Hilton and Becerra lead in new California governor poll. Steyer trails but isn’t out

Two weeks from now we’ll probably know which of the 61 candidates for governor have finished 1-2 in the primary election and will face each other in November for the dubious honor of governing a state that may be ungovernable.

The weasel adverb “probably” is warranted because three would-be governors are in a close race, and California is notorious for taking a long time to produce a final election count.

The latest Democratic Party poll, released Tuesday, has Republican Steve Hilton, a British-born former Fox News commentator, and Democrat Xavier Becerra, a former attorney general, virtually tied at 22% and 21% respectively. Billionaire Tom Steyer is still alive at 15%, but all other once-viable candidates are trailing in single digits.

There are three potential outcomes of the June 2 primary, assuming that none of the 58 other candidates defies political gravity and climbs into contention over the next fortnight.

The most likely is that Hilton and Becerra are the top two finishers and will face each other in the November election. Less likely is Hilton and Steyer finishing 1-2 or the two Democrats taking both top places.

Given the state’s lopsided Democratic voter registration advantage, Hilton’s only realistic chance of winning in November would be for his Democratic rival to somehow self-destruct. That’s an unlikely scenario, but this campaign has already generated a string of unpredictable events, so nothing should be rejected out of hand.

There’s been a semi-secret drive underway by Democratic operatives to trumpet Hilton’s ties to a very unpopular President Donald Trump, hoping that would spark an outpouring of Republican support that would boost him into one of the two top finishes, thus avoiding a Democrat-vs-Democrat showdown.

That’s exactly what happened in a U.S. Senate race two years ago when Democrat Adam Schiff helped Republican Steve Garvey qualify for the November election, thereby avoiding a faceoff with Democrat Katie Porter. Porter is now running for governor but has faded to 7% in the latest poll.

Earlier in the governor’s race, Democrats worried about a 1-2 Republican primary finish that would lock them out of the governorship, but that possibility faded when a leading Democrat, Eric Stalwell, imploded among allegations of sexual harassment and assault.

Stalwell’s exit (his name remains on the ballot) propelled Becerra, who had been languishing in the lower tier of candidates, into contention seemingly overnight.

Ever since, he’s been the target of steadily escalating personal attacks from Steyer, who’s spending millions from his vast fortune on a nonstop barrage of TV and internet ads accusing Becerra of seemingly everything short of causing the heartbreak of psoriasis.

The most pointed allegation is that Becerra is somehow culpable for a scheme in which money from one of his campaign accounts was siphoned into the pockets of what had been a trusted aide.

Three people have pleaded guilty to federal charges, and prosecutors consider Becerra to have been a victim, not a perpetrator. But that has not stopped Steyer from attacks that fall just a micrometer short of accusing Becerra.

One Steyer broadside: “Becerra’s campaign manager and chief of staff were indicted for stealing from his campaign, raising the question: Was Becerra complicit, or too incompetent to notice?”

While the scenario of a 1-2 Republican finish has vanished with Becerra’s rapid rise and the decline of the other GOP candidate, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the possibility of a Republican freezeout has so unnerved Democratic leaders that they now are planning to do away with the top-two system that they — and Republican Party apparatchiks — never liked in the first place, because it leaves too much to chance.

Or, in other words, it is thought to be too small “d” democratic.