With polls closed throughout California, the vote tally begins in the chaotic primary election for governor, a volatile contest to determine which two candidates will square off in November for the chance to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom as leader of the nation’s most populous state and the world’s fourth-largest economy.
The final stretch of the election became a three-way race among veteran Democratic politician Xavier Becerra, Republican commentator Steve Hilton and billionaire Democratic climate activist Tom Steyer. Only two will advance to the general election.
Other candidates in the race included Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and Democrats including former Rep. Katie Porter, San José Mayor Matt Mahan, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond.
The race started slow but ended with a flourish, including the demise of a scandal-plagued Democratic favorite, the anointing of a Republican by President Trump and Becerra’s unexpected rise from the depths of the crowded field of candidates.
Unlike gubernatorial elections in the last quarter century, this year’s race lacked a clear crowd-pleasing front-runner able to win over voters like Hollywood movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jerry Brown, a sage of the California electorate and the scion of a storied political family. But it unfolded at a crucial time as the state’s residents are overwhelmed by high housing costs, steep gas prices and overall unaffordability that threatens the “California dream” that once drew millions of people to the state.
Many voters appeared exhausted by Trump’s policies that disproportionately affected California, such as immigration raids and the costly special election in the fall to redraw the state’s congressional districts. They did not tune in to the gubernatorial contest until weeks before Tuesday’s primary.
A fundamental question in recent days was whether the state’s 23.2 million registered voters, who all received mail-in ballots, were waiting to vote or if they would skip the election because of malaise. While low early Democratic voter turnout alarmed party leaders, it increased in the lead-up to the primary.
Tuesday’s initial results are the culmination of one of the most unpredictable and expensive gubernatorial primaries in decades and a race that was shaped just as much by who opted not to run as by the candidates who did.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris signaled interest in the seat shortly after her bruising 2024 loss to Trump. The race was effectively in limbo as Harris, one of the state’s most high-profile politicians, weighed whether to enter.
She ultimately decided against it, as did Sen. Alex Padilla. If they had run, political strategists said, either would have been favorites to win, with high name recognition and previous experience running for statewide offices.
Others bowed out too, including Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and billionaire developer Rick Caruso. Candidates who had initially declared for the seat — former state Senate leader Toni Atkins, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and billionaire Stephen Cloobeck among them — dropped out or pivoted to other races.
“I don’t ever recall a playing field that looks like this one. Usually there’s a clear front-runner,” said veteran Democratic strategist Darry Sragow. “It’s easy to say that it reflects a lack of talent [but] that’s absolutely not true. Almost any of the candidates running could make a good governor.”
Still, candidates struggled for months to break through to voters.
In February, polls showed the crowded field of Democrats splitting liberal voters and opening a statistical possibility that the party would be boxed out of November under California’s open, top-two primary, which places all candidates on the same ballot. Only the first- and second-place finishers in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation.
Republicans Hilton and Bianco led many polls, prompting Democratic officials and allies to urge their party’s low-polling candidates to drop out of the race.
“Normal people are not living and breathing politics on a daily basis,” said Tim Rosales, a strategist who ran Republican John Cox’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign. In today’s information-saturated environment, Rosales said, the race and its roster of “extremely milquetoast candidates” didn’t break through to voters until scandal erupted.
Just when former Rep. Eric Swalwell appeared on the cusp of becoming the Democratic front-runner — rising in polls and gaining support from influential labor unions — the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN published allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer and acted inappropriately with other women.
Swalwell, a top Trump critic in Congress, vehemently denied the allegations as “flat false” and vowed to fight them, but the damage was done. His campaign staff and supporters abandoned him and some donors sought refunds. Two days after the allegations were published, Swalwell suspended his campaign.
In the vacuum created by Swalwell’s collapse, his Democratic rivals frenetically cast about for momentum. Porter saw a new bump in fundraising. Silicon Valley executives poured new millions behind Mahan. Former state controller Betty Yee — who languished at the bottom of the polls — held on for a few more weeks before calling it quits.
It was Becerra who benefited most from Swalwell’s demise, though his critics and supporters alike have a hard time explaining exactly how or why. In less than two months, he vaulted from polling in the low single-digits to the top of the field of candidates, according to surveys conducted by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that were co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.
“Becerra caught lightning in a bottle,” Rosales said. “It could have easily gone to any of the other candidates,” but many had baggage. Videos of Porter losing her temper hurt her image, the source of Steyer’s wealth and his unbridled campaign spending weighed on voters’ minds, and Villaraigosa and Mahan were “more centrist than what most Democrats wanted, and so Xavier Becerra was really the safe choice,” Rosales said.
Before Democratic voters began to narrow down their choices, Trump endorsed Hilton in early April. It helped the former Fox News host break away from Bianco but diminished the chances of a Republican primary sweep.
In the days before the primary election, the race solidified into a three-way contest between Becerra, Steyer and Hilton. Now fearing a scenario with two Democrats on the November ballot, Hilton called on Republicans to unite behind him and ramped up pressure on Bianco to drop out of the race, warning that having Becerra and Steyer on the November ballot would “be a disaster for California.”
“There’s one person who can stop this doomsday scenario, and that is my friend Chad Bianco,” Hilton said in an Instagram video Friday. “Chad, the best time to have dropped out would have been a couple of weeks ago, but the second best time is right now.”
Steyer stepped up his fight in the remaining days, seeking to squeeze into one of the top two spots by relentlessly battering Becerra in ads and at campaign rallies as a politician propped up by corporate special interests.
“We cannot afford to have a governor who’s been bought off by big oil. Period,” he said at a Sunday rally in Los Angeles.
Corporations, along with labor unions and interest groups including the California Assn. of Realtors, had spent more than $18.7 million to boost Becerra, according to the election spending tracker California Target Book. Many of the same groups also gave money to a committee intended to attack Steyer.
As the election neared, Becerra sharpened his own attacks against Steyer, calling the billionaire a “liar” and accusing him of trying to buy the election.
“We are not going to let a billionaire or Trump’s handpicked candidate take over this state,” he said during a Sunday rally in Long Beach.
Steyer’s wealth has been a central theme of the race. He has so far dropped more than $216 million into his campaign, shattering records set by other wealthy self-funded candidates before him and prompting attacks from critics who accuse him of trying to buy an election.
“Everybody assumes money is the most important thing, that you can quote-unquote ‘buy an election’ with all that money,” said Jason McDaniel, an associate professor of political science at San Francisco State University. “You still have to have a candidate who is able to be well-liked, and policy stances that are aligned with where voters are in general.”
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