On March 3, Rusty Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party, posted a letter on the party’s website. It asks Democratic candidates for Governor not to file if their chances of winning seem low. And it says if they do file, but their chances seem dim, they should announce no later than April 15 that they are suspending their campaign. In California, candidates who file cannot later remove their names from the ballot.

It is unfortunate that Hicks doesn’t publicly call for adding write-in space to the November ballot. California elections generally allow write-in votes, but in 2012 the legislature passed AB 1413, which removed write-in space from the November ballot for congress and partisan state office.