Decades ago, Pete Wilson did something extraordinary. The US Senator went home and ran for governor of California.
The road to power usually goes in the opposite direction, with the governor exchanging fame for (recognized) influence and fantasizing as the “world’s largest deliberation body” as one of only 100 members of the club.
Wilson defeated the feelings.
“It’s a much more difficult role,” he said, as governor, and he came to like him much more than his position on Capitol Hill.
It turns out that something was in Republican Wilson, who won a fierce 1990 contest with Democrat Diane Feinstein.
Five other lawmakers have since left the Senate and become governors of the state. Several more attempts and failed.
It’s even more common for governors to run for the Senate than vice versa, but in 2026, the most US senators may run in at least 90 years, according to a nonpartisan cuisine political report.
Clearly, the US Senate has lost some of its luster.
Those who found the place were always far less prosperous with its overblown air, expanding pacing, rules of order and frustrating working environments.
The late Wendell Ford, who served as Kentucky governor before spending the next 24 years in the Senate, said “the most unfortunate member of the Senate was the former governor,” recalled Charlie Cook, founder of the political newsletter of the same name. “They were used to getting things done.”
And that was when, as Cook pointed out, “it was when the Senate did so much more than it is now.”
Moreover, the Senate was once a more dignified, partisan place, particularly when compared to prejudiced homes. In the Apocryphal tale, George Washington has breakfast with Thomas Jefferson and calls the Senate a saucer intended to cool the passion of the intenperate lower chamber. (It helps you imagine a teacup filled with scalding brewing.)
These days, both rooms have been basking hostile cauldrons and partisan betrayal.
Worse, going to the Senate isn’t that much. This is almost reflexively agreeing, whatever President Trump asks about the strained Republican majority.
“The Senate has become an employment agency. With very rare exceptions, it will be 53-47, to see candidates who will generally pass 53-47 after voting after vote.”
Sen. Michael Bennett, a Democrat, is at the forefront of his bid to become the state’s next governor.
(Mark Sieferbein/Applications)
The other announced that the governor’s hoped player is a Republican, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, Alabama Sen. Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn is a fresh re-election of fellow Republicans and is expected to run for governor of her state.
Bennett arrived in the Senate 16 years ago, and since then he has been “a truly one-way ratchet,” he said.
“You think about the fact that we are truly a couple [of] He said this week between votes at Capitol Hill. “One is a continuing resolution that isn’t an actual spending bill… it just solidifies the budget decision made last year, and then it’s a defense bill.”
Nevertheless, Bennett said he was not running for governor. “Because I’m exhausted, because I’m irritated, bored, irritated, worsened, worsened. Rather, working under the Golden Dome in Denver would provide voters with a better opportunity to “push back and fight Trumpism.”
Try it as one of the 47 detained senators.
When Wilson took office in January 1991, he took over George Dekmezian, a Republican term-limited.
He soon faced a massive fiscal deficit. He has shut down a package of tax and spending reductions promoted by his negotiation partner, Democratic Congress president Willie Brown. Their agreement managed to oppose Democrats and Republicans alike.
Wilson didn’t really care.
After serving in Congress as mayor of San Diego and the US Senator, he often said being governor of California was the best job he’d ever had. There are lawmakers fighting, agencies that oversee, natural disasters to deal with, and interest groups involved.
“Not everyone enjoys it,” Wilson said when asked about the prospect of Kamala Harris working as governor, “No one is good at it.”
After four years in the Senate before becoming vice president, Harris gave him a summer to decide whether to run for governor, try again at the White House or retire from politics.
The next California governor will likely have to take some “very painful steps,” Wilson said, given the Trump administration’s federal budget cuts and other hostile moves. It would make many people unhappy, including many of Harris’ fellow Democrats.
How does she feel about going back to the small stage in Sacramento, tackling unwieldy issues like budgets and homelessness, and dealing with the inevitable political heat? We don’t know unless Harris runs.
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