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But some critics have asserted that Harris and other top-level Democrats may have avoided the race to dodge any association with California’s heated political battles.
In addition to its persistent struggles with homelessness and housing costs, the state faces a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. Republicans like Hilton and Bianco lay those problems at the feet of the state’s Democratic leadership.
“We need a change from those policies, not more of the same,” Hilton said during a May gubernatorial debate.
But the Democratic leaders argue their party has steered the state through multiple crises, without Republican help.
“It’s been Democrats that have led the state over the last 10-plus years — that have addressed issues like affordability and healthcare and public safety and education,” Hicks said.
“Certainly, the other party in the mix, the California Republicans, have done little to nothing to provide any sort of a meaningful alternative.”
The winners of Tuesday’s primary will likely be candidates who best sell their plan to improve California’s cost-of-living problem.
Throughout the election season, Emerson College has identified the economy and housing as the top two voter issues facing the state, far outpacing concerns like healthcare and immigration.
In a survey released in February, the Public Policy Institute of California also found that nearly a third of Californians named inflation and the cost of living as their top concern for the state.
Because the Democrats have been in power since 2011, their party has fielded much of the blame, according to Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego.
Still, Kousser doubts that the primary’s Republican frontrunners represent the will of California’s majority, given the widespread backlash to Trump’s policies across the state.
“There’s a lot of dissatisfaction,” Kousser said. “But the direction that Donald Trump has taken the national Republican Party means it’s almost inconceivable — other than through a quirk of the top-two primary — that Californians would turn to someone as tied to Trump as Steve Hilton to fix it.”
As Democratic hopefuls seek victory in the jungle primary, several are seeking to capitalise on that anti-Trump sentiment. Porter, for instance, appeared on stage at this year’s state Democratic convention with a sign that read, “F*** Trump.”
Experts point out that confronting Trump has helped figures like Governor Newsom elevate their national profile. But Schnur warned that the strategy will only take Democrats so far.
In his opinion, Tuesday’s jungle primary will come down to the issue of consumer costs.
“It’s pretty difficult for any of the candidates to argue that they hate Donald Trump more than the others do,” Schnur said. “So we’re left with this political mosh pit in which the candidates all act like they know how to solve this affordability crisis.”
