It's difficult to imagine that, come the general election, California voters will be asked to choose between two Republicans for their next governor.

Scratch that. It's actually the stuff of nightmares.

We aren't talking Arnold Schwarzenegger-style moderate Republicans who could end up vying to lead this very blue state. We are talking about a couple of extremists.

One, Steve Hilton, is a Trump-aligned, British-born Fox News contributor, a 2020 election denier, and former director of strategy to British Prime Minister David Cameron — the man who unleashed the Brexit mess on his fellow citizens.

The other is Riverside County Sheriff Todd Bianco, so desperate for a pat on the head from President Trump that he seized 650,000 of last November's ballots as part of a transparently bogus "investigation" to determine whether they were fraudulently counted. What an old, tired gesture. It's a wonder Bianco, a onetime Oath Keeper, didn't do something more original… like, I dunno, try to bomb Iran himself.

Still, this GOP pair could conceivably garner the top two spots in California's June 2 primary, which means they would face each other in November. Why? Because they are the only two Republicans running, while an octet of Democrats have fractured the polls.

They include former California Atty Gen. Xavier Becerra, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan (new darling of Silicon Valley's deep-pocketed techies), former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, billionaire entrepreneur Tom Steyer, U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, schools Superintendent Tony Thurman, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former state Controller Betty Yee.

Polls show Bianco (14-16%) and Hilton (16-17%) at the top. So far, the only Dems polling in double digits — but barely — are Swalwell, Porter and Steyer, who has spent nearly $100 million of his own money so far. The others range from about 5% down to barely more than 1% (that distinction goes to Thurmond and Yee.)

A whopping 24% of voters are undecided.

This bulging field led Rusty Hicks, chairman of the California Democratic Party, to gently suggest three days before the March 6 filing deadline that low-polling candidates drop out.

"If you do not have a viable path to make it to the General Election," he wrote in an open letter to the candidates, "do not file to place your name on the ballot for the Primary Election."

They all filed.

"If you decide to file," Hicks continued, "be prepared to suspend your campaign and endorse another candidate on or before April 15 if your campaign cannot show meaningful progress toward winning."

So far, no one has dropped out.

"Because this field is so weak," said my friend Melanie Mason, Politico's California bureau chief, "and even the front-runners have flaws, they look at each other and say 'Why can't it be me?'"

Mason compared the situation to the famous Prisoners' Dilemma, a game theory scenario that shows how when people act in their own self-interest, they can end up hurting themselves and their opponents.

I admit, the large, low-polling Democratic field had me feeling anxious. Are Democrats engaged in a circular firing squad?

I called Villaraigosa to ask him why he's not dropping out. He made a pretty good case for why he shouldn't. "It's too early," he said. "If we were in May and people were undecided, that's one thing. But we are in March and no candidate has more than 'Undecided.' Elections are fluid."

It's true. My colleague Mark Z. Barabak wrote the other day about former California Gov. Gray Davis, who won the 1998 governor's race in a landslide after his two well-funded primary opponents (multimillionaires Al Checchi and Jane Harman) committed what Davis' campaign manager Garry South described as a "murder-suicide."

"It's fine for someone else to tell you you should get out," Davis told Barabak. "But that's not their business. You're the candidate, and if you think for whatever reason you want to stay in the race, you should stay in the race."

I asked Villaraigosa, half kidding, whether he had engaged in some back-room dealing with his opponents — you know, If I drop out and you win, you give me a plum job. He laughed and said, "Like what? Head of the DMV? It's not like the presidency."

The large Democratic field has complicated the logistics for debate sponsors. On Monday, my colleagues Seema Mehta and Nicole Nixon reported, USC canceled a debate that was scheduled to take place less than 24 hours later. The formula the school used to determine who could participate, which included both Republicans and four Democrats, excluded all the candidates of color (Villraigosa and Becerra are Latino, Thurmond is Black and Yee is Chinese American.) Not a good look for a state that prides itself on its diversity and has actively opposed Trump's efforts to strangle DEI.

"Everybody lost," Villaraigosa said.

I'm not so sure. The cancellation generated plenty of news, which probably drew more attention to the governor's race than any debate would have. It would appear that "undecided" is finally tuning into the race.

Feels like a win to me.

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