California Governor’s Race Without Eric Swalwell

California doesn’t really have a governor’s mansion, an anomaly dating to the eight years the Reagans spent in Sacramento, but until a week ago Eric Swalwell and his wife had every reason to start thinking about which Sacramento neighborhood would be a fit for them and their children.

Swalwell’s lead in the polls was narrow – and a ton of undecideds remain – but the Trump-bashing Bay Area congressman had momentum, the requisite name identification, and the state’s powerful public employees’ unions lining up to help. All that disappeared overnight. Today, after a spate of disturbing allegations of sexual misconduct, Swalwell’s most immediate concern when it comes to housing is whether he can stay out of prison.

But the show must go on. And by June 2, California voters will choose two gubernatorial candidates from a large field. Those two, regardless of party affiliation, will face off in November. The immediate question in the aftermath of Swalwell’s self-immolation is: Who will benefit?

Accurately reassigning voters from one candidate to another is alchemy, not science. (Democrats, pollsters, and political observers are still debating the effects of Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential run on Al Gore’s candidacy.) But the dispersal of Swalwell supporters will be somewhat easier to discern – and the first post-Swalwell polling is now out.

An Emerson survey released Thursday found that support for Republicans Steven Hilton had ticked upward, with Hilton leading the field at 17%. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is 14%, tied with Tom Steyer, a self-financed Democratic Party billionaire.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, given the nature of the Swalwell scandal, former congresswoman Katie Porter, the only prominent woman in the race, did not benefit. Her support remained stalled at around 10%. The candidate who saw a spike in his support was Xavier Becerra, surging from the low single digits to 10% – effectively tied with Porter. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who is not well known and who has only this week starting running ads, also improved his standing and is now polling at 5%.

Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents outnumber Republican voters in the Golden State by nearly 2-1. Nonetheless, since the beginning of the year, the Democrats’ “nightmare” scenario was that the large field of Democratic gubernatorial candidates would split the vote and Hilton and Bianco would somehow place first and second and face each other in the runoff.

That’s still a possibility, albeit an unlikely one as nearly one-fourth of the state’s voters remain undecided, but the events of the last week have shown that there was another worst-case scenario for the Democrats, and it was more likely: Steve Hilton and Eric Swalwell would make the runoff and then Swalwell’s accusers would come forward with their accounts of his predatory sexual behavior. That dystopian future has been avoided, but a challenge for Democratic voters remains: Coalesce around a strong general election candidate.