The morning after the Pomona College debate Tuesday night, candidate for governor Matt Mahan rang my line.
I asked him where he was calling from, as I knew the previous evening must have been a late one. “On 101, just outside of San Jose” was the reply.
And there was your first clue that I was speaking to a Northern Californian. No Southern Californian would say it that way. To a driver, we say “the 101.” Whereas every single Tesla-wrangling NorCal motorist declines to use the article when speaking of a highway. Different breeds of cat.
But the governor of California has to be head of the whole state, from the rough-riding Jeffersonian ranchers in the far northeast to the worldly medico-tech moguls on the cliffs of La Jolla. Not an easy task. Mahan grew up in agricultural Watsonville and is now mayor of San Jose. But he showed at least some familiarity with SoCal when he told me that what with the after-events on debate night his team couldn’t fly home from Ontario and had to catch the last plane north from LAX at midnight. “That late, we made it from Claremont to the airport in an hour,” he crowed.
I noted that one of his opponents told the audience at the end of the sometimes chaotic debate: “Well, there’s 90 minutes of your life you’ll never get back.”
“I actually appreciated the format of the debate,” Mahan said. “It allowed us to have a bit of back and forth and to challenge each other. At first we wondered if (its anarchic character) was somehow part of the format. But some debates are overly scripted, and I’m much more interested in substance.”
What was an example of substance from the evening?
“I think on a number of important issues we drew distinctions,” he said. “On insurance and its high costs and scarcity, for instance, Xavier Becerra tried to defend his proposal to put price caps on insurance in our state. But to some extent, that is exactly how we ended up where we are. The insurance companies stopped writing policies because they couldn’t afford to in our state. Moments like that.”
What is the central platform the politically moderate mayor is running on to differentiate himself from the many other mainstream candidates?
“My premise in this race is that I have executive experience” as elected mayor of the state’s third-largest city “that would be applicable to running the state” in ways that being, say, a member of Congress or head of a smaller, focused state department does not provide. He’s particularly proud of his “homelessness track record of delivering results.” Unlike some of the more progressive Democrats, Mahan has a tougher stance against camping on city sidewalks and parks. His campaign website says Mahan “shifted the city’s approach on homelessness from one based on expensive, nearly $1 million-per-door units to one that acts quickly and efficiently by building safe, interim shelter sites. This shift has led to the largest expansion of shelter in any city on the West Coast and reduced the number of people living outdoors in San Jose by nearly a third.”
In contrast to many progressives, he has a get-tougher approach on those living on the street who, after being offered a roof over their heads, decline to move indoors. He would mandate treatment and stop them from sleeping in tents on public thoroughfares.
I asked the mayor about polling that consistently rates him in the low-to-middle single digits among likely voters. Although it’s true that he entered the race a bit late in the game, it’s been hard for him to move the needle. Some show him at 4%–5% support, numbers that are around those of fellow moderate and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. But his campaign has polling that shows him at more like 8%, good enough for third place among Democratic candidates.
“We are fighting every day to break through,” Mahan says. “One recent poll shows we’ve caught up to Katie Porter. The press wants to recognize the supposed front runners without noting the reality that there are so many undecided voters.” He sees himself by Election Day in a three-way race with Becerra and Tom Steyer.
And what about the charge that his biggest funders are billionaire tech bros? Mahan finds it odd. “So shocking to people that the mayor from Silicon Valley has support from some of the people in Silicon Valley! At the same time, I am the only candidate in this race who has created regulations for high tech. We don’t allow facial recognition in San Jose, for instance. It would be an asset for the next governor to understand new technologies and guard against the risks, from privacy loss to job loss.”
Independents, non-extremists in both mainstream parties, here’s a practical alternative for you. His last words to me: “The real question for voters: who is going to deliver results that will make my life better?”
Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com.