Swalwell’s shock exit throws California governor’s race into disarray: ‘This really tosses the table over’

Eric Swalwell at a town hall meeting in Sacramento last week. Photograph: Rich Pedroncelli/AP

Democrats were already fretting about the California governor’s race – a tangle of candidates with strong résumés but little star power vying to lead the country’s most populous state and the world’s fourth largest economy.

Then on Sunday, the closest claim the Democrats had to a frontrunner in the unsettled governor’s race, Eric Swalwell, suspended his campaign, amid allegations of sexual assault and misconduct, which the US representative forcefully denied and vowed to fight. On Tuesday, another woman came forward to accuse the congressman of raping her in a West Hollywood hotel in 2018. Hours later, facing the threat of an expulsion, he formally resigned his seat in Congress.