In rural California, Republican Brian Dahle plants the seeds of a campaign for governor

BIEBER, Calif. — With no water to irrigate his crops, Brian Dahle's success as a farmer depends heavily on the whims of rain clouds drifting over the grassy valleys and frostbitten mountains of California's northeastern frontier.

But it's been a long dry spell for Republicans hoping to become governor of California. And the conservative legislator from Lasse County's fate in this year's election depends on a break in an unfriendly political climate in a state where the GOP spent years slowly withering into irrelevance.

"This is a tough race," Dahle said about his decision to challenge Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. "There's no denying it, but I believe that things are lining up. People are not happy. There's more money in Sacramento than I've ever seen in my entire life. They're throwing it around — and people are still mad."

With the California Republican Party's endorsement, Dahle is favored to finish in the top two in the June 7 primary. That's the easy part. Once November comes, he faces the grim reality that Democrats outnumber Republicans in California by an almost 2-1 ratio.

Newsom won the 2018 governor's race by the largest margin in half a century, and the $25.6 million he currently has in his campaign account swamps Dahle's tally some 50 times over. Newsom already is using that financial advantage to attack Dahle as a loyalist of former President Donald Trump and most recently as an