No surprise...

Gavin Newsom, John Cox to face off in fall CA governor’s race

By Joe Garofoli

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor who has spent nearly eight years as understudy to Gov. Jerry Brown, secured a spot Tuesday night in the November general election to succeed the termed-out governor.

He will face John Cox, a little-known Republican businessman who moved to California only a few years ago and has lost four previous runs for elective office — including one for president. California’s outnumbered GOP voters coalesced around Cox after President Trump tweeted an endorsement of him late in the campaign. He was running second in Tuesday’s primary, with 26 percent of the vote, behind Newsom’s 34 percent.

Newsom’s fellow Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa, a former state Assembly speaker and ex-mayor of Los Angeles, was locked in a battle for third with GOP Assemblyman Travis Allen of Orange County. But only the top two finishers advance to the Nov. 6 general election, and both Villaraigosa and Allen were far behind Cox.

Bringing up the back of the pack of major candidates were Democratic state Treasurer John Chiang and Democratic former state schools chief Delaine Eastin.

Cox will face steep odds in a state where only one in every four voters is Republican, two-thirds of the voters disapprove of Trump and a Republican hasn’t been elected governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006. And Schwarzenegger was an international movie star with near-universal name recognition; more than half of likely voters had no opinion of Cox in a nonpartisan Berkeley IGS survey released last week.

Cox was virtually tied with Allen in many polls until last month, when he got help from two very different people: Trump and Newsom.

“California finally deserves a great Governor, one who understands borders, crime and lowering taxes,” Trump tweeted three weeks ago. “John Cox is the man — he’ll be the best Governor you’ve ever had.” He followed it up with two more pro-Cox tweets, including one on election day.

Meanwhile, mindful that Cox would probably be a weaker November foe than another Democrat, Newsom’s campaign ran ads that mentioned Cox as his opponent, hoping to boost his name recognition.

“Those two things put Cox in the game,” said Darry Sragow, publisher of the nonpartisan California Target Book, which analyzes state races. “A lot of Republicans weren’t sure who to vote for until Cox got that seal of approval.”

Newsom sought to draw that distinction in his victory speech Tuesday night in San Francisco, saying, “Voters will have a real choice this November between a governor who will stand up to Donald Trump and a foot soldier in his war on California.”