Former LA mayor and state Assembly speaker Antonio Villaraigosa hasn’t run the most electrifying campaign for governor. But he has been doing an admirable job in recent weeks of highlighting the most important reality in this campaign: California can’t blame Donald Trump for its problems.

“We can’t put everything on Donald Trump,” he said last weekend in an interview with MS NOW (once known as MSNBC, still as far-left as ever).

“We have the highest homelessness in the United States of America, the highest gas prices, the highest utilities, the highest home prices. People can’t afford rent. And those happened under Democratic policies,” he concluded.

Villaraigosa is not about to put on a MAGA hat. He called Trump a “threat to democracy” in the same interview.

But he is also being realistic about the problems facing California.

Take the gas tax, for example. As The California Post has pointed out on many occasions, the high price at the pump is partly the result of the Iran war. But California’s gas prices were already higher than those of the rest of the country. And they are still much higher than in other states. (They have an Iran war over there, too.)

The midterm election of 2026 is a “change” election.

One side wants to change California’s policies, and the people in charge of them.

The other side wants to change Donald Trump, even though he’s not on the ballot.

Among the Democratic candidates for governor, the real contest has been, at times, who can boast the most aggressive anti-Trump credentials.

That was why Eric Swalwell was doing so well, before he crashed out of the race amid sexual misconduct allegations. No one doubted his obsessive hatred of the president.

With Swalwell’s demise, Xavier Becerra rose to the top, touting a record of fighting Trump in court (and little else, despite years in public life).

But perhaps California’s politicians need to give voters more credit.

Trump is not responsible for the fact that California has a disproportionate number of the nation’s poor and homeless.

Trump is not responsible for California’s mediocre education results and crumbling roads.

Trump is not responsible for the fact that middle-class families have been leaving California in droves for years.

Democrats need to explain how California can fix its own problems.

Because in two years, Trump will be gone. And there will be no one left to blame.