The two candidates running for California governor will meet Wednesday for a nationally televised debate that is likely to be their only face-off before the Nov. 3 election.
After a wild primary campaign this year, the governor’s race has settled into a low-key affair. Xavier Becerra, a Democrat who served as health and human services secretary under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., is a heavy favorite in a state dominated by his party. He is facing Steve Hilton, a Republican who was once a Fox News television host and an aide to David Cameron, the former British prime minister.
CNN will host the debate at 6 p.m. local time, just days before ballots begin landing in voters’ mailboxes.
Univision, the Spanish-language network, told The New York Times that both candidates have also agreed to participate in a town-hall-style forum on Oct. 20. But the candidates will not appear at the same time at that event.
Mr. Hilton, 57, who has lagged in polls and fund-raising, stands to gain more than Mr. Becerra from the national exposure that Wednesday’s debate will provide. He has been traveling the state to hold campaign events and sit for media interviews, trying to catch voters’ attention however he can.
By comparison, Mr. Becerra, 68, has made limited public appearances since the June primary. It’s been two decades since California voters elected a Republican to statewide office, so many Democratic candidates in the state have come to wage fiercer fights in the primary against party rivals and then kept a lower profile in less competitive general elections.
The two men are vying to lead a state during a moment of economic pessimism, recent polling shows. Price increases and high housing costs are straining many households, and reducing the cost of living is a top priority for a plurality of likely voters.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who must leave office in January because of term limits, made sparring with President Trump a core part of his strategy as governor. The candidates running to replace him are taking cues, as Mr. Trump remains deeply unpopular in California.
Mr. Becerra has attacked Mr. Trump’s moves to restrict voting access while serving as an adviser on a lawsuit against a Republican sheriff who seized ballots and while campaigning against a California ballot measure to require voter identification. Mr. Becerra was California’s attorney general before he worked for the Biden administration.
“It’s really a threat to our democracy, and he’s working hard to protect people’s right to vote,” said Jonathan Underland, a spokesman for Mr. Becerra.
Mr. Hilton got Mr. Trump’s endorsement, which may have benefited him in the primary but now requires a difficult balancing act. He is trying to appeal to California voters who dislike the president while still keeping MAGA voters in his camp.
“Can you be anti-Trump but still vote for me?” Mr. Hilton asked in a full-page newspaper ad this summer that outlined the reasons he believed voters who oppose the president should still support him.
He said he’s met many voters on the campaign trail who tell him, “One-party rule just isn’t working, and we need a bit of balance.”
“I hear that often,” Mr. Hilton said in an interview.
For the Univision town halls in October, the candidates will appear separately and take questions from the audience. Mr. Becerra will address voters in Spanish, which he grew up speaking in California with his parents, who immigrated from Mexico. An interpreter will translate the responses given by Mr. Hilton, who grew up in England with parents who emigrated there from Hungary.
Most voters view debates as a partisan “team sport,” said Kim Nalder, a political science professor who leads the Project for an Informed Electorate at California State University, Sacramento. But she said that the debate may help some voters decide whom to support given that many are still learning about the candidates.
Mr. Becerra has run a low-profile campaign, Ms. Nalder said, and many voters may be unfamiliar with Mr. Hilton unless they watch Fox News.
“In this particular case, I think it is possible that some persuasion might happen because the impressions are not already formed,” Ms. Nalder said.
In general, she said, televised political debates have had less impact in recent years as media habits have changed and candidates have focused more on turning out their supporters rather than persuading undecided voters to choose them.
This summer, Mr. Hilton called for at least six debates. But front-runners like Mr. Becerra who enjoy a lopsided partisan advantage often decide that they have more to lose than gain from debating.
Mr. Newsom was even more elusive than Mr. Becerra in 2018, the last time California had an open race for governor. The two candidates met for just one debate ahead of the general election — and very few people saw it.
Mr. Newsom, a Democrat who was lieutenant governor, debated John Cox, a Republican businessman, on the radio. No television cameras were allowed to broadcast the event. And it took place in the middle of a Monday morning.
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