Free Republic

Political media habitually use “race” to describe contests for public office. However the word implies movement and therefore would be inaccurate if applied to this year’s election of a new governor. Sixty-one names will be on the June 2 primary ballot, including 10 leaders who profess to be serious about seeking the office. However, they aren’t racing. Rather, the eight top-polling Democrats seem to be in a children’s game, sitting in a circle staring at each other, waiting for someone to blink. Meanwhile, the two top Republicans are taking potshots at each other, potentially undermining the GOP’s only chance to...

The campaign to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom has collected 1,950,000 signatures, Katy Grimes of the California Globe reports, far more than the 1.4 million signatures needed to qualify the recall for the ballot. A full 1.6 million signatures were collected entirely by volunteers, and according to organizer Orrin Heatlie, 31.5 percent of the signers were “other than Republicans.” As the recall effort surges, Democrats turn up the volume against it. “Right-wing Republicans in CA are trying to recall Gavin Newsom for the crime of telling people to wear masks and for listening to scientists during COVID,” tweeted Sen....

Chief Justice of California Tani Cankil-Sakauye has reportedly renounced her Republican Party registration and re-registered as a no-party-preference voter, citing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Cankil-Sakauye made the comments in a phone interview on Thursday to CALmatters, a nonprofit news organization, saying that she had been thinking about Kavanaugh's September confirmation hearing. "I’ve been thinking about it for some time," Cankil-Sakauye said of her decision. She said that she spoke with her husband and friends about the hearing and their conclusion was that "you didn’t leave the party - the party left you." “I felt compelled to make a choice...