Shellenberger finishes third in California primary for Governor

Author Michael Shellenberger finished 3rd in the open primary for California governor held last week. He is best known for such books as San Fransicko, about the decline of the once great city, and Apocalypse Never, about the harm caused by climate alarmism.

His big issue in the recent campaign was addressing the state’s homeless problem. His interview by Joe Rogan on the subject is worth 14 minutes of your time.

His bronze-medal performance was a huge improvement over his 2018 run, where he finished 9th of 27 candidates. This go around, he finished 3rd of 26 candidates, with a little over 4 percent of the total vote. California will continue to tally ballots in the race for the next few weeks.

California uses an open-primary system, where all candidates from all parties run in a single race. The top two finishers, regardless of party, advance to the November general election.

Shellenberger finished 3rd behind incumbent Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and state Sen. Brian Dahle, a Republican. Shellenberger ran as an independent in 2022, having previously run as a Democrat.

In the end, he did not come close to making the final two. But he did succeed in focusing the race on addressing issues of homelessness and energy system reliability.