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America’s only non-partisan governor, Alaska’s Bill Walker, abruptly pulled out of his re-election bid last week. This illustrates a political rule that applies to independent candidates across the country, and in California, particularly. Steve Poizner, who is running for California insurance commissioner as an independent, has followed a path similar to the one that led to Walker’s victory in Alaska in 2014. Walker had been a Republican, having lost the primary for governor in 2010. Poizner had also been a Republican, having lost the primary for California governor in 2010. Walker came back four years later and won. To do so, he cleared the Democratic candidate out of the race. So it was a race between a Republican and an independent. This year, Poizner cleared Republican candidates out of the race for insurance commissioner, leaving him in a head-to-head contest with the Democrat. Poizner is expected to win, just as Walker did, in a one-on-one contest. Polling has consistently shown that, even in California, a generic independent beats a generic Democrat, or a generic Republican, when the race can be limited to two.
When the race is three-way, however, independents do not fare so well. Seeking re-election this year, Walker had both a Democrat and a Republican running against him. Walker was polling behind. Had Walker the same luck he had in 2014 of only a single opponent, he would likely have won. The history of independent candidates in American presidential politics shows the same pattern. Ross Perot lost in 1992; Ralph Nader lost in 2000; Teddy Roosevelt lost in 1912 — all ran in three-way races.
In California, this pattern plays out in the primary, since the final race is guaranteed to be between only two candidates. The most recent example was when the exceptionally qualified Dan Schnur lost in the primary for secretary of state in 2014. Of all offices that ought to be non-partisan, secretary of state, charged with running elections in California, should have been an obvious win for the independent Schnur, who had been chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission. With both major parties running candidates in the top-two primary system, however, the Republican Pete Peterson took second place instead of Schnur and was then defeated by the Democrat, Alex Padilla, who is now incumbent.
This dynamic changes when more than three candidates run. In California, polling indicated that an independent could have made the run-off for governor this year, as the Democrats split their vote between Newsom, Villaraigosa, Chiang and Eastin and the Republicans split their vote between Cox and Allen. With a large number of candidates in the primary, making the top-two is as possible for an independent as for a member of the two dominant parties.
The key, therefore, for an independent’s success in California is not to run in a three-way primary. Poizner appears likely to win; he has been endorsed by every newspaper that made an endorsement and has personal wealth to fend off a last minute attack of negative ads, in the unlikely event that the California Democratic Party redirects any funds away from their effort to flip congressional districts in Orange County. It also helps that Poizner was insurance commissioner once before, from 2006 to 2010, and did a superb job by all neutral evaluations.
Nevertheless, if the Republicans had not decided to discourage any candidate of their own for insurance commissioner, Poizner would likely not have emerged from the primary. The top-two would have included a Republican — who would then lose, as all Republican candidates for statewide office have for the last eight years.
California Republicans need to take note. “Republican” has been a toxic label for statewide offices in California in 2010, 2014 and likely 2018. If they want to prevent continued single-party rule in California, Republicans should not anoint a candidate for a statewide office if a qualified independent is running.
Tom Campbell is a professor of law and a professor of economics at Chapman University. He served five terms in Congress and two years as a state senator, and was California director of finance. He changed his registration from Republican to independent in 2016.
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