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Hey, YBs! : Look for $8 gallon gas in California. But hey. Anyway, here’s a cartoon for you, one, I am, sure of many more on this subject. I’ll get on the Week in Review piece now and will post soon, like by 6 or so. Hope you had a great day. Got my tooth fixed, as I know you’re tracking. —J.

Could this dark horse progressive candidate become California’s next governor?

By Jack Ohman

Contributing columnist

Feb 27, 2026

In the still-too-congested California governor race, something notable happened last week when former state Controller Betty Yee took second place in terms of endorsements from delegates at the state Democratic Party convention.

Yee, a Bay Area political star who graduated from Lowell High School in San Francisco, UC Berkeley and Golden Gate University in the city, has struggled to gain traction in polls of voters in a field crammed with eight Democrats and two Republicans. She’s polling at 5% in the most recent Public Policy Institute of California survey, well behind Republicans Steve Hilton at 14% and Chad Bianco at 12%, and the Democratic throng led by Katie Porter at 13%, Eric Swalwell at 11% and Tom Steyer at 10%.

So does picking up more delegate endorsements other than Swalwell at the state Democratic convention mean she’ll soon translate that into polling momentum? Time will tell. But in an hour-long interview with me this week, the incredibly mild-mannered Yee certainly wasn’t shy about criticizing her opponents in the race.“The Swalwell candidacy to me is not spending enough time and attention on California,” Yee said over coffee at Cora Coffee, a shiny java place right by the Capitol, where she hopes to get some office space.

On Porter’s eyebrow-raising convention stunt in which she took the podium and wrote “F— Trump” on a whiteboard, Yee was equally dismissive.“I don’t swear, I get the job done,” she said, also noting that, in contrast to her Democratic rival, she has actual executive experience.

Asked her if she was worried about the influence of California’s billionaire class, many of whom have announced their support of San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, on the governor’s race, Yee didn’t hesitate.“I’m very concerned about that,” she said, “because money always takes the place of real, true policy.”

But in a notable aside, she signaled her respect for billionaire candidate Steyer and his wife.

Yee’s biggest problem is that many voters still don’t know who she is, and that’s somewhat odd considering she has the distinction of receiving the most votes for statewide office other than governor in California history — 8,013,067 — when she was elected controller in 2018.

She’s certainly no stranger to California politics, having served as Gov. Gray Davis’ deputy budget director from 1999 to 2003, then as an aide on the Board of Equalization before sitting on the board from 2004 to 2015. Add to that the two terms she served as controller, and her qualifications for higher office speak for themselves.

To say that Yee, who lives in Alameda, knows state budget minutiae like the back of her hand is no understatement. And as her delegate tally last week showed, she’s well-liked in Sacramento.

“Betty is absolutely one of the most substantive candidates in this race. She has the experience, (and) she absolutely understands what California is facing as it relates to budget issues first and foremost,” former gubernatorial candidate and former Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins told me.

Yee’s campaign message boils down to, hey, I actually know I’m doing, and she’s also very polite about it. She exudes competency, and when she spoke to me, she seemed determined not to engage in personal self-aggrandizement.

“I consider myself a little bit of an insider and an outsider at the same time,” was the only lightly glowing description she offered about herself.

So why is she struggling to gain traction with voters?

Maybe it’s that our media-saturated, fight-fight-fight culture, in which Gov. Gavin Newsom’s brash, Trump-foil-in-chief routine has propelled him to the top of the 2028 Democratic presidential field, doesn’t quite fit with her humble style.

Yee’s knowledge about the intricacies of California Environmental Quality Act reform, Central Valley economic investment or what California is going to look like in fiscal year 2029 certainly make her a logical pick for governor, but those issues don’t really pop on TikTok.

Another problem is funding.

The cost of running a statewide race in California is now an eight-figure proposition, and Yee hasn’t raised anywhere near that. She told me she has just $4 million in her campaign war chest and has hardly spent any of it. Steyer, by comparison, has burned through about $28 million and has $9 million more in ads scheduled.

Can Yee break through with voters on a shoestring budget? Maybe, maybe not.

Her message about the future of California, however, remains decidedly upbeat.“We are still being sought after by people who want to do business with us around the world,” she told me. “I still get calls from friends and colleagues and companies, and, frankly, the EU, who want to do business with California because they know we have the talent.”

Whether she’ll be elected to lead the state into that future remains a long shot, but she has three months left to make her case.

Jack Ohman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist who also writes at https://substack.com/@jackohman.