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California gubernatorial candidates, from left, former Rep. Katie Porter, businessman Tom Steyer, businessman Steve Hilton, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, look on during a CNN California Governor Primary Debate at East Los Angeles College Tuesday in Monterey Park, California. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Clawing California Dems in Governor's Debate 'Prove to Everyone Why They Can't Vote for a Democrat'

By Joe Saunders May 6, 2026 at 3:19pm

On the debate stage Tuesday night, California’s “jungle primary” system more than lived up to its name.

Five Democrats aiming to continue their party’s dismal governance of the once-Golden State spent two hours clawing at each other savagely, trying to advance their own sorry interests and demonstrating in the space of an evening why not one of them deserves to be in power for four years.

And the biggest beneficiaries might have been the two Republicans on stage with them.

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Joe Saunders

Story Editor

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Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He's been with Liftable Media since 2015.

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Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He's been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn't need a printing press to do it.

Birthplace

Philadelphia

Nationality

American