the dog that hasn't barked. And so, I don't know. I mean, I think it's a bit of a disappointing campaign.

And it certainly hasn't been the leader kind of a thought leader like you alluded to. And, and that's a bit surprising. So, the camp is a person following this is more progressive. I, the camp, the candidate said the most stuff I like has been Tom's type. And so, I'm sure.

And he said it a lot. He said it to the tune of about $150 million on television.

So, I'm not watching the ads, but I know he's also quoted the, we don't work. So, my guess, okay, so, I was going to ask with him is the progressives nationally, you know, like Bernie Sanders, us into Warren, I endorseing Graham Plattener. You, you, there's a lot of Michigan. You see, there's a lot of reasons where progressives be endorsed.

“Is the big problem for styer that progressives do not like to endorse billionaires?”

I think it's been a sticking point, not just for national progressives, but for Californians and people I talk to. People, you know, like people in my kind of world in the progressive world, they are immediately kind of taken a back just by the nature of his wealth. And, and have been somewhat reluctant to fall in with him.

And then he's flooded the airways. And now people are just, I, I can't stand to watch another top styer and kind of thing. But if you get into the substance in the meat of it, there's a reason why all of the most progressive organizations in California have all endorsed styer.

And I'm talking about that. He's more of a billionaire sex. He's open to single payer. Those are two things. What else?

Another, which is probably the biggest one,

“the biggest line of demarcation between him and all other candidates”

is that he supports a thing called split role. So, California since 1978 has had this thing called Prop 13, which limits property taxes on both residential and commercial properties. So, if you're Disneyland, you're paying the same property tax rate that you did in 1978.

It hasn't changed relative to annual, very limited annual increases. So, the idea of split role is that, okay, we can't take this on sort of to change the way that residential properties are taxed. Even though it probably would be a good idea, because this has completely decimated local government in particular,

which gets most of its money from property taxes. But if you can't do it at the residential level, you can do it at the commercial level. And you can reassess these properties,

“so that they reflect current spending levels,”

rather than the levels of 1978. And so, he is endorses thing called split role. It narrowly failed at the ballot box a few years ago. But Stair has said, he has refrained it into a Trump tax loophole, which is actually kind of true, because Trump has some properties here,

that he's paying 1978 level taxes on. And so, he's refrained it in that way. And he said, look, if we're going to build housing in California, the fact that local governments have no money to support any kind of new services if they increase their populations,

is a big impediment to increasing the housing stock. And if you give these localities the money available, that's needed to actually build affordable housing, and to take on populations, you change that dynamic. And so, it's actually part of this housing strategy,

is that we're going to reform this corporate tax loophole, and we're going to put the money into local governments, who then will not be an opponent of increasing the housing stock, but actually we will be a partner in it.

“And so, I think that among all of these things is probably the most important thing.”

But there are more things he's talked about like breaking up utility monopolies. He's talked about reforming the insurance system, so that home insurance system, which is a disaster here in California, was so that insurers are properly pricing the actual risk that is out there in the marketplace,

and a host of other issues from education, is the only one with an AI strategy that would protect jobs. So, he is definitely talking to talk. Now, and obviously, his wealth has become a major issue in the race, and particularly how he made his money.

So, he was a hedge fund manager with a thing called Ferrellon Investments, and the other candidates are picking and pointing at various investments that he made over his lifetime, including in the private prison industry. That was an investment he made 20 years ago that he got out of.

They talked about fossil fuel investments and things like that. And this has been, you know, he's saying on the, on the change agent in this race, but the biggest thing he has to change is that perception of him as a billionaire. And, you know, if you want to say,

we'll know these people by who attacks them.

So, there's been about 20 between 20 and 30 million dollars

that has been spent on the air, attacking Tom Stier, and it's from the realtors. It's from the apartment association. It's from PG&E, which is the major one major utilities out here, and some of the other utilities.

It's from all of the corporate groups that normally would attack the most progressive candidate. By contrast, he has the support of the California Teachers Association. He has the support of SEIU California. He has the support of the faculty association,

which is higher ed unions.

So, he has the support of basically all of the progressive unions.

He has the support of many of the progressive organizations, like the Courage Campaign and our revolution, some of the progressive groups in California.

I don't know, a bit of a culture shop

to people who are finding themselves in support of the billionaire. I've heard him referred to his team of Pritzker essentially. But, you know, what he has sort of intimated is that he is interested in being a trader to his class, and that has worked for Democrats in the past.

Exhibit A would be Franklin Roosevelt. All right, so you laid out some things that I was going to ask you, so that if I was out there, I'd like to get tuckies, so I have no vote, but I would probably vote for Stire right now. But I was going to ask you, don't tell me who you're going to vote for.

It's not the place for this, but I am curious, as the editor of the American Prospect, you take on, yes, this question, like, is it inherently unprogressive to support a billionaire candidate in a country with this level of wealth inequality?

Like, is that an inherently bad thing for grocery shopping? I mean, I don't think so out of hand.

“I think you have to assess the race on its merits.”

The thing I'm personally doing is I'm holding on to my ballot until a few days before the election, until I see that we're actually clear this potential top two situation where Democrats get locked up.

Democrats are finally starting to talk about reforming this system.

They should have been talking about it in 2010, because it was a ticking time bomb waiting to happen, but now they're finally talking about, like, we need to get rid of this, because it's, you know, it puts you in these strange contortions where you're thinking,

okay, it doesn't really matter who I personally support, but I have to support the candidate who seems most likely to infiltrate the top two, et cetera. So, you know, hopefully that will change. As far as, you know, do you have to need your support

or oppose a billionaire? I really think it does depend on the case, and the circumstances, and in a situation where you do have to think about who that candidate will be beholden to if they enter office.

Now, maybe not monetarily, they would be beholden to whatever, you know, whoever funded them and got them into the race. But certainly, if Styer wins, he would have to have to thank the teachers union

for aggressive groups, and that the kinds of organizations that have traditionally been the most progressive in California.

“And, you know, I think that means something”

that he would come in on the backs of those interests and be more likely and willing to take on special interests who attacked in the entire campaign. So, I think that kind of stuff matters, regardless of whether or not he's billionaire.

Now, should he also be supporting limitations on self-funding in campaigns, I think so. So, we think that Wilson or Merge and the top two and then either Bessera or Styer, is a sense of it.

Yeah, I think right now you're looking at Steve Hilton will get to the general election. Yeah, yeah, he'll get to the general election. And then it's a question of is it going to be Bessera or is it going to be Styer?

There are correlaries to that, where you can see maybe a Bessera Styer top two. You can maybe see an all-dem top two. But I think it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that it's still Hilton Bianco.

And so, I think things are in flux.

“I think what we are seeing is that the actual candidate”

of billionaires who we haven't talked about, this guy in that man who is the San Jose Mayor who is backed by a host of tech company interests and Silicon Valley interests, he has failed to launch. He is looking admired at 6% of the polls, something like that.

So, he's in also ran along with Katie Porter, and Deere Gosa, and it's a guy named Tony Therman. He was probably the most progressive candidate in the race, but he's just completely unknown. He's the superintendent and state superintendent

and public instruction. And in California, you can be a statewide elected official and de-completely unknown. And that's Tony Therman's cross to bear, unfortunately, because he actually would be a good candidate

if we had ranked choice voting or something. Let me take two of their issues and then I'll let you go.

The first is also a mayor's race going on in Los Angeles,

which you live in Los Angeles, right? Yes. And so, I guess two questions, I guess, related to that is like, first of all, nationally, we'll be known as Karen Bass,

happened to be abroad during a, during the start of some fires. And there's been the sort of generic parallel of the challenger, Nitya Raman to Zoron Mondami, mainly this south Asian and young issues. Oh, we're talking about here.

So talk about those questions. Karen Bass, a bad mayor, and is Raman the Zoron of Los Angeles.

She's pretty unpopular.

Whether the fire thing was her fault or not,

I think she has been given a really bad hand and she has not played it particularly well. Particularly after the fire, the fact that permitting is still a problem up there and not a lot of building is taking place.

You know, she's in a real trouble. I don't think she's in trouble to miss the runoff, but I think she's in trouble no matter who she faces and the runoff in the general election. For that reason, I think if you're thinking about this as a Democrat,

you almost have to support Nitya Raman. Because the other alternative is a guy named Spencer Pratt. There's a couple other Republican candidates, but the main Republican candidate is Scott Spencer Pratt. It was a reality star who lost his house in the Palicades

and you know, that would essentially be a Republican ascendancy. And I think a Pratt Bass race, Bass is just so unpopular. I think Pratt would have a real shot.

“And therefore, you know, the strategizing that you have to do”

as a California voter, you want to get a Bass Raman general election. And, you know, as far as Nitya, you know,

she was the first candidate on the L.A. city council

who won with the support of DSA, of the Democratic Socialists of America. Since then, they have kind of disavowder. They are not endorsing in this race. And there's a woman named Ray Juan,

who is a DSA member, who is also running. Although she hasn't gotten a lot of interest in support. Nitya has definitely moved into the position of being the favor candidate of the kind of Yindi movement in California. She's been very focused on housing,

but also focused on government effectiveness, which, you know, to was credit, Nitya as well during his mayorality. So, I think the parallels are very superficial, but I think, you know, in terms of sort of strategizing in the absence of a ranchoy system like in New York,

“I think that Raman is probably a good bet here for the primary, at least,”

so that there'll be a debate about to, you know, people who, at least are on the Democratic side of the equation in November. Final thing, I guess we did two things right, because the prospect covers the sort of democratic party in a very smart way, and some of the fishers and battles happening there.

So, last Thursday, you have Janet Mills,

drop out of the race, basically,

conceding the grand platter was going to win and blow her out. And so, that was interesting. This week, we have the D-Triple C jumping into eight key districts, and endorsing, you know, I'll call them moderate candidate, all those places over the progressive, or the class,

my post candidate. So, where does it go? So, putting those things together, like, where do you, is it seems like the party's fight is still ongoing, and it is, I mean, have you learned anything last week and taking those two things into account?

Yeah, we have a piece up today about this. It seems to be doubling down on failure. I mean, so, and it's not just Janet Mills, but you look at almost every candidate that Chuck Schumer has endorsed

in a contested primary across the country, and his candidate is losing. Or his candidate is in risk of losing. So, you go to the... Yeah, yeah, so Minnesota with Angie Craig,

that's a little more under the radar,

“but I think she's somewhat clearly the...”

the Democratic establishment candidate. Haley Stevens and Michigan, who's up against two, people to her left, and is not broken free of them whatsoever.

And then, Josh Cherich, in Iowa, who's in a race against Zach Walls, who has said, every time that I say, I'm not going to vote for Chuck Schumer

in a majority leader, the crowd bursts into spontaneous applause. So, you know, what this shows to me, and the fact that other senators, Chuck Schumer is hand-ticked pretty much

every Democratic senator in the Senate right now. But many of those senators are endorsing other candidates than his hand-ticked choice in those races. And what it shows to me is that

the sort of stigma, or a Chuck Schumer, as this whisperer who can choose, you know, whoever he wants to get elected, is over. And in fact, he's a liability.

behind you in a Democratic primary,

you have a problem.

“Like, that's something you have to work with.”

So, the Senate we think that's true. The House, we think that's true as well, as the House does not have this defined figure, but the establishment sort of writ large, this sort of idea of the Democratic Party,

which is historically unpopular, big footing into a district, and choosing a candidate, is really bad optics. And we see how that's playing out in these Senate races.

And now we're going to see how it's playing out in these other races. The one that's sort of the signature, and we've written about this race, on multiple occasions, is actually here in California,

in the Central Valley. So, there are, this is, you know, we still have a top two primary, but there are only three candidates in this race. The incumbent, who is David Valadeo,

“this was a seat that was changed by Prop 50,”

which was Gavin Newsom's redistricting. So, it's a little more favorable to Democrats, but still going to be a toss-up race. Valadeo is the incumbent Republican, and then he's going to see a little more favorable to Democrats,

like him, and then there are two Democrats running. Dr. Jasmine Baines, who's a member of the state assembly, and Randy Villegas, who it's a majority, or a very close to a majority Latino district,

he's the only Latino who he would be the first Latino

to actually win that seat. He's running a populist campaign, and Baines is kind of a corporate Democrat, who has taken corporate PAC money from 53 of the same corporations that Valadeo has taken money from.

And she's voted against progressive things, including things supported by the entire legislature while she was in the assembly. The D-Triple C came in for Baines. So, their conception is, this is a swing seat,

“so you have to go with the most conservative candidate,”

whereas Villegas is saying, actually, I'm the one who has a support locally. I have the background, and I think I can grow the electorate by being more economically populist and take on Valadeo, particularly on things like Medicaid, where Valadeo said he wasn't going to vote

to cut Medicaid and then he did.

So, you know, that I think is a threshold race, and so the D-Triple C is coming into that race. Supporting Baines as a red to blue candidate in a contested primary. So, essentially saying, we're telling you who to choose. You choose this person.

Choose Baines over Villegas. And I think that outcome is going to be very interesting. We're going to see what happens in June in the primary because only two of those three can go to the general election and Valadeo is going to go.

So, it really is kind of like a traditional primary in that sense. And I think it's going to be fascinating to see whether this sort of establishment effect backfiring is going to happen in this house race, the way it's happened in these Senate races.

Great place to end on. David, tell people where they can find your work and you're on Twitter, you're on BlueSky, you got a book. So, talk about this, don't think you could get going on, which is a lot.

Yeah, you got it. It's Prospect.org. That's where I'm at, you know, on a daily basis grinding it out. And yeah, I'm available on BlueSky at D-Dane,

also on Twitter X. And yeah, I booked her a little out of date right now, but they're behind me right here. It's monopolized life in the edge of corporate power. Written in 2020.

Channel title. How three ordinary Americans uncovered Wall Street's great for closure fraud was written in 2016. And you know what's up? Yeah, because monopolies and housing out of time, I don't think.

I know what you're saying. Yes, they're a little older vintage, but still ring true and fresh. And I get emails about them all the time. So, yeah, check the local bookstore for this.

All right, good. David was a great, I loved reading David's work. It's great to have him on. David, thanks for coming. Thanks for joining us and we'll be back tomorrow

with the decision about the presidential. The early rounds of the 2028 primary. We'll be back with Mark Smith and Seth Masquett, our guest tomorrow. But thanks everybody for joining me.

I'm Perry Bacon. This is the new republics right now.