History buffs are already comparing Xavier Becerra’s California governor runoff to a forgotten 19th-century power play that ended a career in ashes.
Becerra’s last-minute surge mirrors the 1890s rise of a reformer who, like the current HHS Secretary, traded a safe Washington seat for a doomed Sacramento gamble. Political analysts note the eerie parallel to a three-way runoff that fractured a party and handed the governorship to a dark horse—a fate Becerra’s allies now fear.