When looking at the accomplishments of these mayors, what sticks out as a throughline? A focus on infrastructure and public safety. Filling potholes, hiring police officers, and building houses. Efforts to bring disparate voices together, and a focus on acting transparently.
His campaign website frames the entire race around one premise: that Big Money has corrupted both parties to the point where regular people who play by the rules can no longer afford the lifestyle their parents had
Asked about the practical costs of running without party infrastructure, Endicott named the obvious one—money—but also pointed to a less tangible benefit: independence itself.
With a nationwide slate of independent candidates, $2 million ready to be deployed, and campaign staff with real experience, Bob Chew’s in a better position than many to force a conversation he believes is necessary.
Duggan's campaign showed that independent politics will continue to struggle as long as it keeps swinging for the fences instead of figuring out how to get on base.
The goal is to deny either party a working majority, then set terms before helping anyone organize the chamber. Pinkins offered a particularly specific account of what those terms would look like.
Last Tuesday, June 2, voters in New Jersey, Iowa, South Dakota, Montana, New Mexico, and California showed up to the polls to vote in primaries. Well, voters who were allowed to do so, with several of those states closing independents out of the process.
Veterans carry a credibility that no party label can manufacture, and at a moment when nearly every institution has shed public trust, it is the one identity that still commands broad, cross-partisan respect.
This isn't a candidate who left one party for the other. It's a candidate who spent time in both, looked around, and decided that the incentives that govern both are the fundamental problem.
If she advances past the Top Two primary, it would be more than a local upset. It would be evidence that something structural has shifted in American politics. It’ll also say something important about California’s nonpartisan primary system.
Matt Shinners
Dennis Darnoi
