A growing number of California Democrats are pushing a novel and risky tactic ahead of the state's crowded gubernatorial primary: don't vote yet. Wait. Watch the polls. Then rush to the mailbox at the last possible moment and back whichever Democrat looks most likely to survive.
The strategy, promoted through social media posts and online videos by progressive activists and politically engaged voters, reflects deep anxiety on the left about California's open primary system. Under that system, the top two vote-getters advance to November regardless of party. With more than 60 candidates in the field and two Republicans performing strongly in polls, Democrats fear their side could split the vote badly enough to shut every Democrat out of the general election entirely.
That fear has turned into a coordinated effort to game the primary. And it has drawn warnings from California's own Democratic officials, including the attorney general, who suggested the social media campaigns could amount to misinformation, or worse.
San Francisco voter Katie Evans-Reber told the New York Post that she and other Democratic voters have been encouraging delayed ballot submission through social media and online videos. She described the shift in her own thinking bluntly:
"The thing that flipped for me was going from, 'I don't really know what to do,' to, 'I strategically am not making a decision.'"
Evans-Reber said she plans to hold her ballot until the final hours before the deadline. "I am going to cast the ballot at the very last possible moment," she said. "I'm going to wait until polling day."
The logic is straightforward, if cynical. In a normal year, Evans-Reber said she would likely support former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter. But Porter trails the frontrunners in polling. So rather than vote her conscience, Evans-Reber wants to wait and see which Democrat has the best shot, then pile on.
Her concern centers on the Republican side of the field. Former Fox News host Steve Hilton currently leads much of the polling, and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is also in the mix. Evans-Reber worried that disillusioned former Trump voters could shift toward Bianco, strengthening his campaign alongside Hilton's. If two Republicans finish in the top two, Democrats would be locked out of the governor's race in the bluest state in the country.
The delayed-voting push didn't emerge from nowhere. It grew out of months of turmoil in the Democratic primary field. Polling experts have warned for weeks that Democrats face a real risk of an all-GOP runoff, a scenario that would have been unthinkable a cycle ago.
Earlier in the race, many Democratic voters rallied around former Congressman Eric Swalwell, hoping to consolidate behind a single candidate. That effort collapsed after multiple women accused Swalwell of sexual assault, and his campaign folded.
Swalwell's exit reopened the field and left Democratic voters searching for a viable contender. Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra emerged as the leading Democrat, climbing rapidly in statewide surveys after initially polling in the single digits. But scrutiny over his tenure leading HHS and his previous role as California attorney general has intensified.
The field remains sprawling. Billionaire activist Tom Steyer and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who has promoted himself as a moderate closely aligned with Silicon Valley's technology industry, are also running. So is Porter. None has broken away from the pack convincingly enough to calm Democratic nerves.
That instability has only deepened as other candidates have fallen away. Former California Controller Betty Yee suspended her campaign amid dismal polling, further underscoring the party's inability to coalesce.
The delayed-voting campaign has drawn sharp pushback, not from Republicans, but from California's own Democratic establishment.
Attorney General Rob Bonta said social media campaigns promoting last-minute voting could amount to misinformation or even potentially unlawful conduct. Secretary of State Shirley Weber said her office would review the posts. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently urged county election offices to speed up reporting timelines and warned against misinformation surrounding the election process.
Newsom wrote in a letter sent to all 58 county registrars:
"Time is of the essence in preventing election lies from taking hold."
The letter encouraged registrars to "tabulate and release results quickly and accurately." The governor's concern appears tied to the logistical nightmare that a surge of last-minute ballots would create for county election workers. Newsom has already been pushing counties to speed up vote counting after weeks-long delays in prior elections.
Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, described the potential backlog as the "pig in the python effect", a surge of ballots that election workers must process all at once. The imagery is apt. If tens of thousands of Democratic voters all dump their ballots at the last minute, the counting process could grind to a halt, delaying results and feeding exactly the kind of uncertainty Newsom says he wants to prevent.
Democratic consultant Paul Mitchell offered one of the sharper critiques. His company monitors daily ballot returns throughout California, and he questioned whether organized strategic voting efforts would even alter the outcome.
"It's just a bad message. I think they should always have a message of, 'As soon as you get your ballot, fill it out, turn it in, mail it in and get it done.'"
Mitchell added flatly: "I think people vote for whoever they were going to vote for anyway."
His objection cuts to the heart of the matter. For years, Democrats in California and nationally have championed early voting, mail-in ballots, and expanded ballot access. They have argued, often loudly, that anything discouraging prompt participation is a form of voter suppression. Now a faction of their own base is telling fellow Democrats to do the opposite: sit on your ballot, wait for better information, and treat your vote as a tactical instrument rather than a civic act.
The contradiction is hard to miss. The same political movement that has spent years accusing Republicans of undermining election integrity is now running social media campaigns that California's own attorney general says could be unlawful.
Pollster Mark DiCamillo acknowledged the unusual difficulty of reading the race. "This election's got all the elements you have to deal with," he said. "It's a challenge for the polling profession." With more than 60 candidates and a fractured Democratic coalition, the polls that activists want voters to wait for may not even be reliable guides.
The delayed-voting push has already produced its own misinformation problem. A widely circulated social media post incorrectly claimed the strategy originated with Heather Cox Richardson, the political historian and author of the popular Substack newsletter "Letters from an American." Evans-Reber later clarified that Richardson had no involvement. Richardson herself addressed the false attribution: "It's not like, bad advice, but it's 100% not coming from me."
That a grassroots Democratic campaign built around election strategy immediately generated false claims about its own origins is telling. Insider maneuvering already defines much of California's Democratic politics, and the delayed-voting tactic fits neatly into that pattern, a party so consumed with tactical advantage that it trips over its own messaging.
The open questions remain significant. What specific conduct does Bonta believe could cross the line into illegality? Which posts is Weber's office reviewing? And if the strategy works, if a flood of late ballots does tilt the primary toward a single Democrat, will the same officials who warned against it celebrate the result?
California's open primary system was sold to voters as a reform. It was supposed to produce more moderate candidates and reduce partisan extremism. Instead, it has produced a primary field so bloated and chaotic that one party's voters feel compelled to treat their ballots like stock trades, holding, watching the ticker, and dumping at the close.
The fact that this is happening in California, the state Democrats control more completely than any other, makes it all the more revealing. They hold the governorship, both U.S. Senate seats, supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature, and every statewide constitutional office. And yet they are so anxious about their own voters splitting the field that they are asking people not to vote on time.
Republicans, meanwhile, simply ran candidates who polled well. Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco didn't need a coordinated ballot-timing scheme. They just showed up.
When a party that controls everything still fears losing, the problem isn't the system. It's the party.