For a while, we had been wondering and worrying about whether California's peculiar primary system would shut Republicans out of the running for governor's race.  I wrote about it here.

Well, guess what!  President Trump's endorsement, far from the liability the left would have you believe, has been a big boon for the gubernatorial prospects of John Cox, who now takes second place in the polls and is likely assured a spot on the November ballot, giving voters a serious left-right choice.

According to the Sacramento Bee:

A new poll shows San Diego Republican John Cox holds a seven-point advantage for second place among likely voters in the governor's election Tuesday, signaling that voters prefer him and Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom to face off in the November general election.

The poll by UC Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies also found Newsom expanding his lead, with 33 percent of likely voters backing the San Francisco Democrat.  Support for Cox, a businessman, grew to 20 percent, while former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's backing grew to 13 percent.  The percentage of undecided voters dropped from 13 percent in April to 7 percent in the current poll.

"We think it's likely to be Cox against Newsom in the general election," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll.

Yay, bay-beeee!

Up until now, it appeared that a Republican on the gubernatorial ticket in November didn't stand a snowball's chance in San Diego.

It's because of the way California does its primaries.  Since 2010, Californians, and that includes a lot of Reaganites despite what you have read from the left about the state being entirely blue, have had this "first two out the gate" approach to elections, where the top two primary vote-getters in June get spots on the final midterm election ballot in November, leaving everyone else off the ballot.  The system tinkering seemed to be not such a good thing, given the number of leftists running who can easily take up the top two spots, leaving Republicans with absolutely no choice in whom to vote for.  It's happened in the Senate race, where two horrible candidates filled out the top two spots (Kamala Harris and one of those trashy Sanchez women), leaving many to just vote for no one.

It seemed impossible – well, until Trump came along and threw his endorsement to one of the two good candidates running for governor (the real hard-right Reaganite one, fortunately), paving the way for party unity against the great leftist juggernaut.  It might have been augmented by the left's vow to extend free taxpayer-paid health care to all illegal aliens.  But that probably helped both Republicans, not just Cox.  The Trump endorsement seems to have propelled Cox higher.

Oh, man...

This not only is a good thing in itself; it's doubly good because it sends a message to the left, so loudly running against Trump in its Democratic Party platform, that running against Trump draws voters to Republican candidates, increasing their tally.  A Trump endorsement is a magic vote-getting thing, not a bad thing.  Yelling about Trump, as most of them are doing in their nonstop TV ads, and especially when they add howls about tax cuts is backfiring badly – and in California of all places.  The left can put that in its pipe and smoke it, because its anti-Trump strategy is going to bomb.

Yay, yay, yay, bay-beeeeeeeee!