On California's very rural gubernatorial candidate

Hailey Branson-Potts reported in the Los Angeles Times a few days ago on the candidacy of Brian Dahle, the Republican nominee for governor of California.  As I have written previously here, Dahle is as rural as they come in the context of California--and he's going up against the uber-urban and cosmopolitan Gavin Newsom, who appears to have his eyes set on the prize of the U.S. presidency.  The headline for Branson-Potts story is, "Gavin Newsom ‘wants to be president.’ Republican Brian Dahle just wants California voters to know his name."  Here's an excerpt:  

Dahle’s family-run campaign has raised just more than $2 million. Newsom, as of late September, sat on a reelection campaign fund with more than $23 million on hand.

Dahle has been crisscrossing the Golden State by plane and his 10-year-old Ford F-150, stumping at county fairs and Farm Bureau luncheons. Newsom ran his first reelection ad on TV in Florida and has been making appearances in Texas and New York, fueling speculation that he might run for president.

Dahle’s supporters have been planting yard signs in the grass along the 5 Freeway in Northern California. Newsom used campaign money to buy billboards last month in seven Republican-led states with the most restrictive abortion bans, touting California’s publicly funded website with information on how to end a pregnancy.

“Gavin Newsom wants to be president. He’s out there talking about it,” Dahle told supporters at a fundraising dinner late last month at Hawes’ farm outside Redding. “He’s not focused on this race, and we’re going to come in from the backside, with God’s help, and we’re going to win.”

Polls show that would indeed take divine intervention in this liberal state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1.

Newsom has the backing of 53% of likely California voters, compared with 32% who favor Dahle, according to a poll released this month by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.

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“Dahle’s a businessman. He’s a farmer. And he’s had to deal with some very real challenges that many Californians have faced,” Patterson [chair of the California Republican Party] said. “He’s not someone who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”

The 57-year-old Republican served 16 years on the Lassen County Board of Supervisors before being elected to the California Legislature in 2012.

In Sacramento, he has earned a reputation for working with colleagues across the aisle. He and his wife, state Assemblymember Megan Dahle, have hosted more than 100 legislators from both major parties at their home in Bieber.

* * *

The family established roots in California during the Great Depression when Dahle’s grandfather was awarded an 80-acre land grant in Tulelake, near the Oregon border. In 1942, the World War I veteran bought additional land outside Bieber for what is still the present-day Dahle farm.

“We’ve been here 92 years. ... We’re the Californians that aren’t leaving. Amen. We’re going to stay and fight,” Dahle told supporters at the fundraising dinner at Hawes’ farm.

And here's a piece by George Skelton, of the Los Angeles Times, on Dahle as a serious and highly respected lawmaker.  Here's an excerpt:  

You could confidently vote for state Sen. Brian Dahle and smile — not feel the urge to throw up.

A seed farmer from the tiny Lassen County town of Bieber in the mountainous northeast, Dahle, 57, is likeable, level-headed and highly respected by colleagues of both parties. He’s a fighter, but not a ranting demagogue.

“He’s not crazy, which in 2022 puts him ahead of a bunch of other Republicans,” says Jack Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College.

Pitney is a former Republican National Committee official who registered as an independent the night Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.


OK, but merely being a nice guy rather than a rude wacko is a pretty low bar. It isn’t enough to qualify someone to govern the nation’s most populous state with the world’s fifth-largest economy.

So, the second thing to know about Dahle is that he could handle the job.

Unlike other Republican gubernatorial finalists in the last quarter century, this one has actually held elective offices, and held them well. He served 17 years as a county supervisor, then more than six in the state Assembly, where he was minority leader, and now is in his fourth year as senator.

He knows the ins and outs of government and has immersed himself in the details of complex public policy, especially water. No training wheels would be needed.