President Donald Trump has a vendetta against the Presidio, a San Francisco national park site with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge that is supported by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Trump already fired the federal workers who maintain the site — and now one of his longtime lobbyists, a self-described “dirty trickster,” may be helping a Native American group get it.

“In a lobbying disclosure form filed on Monday, Stone’s firm, Drake Ventures, reported that the [Muwekma Ohlone Tribe] had paid it $30,000 for services in the first quarter of this year and another $20,000 in the fourth quarter of 2025,” according to public records obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday.

The report added, “The filing, which doesn’t have any specific information about what the lobbying efforts consist of or whether it’s related to the Presidio, comes nearly two weeks after President Trump terminated the national park’s Board of Trustees.”

The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe has fought for 45 years to be added to the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ official list of recognized tribes, and has called on Trump to “return the Presidio to indigenous care.” The tribal leaders explicitly argue the Presidio should be turned over to them.

“As the current administration works to eliminate the Presidio Trust as part of its effort to streamline the federal workforce, we stand ready to offer a cost-effective, environmentally responsible solution to filling the stewardship void,” tribal chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh stated in March.

“It’s possible that the hiring of Stone could be part of the tribe’s aggressive efforts to obtain federal recognition, a campaign that prompted a confrontation with members of Congress in January 2023 and has generated conflict with other local tribal leaders,” the San Francisco Chronicle wrote. “Recognition would give the tribe’s members new legitimacy, access to federal funds, the ability to purchase land and potentially even lucrative gaming rights.”

Trump holds a grudge against the Presidio because of Pelosi’s involvement with it, including refusing to appoint a seventh member to the Trust’s board of directors and then firing the six remaining members.

“The 1,500-acre recreation hub is one of the country’s greatest public parks,” the SFGate’s Travel Editor Silas Valentino opined about Trump’s policies toward the Presidio Trust. “It deserves better than neglect from its federal leaders, who now stand to answer for any service disruptions impacting the more than 9 million people who visit each year.”

While it would make sense for Stone to support Trump in a vendetta against the Presidio, he has previously affiliated with the white supremacist Proud Boys group and flashed a white supremacist hand signal. (The Proud Boys, which helped Trump in his 2020-2021 coup attempt, denies being white supremacist despite their racist rhetoric and ties.) When this journalist contacted him about those two issues for Salon in 2019, Stone used an expletive to describe claims that the hand signal is white supremacist, even though he later also said “the gesture is used often by President Trump and is used to connote support for the president in photos of the proudboys [sic] nationwide.”

Rarely does President Donald Trump evoke bipartisan applause while delivering a State of the Union address, but he inspired just such a moment last February — when he called out former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her husband's history of stock trading.

"As we ensure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market, let's also make sure that members of Congress cannot corruptly profit from using insider information," said Trump as members of both parties stood to applaud.

While Republicans and Democrats in both houses have long invested in markets, with some banking huge profits from such dubious trades, it is Pelosi who has endured the most flak. Republican members named a bill to restrict congressional stock trades after her: the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments, or PELOSI, Act. During that speech, a smirking Trump urged the former speaker to stand up and demanded that Congress "pass the Stop Insider Trading Act without delay."

Yet neither that bill nor any other reform legislation would have stopped the eye-popping orgy of recent stock trades by none other than Trump himself, with thousands of individual market transactions on his account revealed this week in disclosure documents. A new filing with the Office of Government Ethics, released on May 14, showed more than 3,500 specific trades in Trump's name during the first quarter of 2026, with a value between $220 million and $750 million. This represents by far the largest series of securities transactions by a sitting president in American history.

As one observer noted on X, it adds up to 60 trades per day, while he issues executive orders, talks with foreign leaders, shifts tariffs, and gives policy directives that directly affect the value of his holdings.

Former White House ethics counsel Richard Painter told Forbes magazine that he had researched the financial history of every preceding chief executive. "I don't think we've had any president trade in the stock market," he said. Previous presidents had blind trusts with index funds, if they owned any stocks at all.

What outraged ethics experts was not just the volume of Trump's market activity but the obvious overlaps between his actions and policies and the equities that he bought and sold. Although it is impossible to determine exactly how much he may have profited from what looks suspiciously like insider trading — exactly the crime he accused the Pelosis of perpetrating — there can be little doubt that he has made millions.

The Dell Deal
Not long before he delivered that State of the Union slap at Pelosi, Trump bought somewhere between $1 million and $5 million in Dell Computers stock. Then on May 8, less than three months later, he gave a public speech at the White House where he urged "everyone" to "go out and buy Dell," driving the company's stock to an all-time high. Since he bought Dell stock in February, it has gone up a whopping 96%.

Nvidia and Defense Deals
Around the same time, Trump bought a big chunk of Nvidia stock, just before that firm announced a big chip agreement with Meta, and then he purchased still more Nvidia a week before the Commerce Department permitted the sale of the company's chips to Saudi Arabia. Ironically, Nvidia was among the stocks whose purchase by Paul Pelosi provoked Republican outrage; he later sold it before its value rose astronomically.

Trump praising such companies as Palantir and Intel on his social media platform has similarly inflated their stocks after he bought chunks for his account.

The Palantir Pattern
Trump increased his Palantir holdings just as the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security were awarding billion-dollar contracts to the company, whose principal shareholder is the fascist-curious, Trump-backing billionaire Peter Thiel. So now the president too can profit from the company's Orwellian surveillance technologies.

Robinhood and Federal Programs
During the same period, Trump invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Robinhood, the financial technology firm. News reports indicate that those purchases occurred as the Treasury Department named Robinhood as the brokerage and trustee for the federally funded "Trump Accounts" to be set up for American kids. Those children don't stand to earn much, but never mind — Trump will do very well.

The list of sleazy transactions goes on and on, with many more examples no doubt to be unearthed in months to come. The response from the White House and the Trump family echoes their usual "move along, nothing to see here" refrain. Don Jr. recently complained that charges of rampant corruption against his father were "getting old." And it is true that the crooked misconduct dates back to the first Trump administration; it is simply more widespread, more encompassing and more brazen now.

Contradictory Explanations
At least it would be better if the family and the administration flacks could get their stories straight. Eric Trump says his family's stock holdings are exclusively in broad market indexes like the Schwab 1000, a claim belied by Donald Trump's own filings, which show thousands of individual trades. Meanwhile, a White House spokesman told Fortune that all of Trump's assets are in a trust "managed by his children" with no conflicts of interest, another obvious contradiction.

A Pattern of Deception
The Trumps — and the Kushners, and many others associated with the first family — have gaslighted the American public with such bogus "explanations" of their grift-gorging for many years. Everyone in the Trump circle, including Cabinet officers such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has long known that the president is a crook. Out of cowardice and personal ambition, and sometimes greed, they have turned away from challenging his self-enrichment. The public, too, has largely ignored Trump's corruption, believing that "both parties do it," and there is plainly some basis for that cynicism.

But the scale of Trump's exploitation of public resources, his incessant stealing with both hands, is exponentially worse than any theft previously perpetrated by Democrats or Republicans. At a time when voters expected this president to look out for their pocketbooks, he does nothing but stuff his own, plundering them and profiting hugely. Polls suggest that they have at last begun to notice — and don't like what they see.

For many years, retired Judge J. Michael Luttig, now 71, has been a prominent figure in the conservative legal movement. But he infuriated MAGA Republicans when, in 2022, he testified for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-California) January 6 Select Committee and described Donald Trump as a "clear and present danger to American democracy." Luttig clearly blamed Trump for the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building, arguing that he was unfit to ever serve as president again because he promoted an "insurrection."

During a late April appearance on Jim Acosta's show, Luttig warned that U.S. democracy is facing even more dire circumstances in 2026 than it was in 2021.

"It is exponentially worse today than it was in 2021, Jim. The president has forcibly collapsed the separation of powers in the United States of America," Luttig told former CNN host Acosta. "The Constitution itself is, of course, the greatest charter of government in all of human civilization. But the real genius of the Constitution was the separation of the respective powers in the United States."

Luttig added, "And for 250 years, that genius, that balance — that separation and balance and checks and balances of the other two branches — on the third, has worked magnificently."

Despite their many political differences, President Donald Trump and liberal economist Robert Reich have something in common: Both will be turning 80 in June (Trump on June 14, Reich on June 24). Reich, in a Guardian column, lays out some reasons why he believes that Trump is suffering from "diminished capacities" and should be removed from office for the good of the United States.

Reich and Trump, both born in June 1946, are in the older ender of the Baby Boom generation (former President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, all octogenarians born in the early 1940s, are members of the Silent Generation — not Boomers). Different people age differently; Sanders, at 84, still sounds very sharp and focused in speeches. But Reich argues that Trump is sounding increasingly "diminished."

"I do not wish Trump ill," Reich writes in The Guardian. "While he hasn't shown a shred of compassion for anyone other than himself, this doesn't justify any of us lacking compassion for him. It's also in the interest of the U.S. and the world that he be physically and mentally able to discharge the duties of his office. So, we have reason to be concerned about Trump's visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last week for what the White House described as a 'routine annual dental and medical assessment.'"

Reich stresses that as someone who is about to become an octogenarian himself, he knows how much time can take its toll.

"Trump turns 80 next month," explains Reich, who served as labor secretary in the Clinton Administration. "I feel entitled to comment on the practical meaning of this milestone because I'll also turn 80 next month. He was born 10 days before me. Let's just say that reaching it doesn't mean altogether good things, unless you consider the alternative. Even in a healthy person, small things begin to break down as one approaches 80."

Reich continues, "Everything takes just a bit more time and effort. Joints ache. Energy isn't quite as abundant."

The liberal economist notes that Trump is experiencing "bruised hands, swollen ankles, bouts of drowsiness, exceedingly long blinks during official meetings…. and erratic, if not off-the-charts weird, behavior."

"What's he afraid of?" Reich writes. "Probably that the American public will catch on to his diminishing capacities…. But if Trump can't remember where he put, say, a top-secret memo or why he entered the Situation Room, or if he expresses bizarre impatience, it's a potential risk to the nation and world…. The evidence continues to mount: Trump is clearly incapable of satisfactorily discharging the duties of president of the United States."

Reich adds, "The sooner the 25th Amendment is invoked, or he is impeached, the safer are America and the world."

If there is one lesson that has emerged from the 2026 midterm election primaries, it is that Democrats and Republicans react very differently to ultra-rich candidates.

“Tom Steyer ran for governor of California as a climate crusader endorsed by Bernie Sanders’ political organization, Our Revolution,” wrote MS NOW’s Armand Manoukian on Thursday. “He also spent at least $216 million of his own money on the race — and in the end, that was the only thing voters seemed to remember. With nearly 58 percent of the vote counted, he is running third.”

“The timing is unkind to the ultrawealthy,” Manoukian wrote. “In a March YouGov survey, 77 percent of adults said the wealthy have too much political power, and 52 percent said the government should try to reduce the share of wealth held by billionaires. More than half of adults told a May Politico poll that cost of living is the ‘worst they can remember.’ Against that backdrop, self-funding candidates — once a recruiter’s dream — have become a harder sell.”

Steyer is not alone in falling prey to this problem. In San Francisco, Saikat Chakrabarti fell short in seeking retiring speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi’s House seat. Former venture capitalist Eric Jones similarly fell short in California’s 4th congressional district. By contrast, Republicans still reward candidates with deep pockets.

“In South Dakota, political newcomer Toby Doeden, a car dealership owner, steered $4 million into his own campaign and outpolled the sitting governor in the GOP gubernatorial primary,” Manoukian wrote. “In Georgia, Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare executive, jumped into the Republican gubernatorial primary as a political unknown, pledging to spend $50 million of his fortune, then spent closer to $80 million.”

Manoukian added, “Running on the slogan ‘From Foster Care to Billionaire,’ he blanketed local television and advanced to a June runoff, knocking out Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. He’ll face Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who has funded his own campaign to the tune of $17 million.”

MS NOW’s Ja’han Jones similarly reported on the waning influence of Big Tech executives on Wednesday.

“Multiple candidates backed heavily by Big Tech executives floundered in Tuesday’s primary elections, as concerns about the corrosive effects of new technologies such as artificial intelligence tools continue to mount,” Jones wrote. “The clearest examples came in California, where tech executives spent ungodly amounts of money attempting to make sure their chosen candidates emerged victorious.”

To illustrate his point, Jones listed California gubernatorial candidate San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who lost despite being funded by tech executives like Google co-founder Sergey Brin and pro-Trump Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, as well as Ethan Agarwal, a tech investor funded by pro-Trump Silicon Valley executive Marc Andreessen and who challenged Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) by opposing Khanna’s proposed one-time 5 percent wealth tax on billionaires.

One former lawyer and political columnist is suggesting that President Donald Trump and members of his administration might be digging their own criminal grave.

Speaking to MS NOW's "Morning Joe," an animated David French said that the reason Trump's approval rating is so bad is that MAGA ran on the ideas around anti-corruption when it comes to Nancy Pelosi (D-Calf.) and Hunter Biden, not knowing that "behind the condemnation was the assertion that, well, the real problem is you just weren't grifty enough."

"I mean, this is the kind of stuff that the Gilded Age guys are all sitting there going, hey, we were born in the wrong century," French continued. "We had no idea of the level of corruption that was available to us and later on in American history. I mean, this is a this level of corruption is so severe that if in a new administration, if there are not wholesale pardons, that it's easy to imagine, just very easy to imagine, extensive criminal prosecutions related to insider trading, related to the kinds of tit for tat, quid pro quo corruption that we've seen. This is just an extraordinary moment in American history."

Joe Scarborough called it "a level of corruption we've never seen before." He compared it to MAGA world losing their minds over the idea that Hunter Biden sold one of his paintings for $85,000 from a private American. Under Trump, however, taxpayers are directly funding companies that Trump's children have invested in that now have government contracts and "possibly billions of dollars that the Trump family has enriched themselves" through cryptocurrency deals.

"This is again just the hypocrisy. It's just extraordinary," Scarborough added.

Co-host Willie Geist specifically cited the incident in which Trump invested in Dell, went to an event and urged people there to buy a Dell computer.

Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo), who once served as a county prosecutor, commented that it's time to look down the road at ways to hold Trump accountable. However, she firmly believes, "Trump is going to pardon everyone in his circle before he walks out the door." Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has given the president immunity "erroneously," she said.

"I don't think immunity on his personal financial stuff, but to get the votes to actually convict him after impeachment is very, very hard. And what happens here is the erosion of the criminal justice system, because Americans are so frustrated that the Trump family is getting away with this. How in America can you do this and get away with it? And he believes he's going to get away with it," said McCaskill.

President Donald Trump has so thoroughly intimidated House Speaker Mike Johnson, he practically comes across as lazy, at least if one conservative commentator is to be believed.

“Each House speakership ends up having its own unique character—forged through a combination of successes and failures,” wrote The Bulwark's Joe Perticone on Thursday. After reviewing the problems that afflicted past House Speakers like Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy, he described Johnson as unique in his lack of productivity.

“Mike Johnson’s speakership is somewhat different from all these,” Perticone wrote. “His overriding project has been to cede whatever power and decision-making he can to the White House, and this has, in turn, given shape to an unusual legacy, one defined by impotence.”

He added, “In recent months there has been a strange spirit of bipartisanship among frustrated House members, who have relied on the previously rare tactic of discharge petitions to circumvent Johnson. The latest such bill directly pushes back on the Donald Trump administration in a policy area the MAGA movement finds particularly divisive: aid to Ukraine.”

Democrats were able to convince their Republican House colleagues to sign on to a proposal to force a floor vote on a new Ukraine aid package, but this had to happen while Johnson assumed a passive role.

“The Ukraine bill will now get a vote on the House floor,” Perticone observed. “If it passes and heads to the Senate, a much larger percentage of lawmakers should be willing to back it. But whether it receives a floor vote there is up in the air.”

He added, “It’s a remarkable moment, nonetheless. The second most powerful lawmaker in the land being reduced to the role of legislative bystander in his own chamber.”

Two Democrats confirmed these impressions to Perticone.

“I think when you’ve got a very weak speaker in Mike Johnson and a majority that he can’t govern, it’s no surprise that we’re having more discharge petitions,” Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) told Perticone. “We don’t have the same kind tools the majority has, but we’re still gonna force votes where we can. And the fact that Mike Johnson continues to lose some Republicans who are willing to stand with us for votes that are important—it tells me he’s weak, and frankly, it tells me that Republicans in competitive, tough districts, they see the writing on the wall.”

A different Pennsylvanian echoed those views.

“I really wish these bills would just come to the floor on their own,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) told Perticone in December. “It shouldn’t take a discharge petition. Leadership should be putting these bills on the floor when there’s that much support for it. A discharge is really forcing rank-and-file members to take matters into their own hands.”

On some occasions, Johnson has shown a willingness to stand up to Trump. Earlier this week, he delivered what Punchbowl described as “an explicit rebuke” to the president demanding that the House pass a housing bill that recently went through the Senate.

Despite being an overwhelmingly Democratic state, a quirk in California’s election laws may result in California voters needing to choose between two pro-Trump Republicans in the upcoming governor’s race.

“The current system allows the top two candidates, regardless of party, to move on to the runoff,” reported Los Angeles Times' Dakota Smith on Monday. “That has led to instances in which two Democrats or two Republicans have faced off in the general election.”

Smith added, “The state's gubernatorial election, for example, has prompted concern that two Republicans could shut out the Democratic candidates. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton have polled high in various surveys and are facing a large field of Democrats.”

In an attempt to prevent a situation like this from happening in the future, political consultant Steve Maviglio filed an application to state officials on Friday arguing that California’s voting system should revert to a traditional primary. In Maviglio’s proposal, each party’s top candidate will appear on the ballot during the general election.

"It was extremely scary to envision the November ballot for governor with Republicans on it," Maviglio said.

Democrats continue to struggle with finding a single candidate to rally behind in the upcoming gubernatorial race. One initial frontrunner, Rep. Eric Swalwell, exited from the race in disgrace after multiple women accused him of various forms of rape and sexual misconduct. A number of other candidates remain, including billionaire Tom Steyer, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former Rep. Katie Porter and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra. Californians who do not want a Republican governor, like Maviglio, are therefore concerned that the large field of well-known Democrats could split their party’s vote in such a way that the two finalists are Hilton and Bianco.

Further complicating matters is the fact that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have all declined to endorse a candidate and thereby elevate them above the pack.

Bianco, though not endorsed by Trump, has closely embraced the Republican’s legacy of MAGA politics, particularly by arguing that he would be a tough on crime governor. Instead of Bianco, Trump endorsed Hilton, a former Fox News host who in 2019 told this journalist for Salon that he views Trump as a “fierce” patriot.

“In those days it was all about America: ‘We are being ripped off, America should be doing better,’” Hilton told this journalist at the time. “It’s a fierce kind of patriotism, and a belief in America, I think. ‘America First,’ therefore, is the closest thing I think you’re going to get to a defining idea of Trumpism. And that does connect trade issues and immigration issues.”

At the same time, Hilton argued that “I think the president himself would be the first to say that the notion of a sort of philosophical approach is somewhat alien for him. That’s not how he sees things. He really is, I think at heart, a pragmatist. He’s like, ‘OK, there’s a problem here. How do I fix it?'”

A Republican lawmaker has been caught on tape agreeing to a racist remark directed at House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in which he was referred to as having "cotton-picking hands."

Jeffries, the House Minority Leader since taking over from Nancy Pelosi, has been outspoken in response to the Virginia Supreme Court's latest ruling, shooting down a new congressional map designed to create four new Democratic seats. The effort, approved by the state's voters in a special ballot measure, was undertaken in order to counteract gerrymandering campaigns done in red states at the behest of President Donald Trump, with the aim of rigging the 2026 midterms in their favor.

Jen Kiggans is a Republican representative for Virginia, who on Monday appeared on the latest episode of the "Richmond Morning News" podcast with host Rich Herrera. During the interview, Herrera made a comment about Jeffries, a New York representative and a black man, staying out of Virginia politics, and included a phrase with racist origins.

"If Hakeem Jeffries wants to be involved in Virginia politics, then I suggest he does what a bunch of New Yorkers are doing," Herrera said. "Leave New York, move down here to Virginia, run for office down here. You could represent us. If not, get your cotton-picking hands off of Virginia."

"That's right, ditto," Kiggans said. "Yes, yes to that."

Virginia Democrats, opting against a nuclear option, have appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to have the new map reinstated. The court previously allowed California's pro-Democratic new district map, also passed by voters via ballot measure, to proceed against a GOP lawsuit, though that suit's reasoning alleged that the map was an unlawful racial gerrymander. The lawsuit that tanked the Virginia map, meanwhile, argued that proper procedures were not followed.

Despite the setback in Virginia, Jeffries this week remained confident that Democrats will retake the House in the midterms, albeit by a slimmer margin than they had hoped. Other election experts and observers have reached a similar conclusion, while also noting that the Senate majority is also increasingly in play.

"We remain undeterred," Jeffries wrote in a letter to his Democratic colleagues. "The cost of living is out of control, grocery bills are skyrocketing, gas prices are surging, healthcare has been ripped away from millions and a reckless war of choice is raging in the Middle East. Donald Trump is deeply unpopular and Republicans have failed to make life better for the American people. Instead of changing direction, GOP extremists are scheming to change the electoral composition of districts throughout the country.

He continued: "Republicans only hold a three-seat majority in the House of Representatives. This is the narrowest margin of any party since 1930. During Donald Trump’s first midterm election in 2018, House Democrats flipped 40 seats. To take control this Fall, we only need to flip a fraction of that total. That is why right-wing extremists have been in full panic mode since they passed their historically unpopular One Big Ugly Bill last July. Our effort to forcefully push back against the Republican redistricting scheme will not slow down. We are just getting started."

Democrats are searching for a hero to save them in the California governor’s race.

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So far, no one in party leadership has come to the rescue.

Despite Rep. Eric Swalwell’s exit from the race this week, the Democratic field remains unwieldy, with seven major candidates still splitting the field less than three weeks before ballots are sent. Each of them refuses to bow out, regardless of their polling numbers, in the hope they can capture some of the voter attention that Swalwell’s demise drew to the race.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, the face of the party in California, is not interested in elevating a successor. Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks, who faces criticism for not using his position to cull the field, has relied on party-commissioned polls and vague pleas for candidates to “honestly assess” their campaign’s viability, refusing to openly pressure anyone to drop out.

Even former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — known for urging then-Rep. Adam Schiff to run for Senate and former President Joe Biden to drop his reelection bid — won’t intervene.

“People have reached out to me saying, ‘Your mom has to do something!’” said Christine Pelosi, daughter of the San Francisco congresswoman and herself a candidate for state Senate.

“I said, ‘You know what? She doesn't, though,’” the younger Pelosi said. “She already did that with Biden and Harris. She's not going to — don't look to her to do that again.”

Gone is the heyday of the San Francisco-based political machine, a network of political talent that dominated state politics for decades and produced titans such as Pelosi and Newsom, both of whom are moving on from California politics.

Now that pipeline has run dry, and this year there is no obvious heir to Newsom for the party to coalesce behind. No current statewide officeholder joined the fray, and both presumptive favorites — former Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla — opted not to run.

That has made top Democrats loath to weigh in on the state’s first truly open Democratic primary in 16 years. In 2018, Newsom, then the lieutenant governor, was widely viewed as the most likely successor to former Gov. Jerry Brown, another product of the San Francisco political machine.

The 2026 race is also only the second time an open field has competed under the top-two primary system, adopted 16 years ago to the chagrin of both parties. That means two Democrats or two Republicans could advance to the general election and lock the other party out.

Newsom reiterated his lack of interest this week when he issued a statement that said in part, “I have full confidence that voters will choose a candidate who reflects the values and direction Californians believe in.”

Too much democracy for Democrats?

While grassroots activists have for decades decried the king-making of insider machine politics, the alternative — an abundance of candidates with no clear frontrunner — has proved unappealing too.

The resulting decision paralysis has resurrected calls for a strong leader to step in.

“This has been incredibly frustrating, not to mention scary, with the idea that we could end up with two Republicans,” said RL Miller, a longtime delegate and chair of the party’s environmental caucus. “I really do believe that there has been a failure of leadership at the top.”

Miller theorized that party leaders were overcorrecting after years of backlash following the 2016 presidential election, in which establishment Democrats disregarded the grassroots support for Sen. Bernie Sanders and instead anointed Hillary Clinton.

As more Democratic gubernatorial candidates entered the fray in the last year, Miller said she thought leadership had the “admirable intent” of letting delegates winnow the field themselves.

But anxieties were already spiking before the Democrats’ endorsing convention in February, where none of the nine candidates vying for the gubernatorial nod amassed more than 25% — far short of the 60% needed. Hicks faced repeated questions then about whether he would step in, but insisted it wasn’t his role.

“By the party convention, the alarm bells had been ringing for months,” said Miller, who has consistently voted against Hicks in internal party elections.

After the convention, Hicks released an open letter urging that “every candidate honestly assess the viability of their candidacy and campaign,” and “if you do not have a viable path to make it to the general election” not to file to run. Only one listened, former Assemblymember Ian Calderon, who was polling around 1% or less.

Later, Hicks announced the party would conduct ongoing polls on the race and release them every seven to 10 days through early May, when ballots are sent.

Hicks’ defenders said he was right to abstain from picking favorites. Christine Pelosi said it would be “inappropriate” for the chair to weigh in on the candidates after delegates at the party convention chose not to endorse anyone.

Hicks’ calls for candidates to “consider their viability” was a “somewhat extraordinary and surprising” move, said Paul Mitchell, the architect of the gerrymandered congressional maps that voters approved via Proposition 50 to boost congressional Democrats in the upcoming election.

“It maybe wasn't surprising for people who think that the Democratic Party chair is like a backroom dealer that's going to knock heads or something like that,” Mitchell said. “But that's not the chair’s role in California right now.”

Top-two primary adds to tension

Both Mitchell and Christine Pelosi blamed the top-two system for much of the drama. The slim possibility that two Republicans could emerge from the primary has spurred many of the calls for leadership to weigh in.

Mitchell argued that since President Donald Trump put a thumb on the scale by endorsing former Fox News host Steve Hilton, there’s less risk that both he and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco would end up on the November ticket, alleviating some of the pressure on Democrats.

“If it wasn't a top two, people wouldn't care,” said Christine Pelosi. “You wouldn't have the added agita of ‘there's only two Republicans and there's a bunch of Democrats.’”

Notably, the state GOP failed to endorse a candidate at its recent convention, indicating that Trump’s nod might not hold as much sway as Democrats assume.

Still, if Hicks is trying to convince rank-and-file Democrats he’s doing enough, it’s not working.

Amar Shergill, the former leader of the party’s progressive caucus, suggested that its weak, decentralized leadership was by design so monied interests could exert more control over who gets elected.

“Rusty Hicks is furniture that folks with real power use at their discretion,” Shergill said.

“There's no sort of anger or animosity towards him as a person,” he said. “If it wasn’t Rusty, it would be somebody else. This is just the political situation right now.”

In an interview, Hicks told CalMatters that he is “doing what is required” to ensure a Democrat wins the race. But when pressed repeatedly, Hicks would not elaborate on what that work entails, if he believes what he’s done so far is working or if he should have had a stronger hand in culling the field, as his critics have suggested.

“I'm not interested in opening up the playbook as to what we will or will not do in the coming days and weeks,” he said.

CalMatters’ Yue Stella Yu contributed to this report.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.