Is L.A. Finally Wresting Political Power Back from the Bay Area?

THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM IN CALIFORNIA POLITICS, at least of modern vintage, has held that the road to the governor’s mansion — and, ultimately, national prominence — runs through Northern California.

The political hothouse of San Francisco (the Golden State’s fourth-largest city by population, but its premier seedbed for germinating stars) launched the careers of the state’s recent headliners: Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom. Californians last voted in an Angeleno for governor more than two decades ago, when they first elected Arnold Schwarzenegger. And he was an internationally famous action star who had never held public office — not exactly a product of the L.A. ballot cycle.

Newsom remains ascendant. But Feinstein is dead, Pelosi is finishing her last term in office and Harris is licking her wounds in Malibu. Meanwhile, as the state’s clown car of a gubernatorial race lurches toward the finish line, voters appear to have shrugged Xavier Becerra into presumptive frontrunner status.