Betty Yee suspended her bid for California governor on Monday, saying internal polling showed she did not see a path to victory in a crowded race. The former state controller said her decision was not the result of pressure from the Democratic Party and came after she concluded that experience and competence were not polling as strongly as she expected when she entered the contest.
“I am stepping aside from this race for governor because this is a time where I do not see a path to be successful,” Yee said in remarks released April 20, 2026, at 11:38 AM PDT. “But success comes in all different forms.” She said she believed her campaign had been successful even as she withdrew, and added that her commitment to public service would continue in both her public and personal life.
Yee’s exit comes just days after former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped his own bid for governor and resigned from Congress amid sexual misconduct allegations, leaving Democrats with one fewer familiar name in a field that had yet to produce a clear frontrunner. Recent polling showed nearly a quarter of likely California primary voters remained undecided, a sign of how unsettled the race remained as candidates fought to define themselves before the vote.
That uncertainty had already raised alarms inside the party. Democratic Party Chairman Rusty Hicks warned that a crowded field could split the vote and risk advancing only Republicans to the general election under California’s top-two primary system. Yee had been viewed as one of the more qualified and experienced candidates in the race, drawing on her time on the state Board of Equalization before her tenure as controller, but she said the political climate rewarded a different kind of campaign. “We are in this new era where it’s kind of almost a reality TV show mentality that people want, and frankly, conflict sells,” she said, adding that she was “not a flashy person” and did not come with gimmicks.
She even said she joked with her team about whether she would have to “bring a folding stool and throw it off the stage” just to get attention. For Yee, the question was not whether she mattered in the race but whether the race was built for the kind of candidate she was. She answered that herself on Monday: she was stepping aside because the path was gone, even if the work she says she did was not.
