The Democratic Party has done a lot of dumb things over the years, but what’s unfolding in California right now might be the most perfectly Democratic disaster in modern political history. And the best part? Even their own cheerleaders can see it coming.
Jon Stewart — the man who spent years pretending he was “just a comedian” while doing more heavy lifting for the left than most DNC staffers — sat down recently with San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, a Democrat running for California governor. And instead of his usual smug confidence, Stewart looked like a guy watching his team fumble on the one-yard line in slow motion.
Here’s the setup. California uses a top-two primary system. The two candidates who get the most votes advance to the general election, regardless of party. Simple enough. Now here’s where it gets stupid.
There are roughly two or three Republicans running. And somewhere between eight and a thousand Democrats — okay, maybe not a thousand, but enough to make a crowded clown car look spacious. The math isn’t complicated. When you split one side’s vote into a dozen pieces while the other side stays consolidated, you get a result that makes Democrats lose sleep.
Stewart Sees the Trainwreck
Stewart didn’t sugarcoat it. He laid it out with the kind of frustrated clarity that only comes from watching your own side trip over its shoelaces.
“So there are like, two or three Republicans running and like, eight or nine or 10 or 11, or 20 Democrats? It’s a great plan, and it so smacks of the Democratic Party to split the vote into such fractious fiefdoms that the only two people standing are the two Republicans.”
Then he twisted the knife on his own team:
“So smart, so typical!”
When your own propaganda wing starts calling you out on national television, you know the situation is dire. Mahan tried to lighten the mood by joking that he entered the race because he “just didn’t think enough people were running for governor.” Cute. But then he dropped a stat that made Stewart visibly wince — right now, “undecided” is beating every single candidate in the field.
Let that sink in. In the bluest state in America, the leading candidate is literally nobody.
California Is Begging for a Change
And why wouldn’t voters be undecided? What exactly has one-party Democratic rule delivered for California lately? The state is hemorrhaging residents for the first time in its history. Taxes are the highest in the nation. People who lost their homes in the devastating fires over a year ago are still waiting to rebuild, tangled in the kind of bureaucratic nightmare that only Sacramento could produce.
The Golden State has become the Tarnished State, and the people running it keep offering the same recycled ideas with different faces. No wonder a dozen Democrats think they deserve a shot — none of them can articulate why they’d be different from the last guy.
And here’s the delicious irony. Democrats have spent the last several years fantasizing about flipping Texas blue. They’ve poured money, organizers, and dreams into turning the Lone Star State purple. Meanwhile, back in their own backyard, they’re about to hand California’s governor’s mansion to the GOP because they couldn’t agree on which progressive should get the crown.
The GOP’s Golden Opportunity
Trump showed Republicans something valuable — you don’t win by playing it safe, you win by showing up where no one expects you. California hasn’t had a Republican governor since Schwarzenegger, and the party establishment wrote the state off years ago. But elections aren’t won on assumptions. They’re won on math. And right now, the math is doing backflips in the GOP’s favor.
If Republicans play this smart — stay disciplined, keep the field tight, let Democrats devour each other — they could pull off the political upset of the decade. Not because they outspent anyone. Not because they ran some genius campaign. But because Democrats did what Democrats always do: formed a circular firing squad and pulled the trigger.
Jon Stewart sees it. The Democratic establishment sees it. And they’re terrified. Which, frankly, is the most entertaining thing to come out of California since they still had a functioning middle class.