California Democrats Leave Governor’s Race Unsettled as Gaza Fight Looms

California Democrats chose “Together We Win” as their slogan for their statewide convention this past weekend in San Francisco, but beyond solidarity in opposing President Donald Trump, there was decidedly little togetherness on the key issue of endorsements.

Getting the party’s official nod is a key indicator for voters deciding whom to support. But they’ll have no such help for the June primary when it comes to gubernatorial candidates, where none of the Democrats seeking that office came close to winning the 60% of delegates needed to secure the endorsement.

The closest was Rep. Eric Swalwell, who won just 24% support. The other leading candidates, based on recent polling, were well behind in delegate support:

Betty Yee: 17%
Xavier Becerra: 14%
Tom Steyer: 13%
Katie Porter: 9%

The results also show how out of sync with voters party insiders are. In independent polls, Yee and Becerra are routinely in single digits, sometimes less than 5%. The indecisive result only heightened concerns that too many Democratic candidates could split the vote, leaving Republicans Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton in a November runoff.

Before the convention, party Chair Rusty Hicks told KQED Democrats would “hopefully walk away with clarity” about who the leading candidates were. Nope.

Nonetheless, Hicks did not indicate any interest in using his position to pressure anyone to drop out. “I think that the primary process in and of itself is a natural winnowing process,” he said.

Another landmine Democrats navigated was Israel’s war in Gaza and whether or not to use the word “genocide” to describe it.

The issue exploded at a January forum in San Francisco for candidates running to replace Nancy Pelosi in Congress, when each was asked to answer “Yes or No” to 10 questions in a lightning round.

To the question, “Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza?” two candidates — San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan and former software engineer Saikat Chakrabarti held up a sign reading “yes” — prompting loud cheers.

But state Sen. Scott Wiener declined to hold up either sign, igniting anger and shouts of “shame” from some in the crowd.

Days later — under fire from progressives — Wiener released a video. He acknowledged that genocide has occurred. Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Wiener, who is Jewish, said using a word originally used to describe the Nazi Holocaust in this case is painful.

“But despite that pain and that trauma, we all have eyes, and we see the absolute devastation and catastrophic death toll in Gaza inflicted by the Israeli government,” Wiener said in the video.

Later, he told KQED, “For Saikat Chakrabarti and for Connie Chan, this issue is not even vaguely personal. This is pure politics for them. For me, it’s not politics.”

But, of course, any issue can be both personal and political. And one thing is clear: After that candidates’ forum, Wiener’s campaign was facing a backlash from supporters, according to political consultant Sam Lauter.

“People were saying, ‘I need my congressman to take a moral position on this. And to me, it looks like genocide,’” he said.

Lauter has endorsed Wiener for the seat, but said his use of the word genocide to describe Gaza was a gut-punch.

“But it wasn’t a gut-punch that Scott did it, but that he had to do it,” he added.

Shortly after acknowledging genocide, Wiener resigned as co-chair of the state Legislature’s Jewish Caucus. Although he said he’d been wanting to step down for a while, it’s clear the caucus was not comfortable with Wiener’s use of the word genocide.

Factions within the state party have been meeting for weeks to hammer out platform language both sides could live with.

Unlike previous years, Mirvette Judeh, chair of the party’s Arab American Caucus, said she noticed a change of tone from Jewish Democrats.

“This time, there was a lot of discussion; it wasn’t easy, it was extremely difficult. There were some challenges, victories and losses on both sides,” Judeh said.

“There should be justice for Palestinians, a state of their own, and then there’s where they can live in dignity and peace, and that Israel should remain also a Jewish state where they also can live in dignity and peace,” said Andrew Lachman, president of California Jewish Democrats.

Before the platform language was finalized, Judeh told KQED she “felt that the other side really tried. We tried to work together. It wasn’t easy,” adding she was hopeful. “If we could walk away from this with this hope, and both sides not hating each other, to me that’s a win.”

For now, that seems to have happened. But the issue of Israel and Gaza will continue to come up, said Erin Covey, who covers congressional races for the Cook Political Report.

She notes that willingness to criticize Israel is becoming a litmus test in some elections, especially in liberal districts like this one.

“They all may be pretty progressive on social issues and on fiscal issues. Israel is one of the few areas where you do oftentimes see clear distinctions,” Covey said.

“In most campaigns around the country right now, we’re seeing this issue becoming a particularly vivid litmus test in Democratic primaries, and it’s becoming more and more challenging for supporters of Israel to navigate that landscape,” USC political communications expert Dan Schnur said.

But at this weekend’s Democratic convention, none of the candidates running for governor mentioned Israel or Gaza. And party leaders likely hope to keep it that way.