"I think the Democrats should back me."
Carolina Buhler doesn't want to talk age (Hint: She's young). Nope–the Newport resident wants to discuss her improbable path toward the governorship.
I met Carolina Buhler on a rainy day in Orange County. We sat inside the Blk Dot Coffee, a stone’s throw from a Trader Joe’s and a snazzy clothing store and Javier’s, the upscale Mexican restaurant where a burrito runs close to $30.
It was an incongruent location for Buhler’s message as she engages in a long-shot run for the governorship of California. This is a person who believes, first in foremost, in fighting against ICE and against poverty; in standing up for the poor and hungry and unhoused. She hates what she sees from our leaders (left and right) and believes—deep down—she’s the one to govern this enormous state.
Will Buhler win? Well … um ... no. There is no conceivable path. But my goal is to interview every gubernatorial candidate, and the soon-to-be UCLA grad is going for it. Plus, not for nothing, Buhler has heart and spunk and a genuine desire to help the common person.
You can visit Carolina’s website here.
JEFF PEARLMAN: “Okay. Alright. Lemme ask you this. First and foremost, how old are you? Twenty what?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “There’s always the same question. Why are you asking?”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “Because every candidate is asked. It’s not an indictment to me. It’s kind of impressive. But you’re going to get asked if your run for public office …”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I’m not going to answer.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “You don’t have to answer. But you just graduated from UCLA?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I’m graduating next quarter.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “So why would someone just getting out of college … wanted to do this brutal job? What made you decide, I’m going to run for office?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “Okay, so I was paying attention in 2024, and when Trump got elected, I already knew where everything was headed, as I’m sure many of us were. So I was like, okay, let’s see what the governor candidates are going to do. And they didn’t speak up. They didn’t fight for our rights. I mean, you’re a constituent. I’m a constituent. We can do a lot as constituents. In fact, it’s us that are in charge. In reality right now, we’re in charge and we always will be. And we always have been. And so to me, it’s not like, oh, they’re waiting to be governor, and when they’re governor, they’re going to do something. I’m like, you can do something now. And so yeah, they weren’t doing anything meaningful or speaking up against what was happening. And I was waiting because I’m paying attention.
And after four months, I’m like, there is so much we could be doing right now. And they have campaigns with money, they have platforms, they have names. Why wouldn’t they use that to stand up for our rights? I mean, why do you want to run for governor, if not for the people? And so then I had been developing policy myself, just because I’ve been communicating with my congressional representative and the senators, because they seem to be having trouble understanding how to balance the country’s budget, the federal budget. So I was like, oh, well, let me help you if it’s so confusing. And so I developed policy …
JEFF PEARLMAN: “What does that mean? You develop policy?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I just started looking into our budget. First, I started with the federal, and then I just was trying to figure out how much money was going where. And then I started to look at the state, and we have about $300 billion1, I believe, that we typically spend. And about $50 billion is on the prison system and enforcement.2
“And there’s data that shows that it’s not necessary to the extent that we’re taking it, specifically detention centers. And then I found that in 2019, Newsom wanted to shut down all the detention centers in California. And I think he even got a law passed to shut them down3. But then Biden actually fought that and he won in the courts against Newsom, and made it so we have to have detention centers and that the states can’t say we can’t have detention centers.4 And so that really began my disillusionment with people in office. And so the more I researched, I realized that, I mean, I guess I was naive. I thought the Democrats really care about us and they work hard, and some of ‘em do, but for the most part, it’s just a money machine. And I took a class by Sasha Isenberg at UCLA. He’s written “The Victory Lab” and a few other political bestsellers by Penguin Random House.
And I took a class at UCLA and it was about the highlights of the presidents that won by landslide in American history. And then we read primary sources from people that worked on those campaigns and their stories of why they think they won. And then we also looked at super old newspapers and what the newspapers said, why they won. We had to come up with our reasons of why their opponents lost. And so it kind of cleared things up for me of how possible it really is. And I think I’ve actually done pretty good for having almost no resources.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “Give me your pathway to victory. How do you, a relative unknown, very young candidate, soon-to-be UCLA grad, how do you become the governor of California?””
CAROLINA BUHLER: “Okay, so originally I thought I would take the Lyndon B. Johnson route.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “Have my predecssor die?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “For his second term, it was [Thomas] Dewey, I believe Johnson was his opponent. And everyone said Dewey was going to win. Everyone said it. The polls kept saying it was completely obvious Dewey was going to win. There’s no way Lyndon B Johnson’s going to win. And Lyndon B. Johnson ignored the poll the whole way, and he did something called the Whistle Stop Tour. And so he went on the train across the country, and literally on every stop, he would come out and then he would talk to whoever was in the train, and then he would advocate for their rights. He would tell them, ‘Hey, this is what’s happening.’ He would talk bad about his own party, the truth. He would say the truth, even if it hurt his own party. And he would say, ‘Hey, if you vote me in, then I’ll teach you how to get the right people in the House, too, because I’m trying to pass legislation right now, and the House isn’t passing it right now. So here’s what you need to do so we can flip the house and we can get real people in so we can pass his legislation so you can have more rights. He spoke to all minorities. He spoke to all kinds of people. He didn’t go to the elite. He was on a train with the people.
JEFF’S NOTE: AT THIS JUNCTURE I INTERRUPTED BUHLER TO TELL HER SHE WAS MIXING UP POLITICIANS. SHE WAS CONFUSING LYNDON B. JOHNSON FOR HARRY S. TRUMAN. SHE WAS REFERRING TO THE 1948 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
“And he never wanted to miss an opportunity to talk to someone. So sometimes he wasn’t perfectly polished and maybe was wearing a robe or something like that. And he still come out and talked to people, and he was able to activate enough voters, and he won by landslide.
JEFF PEARLMAN: “So how does that apply to you?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “So that was my first plan …”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “To take the train and wear your pajamas?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I’m going to tour California and I’m going to meet everyone and talk to every person possible and just let people know the truth of what’s happening and all of that. So that was my first plan.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “So how do you do that, though? I’m actually being serious to you. We live in an age of people having an inability to focus on more than one thing at one time. So how do you do it? How are you going about it?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “Well, first I started with LA because it’s the biggest city, and it was the epicenter of everything that’s been happening by this administration. They targeted Los Angeles early, and it’s still happening now, but it was very violent and aggressive. And so I went there because there are the most people there.
JEFF PEARLMAN: “And what would you do?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I advocated.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “I actually don’t understand. I’ve never run for office. So you go to LA, do you make people aware that, ‘Hey, I’m running for governor, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah …’
CAROLINA BUHLER: “So I went to protest and my sign said the same thing ever since. It’s still the same sign. I have it in my trunk right now. It says, ARREST KRISTI NOEM. And we’re a little closer now.”5
JEFF PEARLMAN: “So you go to rallies …”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I go to rallies, and then I don’t just go to rallies and hold a sign. I talk to everyone there and I ask them, ‘What’s going on?’ What do they care about? And these people are smart at rallies. They read all the news. They do their own research. They’re not stupid. That’s why they’re there. They’re mad. And that’s why I was there. They’re real and they’re leaders. There’s something called the network multiplier, I believe. So when you talk to leaders, then you can multiply the amount of people you spoke to if you speak to leaders, because then they propagate that to the people that they lead. So a lot of them were, like, social media. They have a lot of a huge following. I mean, if you’re at a rally, you’re probably a leader of something. You know what I mean? People don’t do as much research as you do, so they want to know what you think.
“So I use that as sort of like a network multiplier. But I started seeing injustices even on the first time I attended rallies. I saw people get arrested for just waving a flag in the air, and a federal agent went up to the person. And then the federal agent went up to the person who was just peacefully standing, who was a woman veteran. And the flag barely brushed against his face because he kept walking. He literally, he went up to her, and then as soon as the flag brushed against his face, he grabbed her.
“And then a bunch of people, all the other federal agents came. They all grabbed her. She was on the floor, and then they were dragging her into the building. They just dragged her away. That was the first time that I showed up.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “How long ago was that, would you say?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I believe that was in July. Yeah. And so I was very shocked by that because everyone knows, I mean, they’re not the LAPD, but they might as well be. Everyone knows LAPD is horrible, blah, blah, blah. No one denies that. But I think being there in person and experiencing injustice, and that’s minimal, right? There’s something physiological about it that literally changes you and you understand reality a little bit better.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “So would you say your number one concern as a candidate is social justice?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I think that we all have needs like shelter and food and peace, and that no one has that. And you may think that you have it, but the reality is that you’re worried, too. And If you’re ignoring what’s happening in the country, it doesn’t mean it’s not affecting you. It is, it’s affecting your sleep. Probably the tariffs affect everyone with the finances. I mean, the violence affects the people that it affects directly. But you’re seeing now you don’t have to have darker skin to experience the violence. And I saw that that day for no reason. And I’ve seen it happen time and time again. I started attending the courts, the court hearings for the people arrested. And the federal judges are very unfair. I mean, people were facing 20 years for literally not doing anything because the federal agents would lie on every case. And I know they lied because I was there when the events happened, and I saw it with my own eyes. So yeah, I just started advocating. I wrote to the governor early on, even before I ran for governor, I wrote to the governor, I wrote to the attorney general. And to their credit, they responded to seven or eight out of 10 things I would say that they should do. They did it.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “They respond in what way? You would get a letter back?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I would see them do it. I would write to them, and they listened.”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “When Trump first deployed the National Guard to California, our own National Guard, I wrote to Newsom that evening and I said, ‘This is against the law. You’re the governor. You’re supposed to give the, okay, literally, Trump cannot do it without your permission. If you say no, then it’s no.’ But he didn’t say no, that’s the thing. He didn’t say no. He just said that would be inflammatory. So that’s why it happened, because technically and legally he could have said no. And then that would’ve been an even stronger case. But anyways, they did start taking action.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “And do you think that was as a result of you writing?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I think many people probably wrote, I think it takes a lot of us. It takes all of us, and I was one of ‘em. And when I started seeing that it works, I started doing it more with my congressional representative. I wrote to him about the connection between the mass deportations and Epstein, because actually the network where they’re sending people, they’re not sending people back to the country they’re from. They’re sending them to random countries. And it aligns with the same network that the Epstein files of the human trafficking was happening, which is very interesting.6 But on the other hand, it’s not surprising. Trump is the president, right? And all of this is for profit. I mean, I’ve been saying it early on, there are three main corporations that make money every single night. The detention centers make money for every body.”7
JEFF PEARLMAN: “So you said on your website you are in favor of getting rid of detention centers. Are you saying prisons or specifically ICE detention centers?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I mean, I know it’s very radical to say there shouldn’t be any prisons at all. I mean, I think probably there are 15 to 20 percent of people who really are psychopaths. I think that’s a statistic that is real. And there really are bad people out there, but it’s not the amount of people that are in prison right now. At UCLA, I took plenty of classes where we looked at stats and it’s a huge percentage of people that shouldn’t be in there. And we all know this. It’s not surprising. Systemic racism and all of that stuff, not new. And I think that there are other solutions. And most of the time people do things not because they’re bad, but they get to a point where they have no other option. And we need to focus on what people need. And then things will get better.
JEFF PEARLMAN: “Did you grow up in Orange County?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I grew up in the Valley. I’m from Burbank and I lived in Hollywood, in Brentwood, in San Diego. My family lives in Riverside County.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “How’d you wind up in Orange County?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “My boyfriend.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “So I dunno, you live in Newport, obviously wealthy enclave of Orange County. Where did you get your sort of sense of empathy?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I think that’s just the way my family’s always been. My grandma’s Black, indigenous and from Mexico, and I was born in Mexico. I’m an immigrant, I’m a citizen. I was 2 when I came here. But my family, the way we always have been, and the village where my family is from is the same. If someone needs something, you find out who has what they need and then you give them everything they need. If someone wants to do something or they have a dream, you think about what you have or how or what resources you have, and then you give that, even if it’s a stranger. That’s just how my family’s always been.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “What do your parents do for work? What’d you grow up watching?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “My mom was a caretaker most of her life. And then my dad in Mexico was a chemical engineer.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “It’s interesting because, alright, so you’re graduating from UCLA and there’s always this idea that one of the frustrating things about politics is young people don’t vote. And I would say, when I go to different rallies and cover different rallies, I’d say the average age is 65 to 70. It’s a lot of old people out there with their signs. And you don’t see that many people your age getting civically involved. Do you feel like people your age are getting involved? Or do you feel like it is a problem her. Do most of your friends give a shit?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I don’t want to focus too much on age. But now high schools, middle schools, they’re doing walkouts, huge walkouts. And at my college when there was a first walkout way back when, I didn’t see almost anyone. I saw a very small rally of maybe 40 people or something. And I was really disappointed, but whatever. And when people were boycotting Spotify, they were playing ICE commercials. People did not care. They were using Spotify. I’m like, ‘Didn’t you hear about the boycott?’ And they looked at me like I’m annoying. But then interestingly enough, on January 28th or 29th, there was a huge, huge rally. I want to say there were maybe over 500 students at UCLA that did an anti-ICE walkout. And it was incredible. And I had nothing do with it, which was awesome.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “Why wouldn’t you want to focus on your age? I actually think one of your strengths is all these old people fucked everything up. And, ‘Hey, I’m young and fresh faced and idyllic, and I can reach young people!’ Isn’t that a strength of yours?
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I think that people who are perceived as women, non-binary, people that are perceived as women when they’re young, they’re dismissed as ‘too young.’ And when they’re, what people like to call middle age, they’re too old. So it doesn’t matter how old you are, if you’re perceived as a woman, you’re never the right age.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “So it’s like lose lose. You can’t win.”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “Yeah. That’s our society. But yeah, no, I think the young generation, very young, all the way to middle school is kind of taking over and thank God everyone else is exhausted.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “Do you have anyone in your life who thinks Trump is a good president?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I had someone and then they changed their mind. Someone very MAGA, actually, that I even think personally was trying to get all of my family’s information to report us. We’re all citizens, but they’re asking me where my family lives, each siblings full name and address. And I’m like, hold on, what’s going on here? And they’re full-on MAGA and even they don’t like Trump any longer. And they are sick of what’s happening now. And they surprisingly are completely against what’s happening.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “Do you actually want this job? Because it seems awful …”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “No, I don’t. I don’t. I wish somebody could have stepped up.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “Katie Porter?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I was waiting for her to speak up. She hasn’t. Not enough for me at least. Federal agents are grabbing people and not identifying themselves. Where is the anger? It’s always been federal policy that federal agents have to identify themselves. And it is literally the duty of law enforcement to enforce the law. Local law, state law. But also the federal agents are not identifying themselves. Law enforcement, local law enforcement has the right to verify their identity and must verify their identity. But they’re not because they’re scared. I’ve told the LAPD police chief to step down to his face. I’ve gone to different police stations and spoken to police officers and the one chief told me that if the governor wrote a directive, clarifying what the law is and emphasizing that they must do the following in terms of a protocol for ICE, that they have to follow it. Directives are very serious. And I called Newsom’s office and told them, and I did that early last year, and I even wrote up the directive, which is just simply clarifying what the law is. And I mean, I made it. I even wrote it as a template. They could modify it. And I sent it to the attorney general and I sent it to CSAC (California Student Aid Commission). Why didn’t Katie Porter do any of that? Literally, I’m just a normal, average constituent like you and I care enough to drive around, figure out why the heck you can’t protect the people. Because I’m seeing them get hurt. I meet the people that are hurt and it’s heartbreaking.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “Do you think you’re going to win?”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “I think I can win because of that class that I took. And the votes are so divided. I mean, right now the Republicans can win because of how divided the Democratic party is. There are so many Democratic candidates that even the Republicans can win. They actually might actually win. And I think the Democrats should back me. None of them have been doing any of the work. And they’re the ones with the resources and a platform. Why wouldn’t they just back someone who actually cares and has been doing the work?”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “They’re going to say, you don’t have any money.”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “Right. What do you think about that?”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “I think it’s fucked up, but I think it’s a reality of politics.”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “Yeah, well …”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “You need a shit ton of money to run.”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “You just said you think it’s fucked up.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “It is.”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “Right, exactly. That’s why I’m running for governor.”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “It’s like a catch 22. You need money to run for governor even though it’s a bullshit system where you need money to run for governor.”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “Okay, so tell me this. So Polymarket is a website where people place bets on events and it’s now even being written about politics. And there’s one question that says, ‘Who do you think is going to get through the primaries for Governor of California? And in terms of volume, I’m in the top nine candidates. I’m above Betty Yee. How did I do that?”
JEFF PEARLMAN: “Um …”
CAROLINA BUHLER: “So people know who I am. Who places bets politically?They’re aware of me. How did I do that? If I have almost no money, I dunno. But I want to win.”
She’s right. This year’s budget is about $348 million.
The Governor’s proposed 2026-27 budget for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is $14.1 billion
This is untrue. He pledged to close some facilities, certainly not all.
This did not happen.
Lord knows I loathe Donald Trump. But I see no proof of this.
This is very true of private detention centers. It’s gross.
If you talk to her or anybody like her (young, idealistic, etc.) that is thinking of getting into politics for, what I think are her good reasons, please remind them “government starts local”. I’ve been active in NPB politics (not as an elected) and advocacy for 26 years and never met her. I’m seeing more and more “young” people (I’m 82 so everybody is young to me.) who want to “do good” and start as governor, mayor, congressmember. Few (there are exceptions) want to serve on city or county committees, commissions or public advocacy groups and learn what is going and on how the sausage is made. Most seem to want to start as executives.
Just my thoughts as I read your interview.
Thanks for what you do. I enjoy reading your posts.
It's obvious she's not a history major