California Democrats are mailing back their ballots more slowly than usual as the June 2 primary draws near, a sign of how unsettled the race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom remains after a campaign full of surprises. With no clear frontrunner and no political superstar in a field of roughly 60 candidates, voters are still sorting through a contest that has refused to settle into a simple choice.
Colin Culver, 21, cast his ballot for Tom Steyer and described the decision with a shrug that fits the mood around the race. “I’m kind of pinching my nose and voting this go-around rather than being excited,” he said. That hesitation has become part of the story in a state where the top-two primary system puts every candidate on a single ballot regardless of party, forcing Democrats to choose from a crowded list instead of a familiar partisan lane.
The late pace of returns matters because voting began in early May, giving Californians weeks to make up their minds before Election Day. Yet the campaign has given them little reason to hurry toward a consensus. Antonio Villaraigosa, Katie Porter, Tom Steyer and Steve Hilton all shared a debate stage on May 5 at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park, Xavier Becerra held a town hall in Sacramento on May 11, and Steyer and Porter met again in San Francisco on May 14, but none of those moments produced the kind of breakaway momentum that usually tightens a governor’s race this late in the calendar.
That is the friction inside this contest: Democrats are being asked to pick a nominee in a top-two system that rewards clarity, while the campaign itself has delivered the opposite. The result is a primary that feels less like a race with a single destination than a test of whether any one candidate can rise above the noise before ballots are counted on June 2.
If the slow return rate holds, the clearest winner may be the candidate who can simply give voters a reason to stop hesitating. Right now, that answer still appears to be out of reach.
