California Democratic Party chair Rusty Hicks has sent an open letter to the crowded field of Democrats vying to replace term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom, pleading with long-shot candidates to drop out before the filing deadline.

Nearly a dozen Democrats are splitting the vote to the extent that two Republicans could finish in the top two of California's jungle primary, potentially locking Democrats out of the November general election entirely.

In a state where Democrats have enjoyed nearly two decades of dominance, the possibility is extraordinary. And it is entirely self-inflicted.

The Party of Discipline Loses Its Grip

California's top-two primary system sends the two highest vote-getters to the general election regardless of party. It was designed to produce moderation. What it actually produces, when one party's field is bloated with ego-driven candidacies, is a path for the minority party to steal seats it could never win in a conventional primary.

That is precisely what Hicks is warning about. According to the Washington Examiner, his letter urged every candidate to "honestly assess the viability of their candidacy and campaign" and warned that infighting could imperil not just the governor's mansion but down-ballot races as well. Hicks framed the stakes in sweeping national terms:

"The result would present a real risk to winning the congressional seats required and imperil Democrats' chances to retake the House, cut Donald Trump's term in half, and spare our Nation from the pain many have endured since January 2025."

There it is. This isn't really about governing California. Hicks said the quiet part out loud: the governor's race is a vehicle for national Democratic strategy against the sitting president. The people of California and their actual problems, from housing costs to crime to the state's chronic mismanagement, don't appear anywhere in the party chair's calculus. What matters is the House majority.

A Crowded Field Nobody Will Leave

A nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California survey found three Democrats, former Rep. Katie Porter, Rep. Eric Swalwell, and billionaire Tom Steyer, clustered within 4 percentage points of two Republicans, former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. All five candidates sit within the survey's 3.9% margin of error.

That means the race is effectively a coin flip for every one of those top candidates, and the nearly dozen Democrats further down the ballot are siphoning votes that could otherwise consolidate behind a frontrunner. Jeff Le, managing principal at 100 Mile Strategies, put it plainly:

"Chair Hicks' communique to Democratic candidates illustrates the growing party concern that Democrats may inflict their doomsday scenario: a November general election without a Democrat on the ballot."

Le called a June primary lockout "a Republican dream and their only viable path to occupying the governor's office." He's right about the dream. Whether it remains only a dream depends on how many Democratic egos can be managed between now and the filing deadline.

The Newsom Precedent

Veteran California political strategist Garry South offered a historical nudge, referencing his own experience running Newsom's first gubernatorial campaign in 2008-09:

"There comes a time in every campaign when an honest assessment is called for about whether it has the necessary resources to be viable, let alone competitive."

South noted that the Newsom campaign dropped out after running out of money, and that the future governor "lived to fight another day." It's a polite way of telling a half-dozen Democrats that their candidacies are vanity projects with consequences.

Republicans Smell Blood

The Republican National Committee is not wasting this moment. RNC spokesman Nick Poche delivered the kind of response that writes itself when your opponent is publicly begging its own candidates to surrender:

"California Democrats' pathetic attempt at threatening their candidates to deny Californians free choice proves that Democrats are directionless, disorganized, and destined to lose in November up and down the ballot."

Poche also observed that Democrats "throw a massive hissy fit and change the rules when they start to lose." The characterization stings because it fits a pattern. California Democrats are not facing a structural disadvantage. They are facing the consequences of a system they were perfectly happy with when it worked in their favor. The jungle primary was fine as long as Republicans were the ones getting locked out. Now that the math threatens to reverse, the party chair is writing open letters.

The Real Story Here

Political strategist Kaivan Shroff argued that the party needs more leaders like Hicks and insisted that "it takes strategy and planning to win." He warned that letting Republicans capture the governor's mansion would be "such an unnecessary own goal."

But here is what's worth watching: the Democratic Party's problem in California isn't a lack of strategy. It's a surplus of candidates who believe they deserve the job, running in a state where the party has been so dominant for so long that there's no internal mechanism for clearing the field. When you run a one-party state, you don't develop the muscle for competitive discipline. You develop ambition without accountability.

California Republicans haven't won a governor's race since 2006. The state's voter registration tilts so heavily blue that a Republican winning the governorship would rank among the most significant political upsets in modern state politics. And yet Democrats are staring at the possibility because they cannot get out of their own way.

The party that lectures the country about threats to democracy is privately telling its own candidates that too much voter choice is dangerous. Hicks didn't frame his letter as a defense of the democratic process. He framed it as damage control.

Nearly two decades of dominance, and the biggest threat to California Democrats is California Democrats.