Gamesmanship scandal rocks California governor’s race as Dems’ dark arts exposed ⁠56%

By Titus Wu⁠85%

6/2/2026, 11:30:00 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 27 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Framing Effect, and Hasty Generalization, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 25.7% saturation with 176 hits. Analysis detected 1,670 faulty-reasoning hits from 684 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 53.2% and a BS Rank of ⁠56% (9,542 of 21,230 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 55.10% of the article peer group.

Democratic voters are amplifying a last-minute nefarious strategy to lock Republican candidate Steve Hilton out of the California gubernatorial race, as the primary comes to a close Tuesday night. 
Recent polls have Hilton as well as Democrats Xavier Becerra and Tom Steyer as the top three candidates in a tight race for the top two spots to advance to the general election in November. 
But some voters who openly dislike President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement want to stick it to him by voting for Steyer regardless if they support him or not — just so Trump-endorsed Hilton won’t make it, leaving it a Democrat-on-Democrat matchup. 
In fact, some are even calling supporters of Becerra, whose fights with Steyer have turned toxic, to hold their nose and vote Steyer. 
There are hints that at least some of the gamesmanship promotion is stemming from within Steyer circles. 
“For the libbed out, late-voting Becerra-leaners in your life, grab that poll average and explain to them they have a chance to truly stick it to Trump and deny his fav guv candidate a spot on the November ballot,” wrote Will Jordan, a pollster with the Steyer campaign. 
Others seemed to have embraced the idea. 
Jon Lovett, a host of the left-leaning Pod Save America podcast, said he would vote for Steyer just to get a Dem-on-Dem runoff. 
Alex Wong, a San Francisco-based former congressional staffer, said he's leaning Steyer. 
“I don’t think that a Dem vs Rep race would benefit the electorate,” Wong said. 
“The race would become a Fox News segment. 
All about Trump, immigration, sanctuary cities, trans in sports, the kind of things that are settled in California but Republicans can’t help but fight about.” 
California voter data expert Paul Mitchell told The Post that such voters with those intentions do exist in real life outside online circles. 
He pointed to a survey where a number of Steyer voters cited locking Republicans out as the reason for their vote. 
But that strategy is “a fool's game,” Mitchell said. 
“I think it would be silly and risky to try to do that,” he told The Post. 
“It can backfire. 
People should vote for who they support the most.” 
For Hilton to likely not make the top two, rival GOP candidate and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco would have to pull away enough Republican support to where the two are tied, Mitchell added. 
That’s unlikely given how ahead Hilton is and given today's vocalized support from Trump to shore up GOP votes for Hilton. 
A Becerra voter blindly voting for Steyer may even inadvertently help Steyer beat out Becerra and give way to a Steyer vs Hilton runoff, Mitchell said. 
The assumption that Becerra is locked into the top two may not be true, pointing to some polls where it shows Steyer ahead. 
“It’s kind of gamification run amok,” he said. 
GOP consultant Mike Madrid told The Post such a strategy is useless anyway just a day or two before the election. 
For such gamesmanship to work and make real influence, it has to be weeks in advance in the same way there were fears of Republicans locking Democrats out of the top two earlier this year. 
Madrid blasted the state Democratic Party for fanning the flames of lockout gamesmanship, which he said hasn’t seen happen on this scale in previous gubernatorial races. 
The party put out polls showing that possibility and went to media to promote that, Madrid added, in hopes to winnow down a crowded field and “limit voter choices.” 
“Anybody who thought that there wasn't going to be a consolidation of both fields has no elementary basic understanding of the way campaigns work, so that tells you either the Democratic Party was consciously manipulating the media narrative or there was something even more nefarious afoot,” Madrid told The Post. 
The California Post reached out to the Hilton and Steyer campaigns for comment. 
The Becerra campaign told The Post that voters are consolidating behind Becerra and “no last-minute tactical voting push changes that.” 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 9.8%Titus Wu: 4.8%California Post: 4.1%Confirmation Bias9.8%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 1.2%California Post: 1.4%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 10.8%Titus Wu: 3.5%California Post: 4.2%Availability Heuristic10.8%This article: 13.3%Titus Wu: 1.1%California Post: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic13.3%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.4%California Post: 0.7%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 12.3%Titus Wu: 1.8%California Post: 2.2%Overconfidence Bias12.3%This article: 16.2%Titus Wu: 12.5%California Post: 10.4%Framing Effect16.2%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 1.1%California Post: 0.9%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 1.3%Titus Wu: 0.3%California Post: 0.6%Status Quo Bias1.3%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.4%California Post: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.4%California Post: 2.5%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 6.0%Titus Wu: 1.4%California Post: 1.5%Pessimism Bias6.0%This article: 25.7%Titus Wu: 22.1%California Post: 16.1%Negativity Bias25.7%This article: 7.2%Titus Wu: 4.6%California Post: 2.4%Self-Serving Bias7.2%This article: 3.8%Titus Wu: 1.8%California Post: 1.5%Fundamental Attribution Error3.8%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.3%California Post: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 9.6%Titus Wu: 2.4%California Post: 1.6%In-Group Bias9.6%This article: 3.7%Titus Wu: 1.4%California Post: 1.1%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias3.7%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.9%California Post: 3.1%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.7%California Post: 0.6%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.0%California Post: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 6.1%Titus Wu: 1.6%California Post: 1.6%Recency Bias6.1%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.5%California Post: 0.5%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.1%California Post: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 4.2%California Post: 2.6%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 7.3%Titus Wu: 0.8%California Post: 0.5%Straw Man7.3%This article: 6.4%Titus Wu: 3.4%California Post: 4.2%Appeal to Authority6.4%This article: 13.6%Titus Wu: 2.1%California Post: 1.5%False Dilemma13.6%This article: 5.1%Titus Wu: 1.3%California Post: 0.9%Slippery Slope5.1%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.3%California Post: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 14.9%Titus Wu: 6.8%California Post: 5.5%Hasty Generalization14.9%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 1.1%California Post: 0.7%Red Herring0.0%This article: 7.0%Titus Wu: 1.0%California Post: 1.4%Bandwagon7.0%This article: 8.3%Titus Wu: 9.6%California Post: 8.9%Appeal to Emotion8.3%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 1.2%California Post: 1.1%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 3.1%Titus Wu: 1.7%California Post: 2.7%Post Hoc (False Cause)3.1%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 1.4%California Post: 0.2%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.7%California Post: 0.8%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.5%California Post: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.0%California Post: 0.2%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 6.4%Titus Wu: 1.9%California Post: 3.6%Anecdotal6.4%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.0%California Post: 0.0%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 3.2%California Post: 2.0%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.0%California Post: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.1%California Post: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.1%California Post: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 0.3%California Post: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 6.7%Titus Wu: 1.1%California Post: 0.4%Genetic Fallacy6.7%This article: 6.9%Titus Wu: 3.9%California Post: 3.2%Unattributed Quote6.9%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 1.6%California Post: 2.1%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 24.0%Titus Wu: 17.4%California Post: 13.1%Biased Writer Voice24.0%This article: 1.3%Titus Wu: 0.5%California Post: 1.4%Indoctrination1.3%This article: 7.2%Titus Wu: 0.7%California Post: 0.4%Politically Left Leaning Bias7.2%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 3.7%California Post: 3.1%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Titus Wu: 1.7%California Post: 6.0%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

684 words analyzed.

Speakers

7speakers69%attributed speech209writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 11 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 29 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 35 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 43 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 23 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 100.0% coverageWill Jordan • 48 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 7 words • 100.0% coverageJon Lovett • 23 words • 0.0% coverageAlex Wong • 12 words • 0.0% coverageAlex Wong • 15 words • 0.0% coverageAlex Wong • 8 words • 0.0% coverageAlex Wong • 25 words • 0.0% coveragePaul Mitchell • 23 words • 100.0% coveragePaul Mitchell • 21 words • 0.0% coveragePaul Mitchell • 9 words • 0.0% coveragePaul Mitchell • 17 words • 0.0% coveragePaul Mitchell • 3 words • 0.0% coveragePaul Mitchell • 9 words • 100.0% coveragePaul Mitchell • 34 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 21 words • 0.0% coveragePaul Mitchell • 26 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 23 words • 0.0% coveragePaul Mitchell • 8 words • 100.0% coverageMike Madrid • 21 words • 0.0% coverageMike Madrid • 35 words • 0.0% coverageMike Madrid • 26 words • 100.0% coverageMike Madrid • 29 words • 0.0% coverageMike Madrid • 50 words • 100.0% coverageThe California Post • 13 words • 0.0% coverageBecerra campaign • 20 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Mike Madrid

100%flagged-word coverage
161 attributed words34% of attributed speech100% writer coverage
0%27.5%55.0%Biased Writer Voice-19.7 ptsWriter: 50.7%Mike Madrid: 31.1%31.1%Unattributed Quote-22.5 ptsWriter: 22.5%Mike Madrid: 0.0%0.0%Politically Left Leaning B+16.1 ptsWriter: 0.0%Mike Madrid: 16.1%16.1%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.