How long have you covered California politics?

Since 2013. That's when I started at KQED.

This is Guy Marzorati. How do you like the sound of Governor Caitlin Jenner?

I think that would take some getting used to.

Governor, Governor Caitlin Jenner, yeah.

Caitlin Jenner says she's throwing her hat into the ring as a Republican candidate to oppose Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.

Over the last week, Caitlin Jenner's announcement that she plans to run for governor of California has been treated mostly like a joke.

Come on, California. If you're going to go with a member of the Kardashian family, Kim has the most experience.

She's studying for the bar exam and she managed to negotiate an exit strategy from

the troubled region of West Kanye. For a political reporter like Guy, though, this is serious.

He says Jenner might not be the typical candidate, but this gubernatorial race is not the typical

election. It's a recall, a referendum on the current governor, Gavin Newsom. And facing an election challenge from a reality TV star is just one more step in a process guy's been tracking for months.

On the recall website, they have one of those big thermometers like you would see for a fundraiser.

Oh, no.

And as the, you know, signature tally went up, it would go up and up on the thermometer.

And it was really, yeah, it was it really in a short window of time between November and

March where they were really able to, you know, collect, you know, hundreds of thousands of signatures to make this

happen. Are you surprised to find yourself here? Oh, yeah, definitely. I think we were all thinking

of 2021 as a year where we would not have to deal with elections. And so this was, you know,

definitely a surprise. And I think it kind of just took a perfect storm of events for this to actually find its way to the ballot.

Today on the show, why California is about to launch a surprise election for governor.

I'm Mary Harris. You're listening to What Next.

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