Gubernatorial candidates, from left, Xavier Becerra, Steve Hilton, Matt Mahan, Tom Steyer, Tony Thurmond, Antonio Villaraigosa and Betty Yee participate in a debate in San Francisco last month. Candidates in the race are generally pushing to build more homes and do so faster.
Nhat V. Meyer
Bay Area News Group/TNS
Try as they might to distinguish themselves in a crowded race, Republican and Democratic hopefuls to be the next California governor have a largely similar message when it comes to the state’s severe housing costs: Build more homes, and do it faster.
That has led to comments during recent candidate forums such as one last week put on by the state Realtors association.
“There’s a lot of agreement here, a lot of alignment from all of us on some of the specific changes that need to be made,” Republican candidate Steve Hilton said after four Democrats talked about temporarily suspending state environmental rules, speeding up permit approvals and lowering fees that developers pay on projects, among other ideas.
“That is great news for this incredibly important issue,” Hilton added.
For many years Californians have viewed the cost it takes to buy or rent a place to live in the state as a top concern. And the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom have responded by pushing to make it easier to build homes.
Despite that, those aggressive efforts have also led to a backlash. In some communities, unhappy residents pack meeting rooms and file lawsuits to try and kill housing developments. And local leaders criticize what they see as Sacramento taking away too much of their local control.
But the recent forums show that those frustrations are being drowned out in the race to become the state’s next top leader by the chorus of governor hopefuls wanting to make it easier to build.
“We’re just happy that every candidate for governor has elected to make housing reform one of their top, or their top, issues,” said Dan Dunmoyer, CEO of the California Building Industry Association. “Every one of them on their website, in their speeches, has said housing, housing, housing.”
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, a Democrat, last week released a detailed 15-point plan on his goals. Many of them are policies — such as cutting fees, enforcing review timelines and embracing homes built in factories and assembled on site — that are also being advocated for by many of his competitors.
“Some candidates are emphasizing different policy solutions but broadly speaking they’re all saying we need more homes,” said Brian Hanlon, CEO of California YIMBY, which stands for “Yes in my backyard.”
He moderated a forum last month that was solely focused on housing. It was on the same day the California Democratic Party began a statewide convention. The forum was attended by seven of the eight Democrats who are competing for governor.
No one in the race, Hanlon said, “wants to be seen as the anti-housing candidate.”
To be sure, not all of the competitors have the same ideas.
State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, a Democrat, has called for building more than two million homes on surplus land that schools have. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco wants to eliminate the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA. Tom Steyer said he will build “one million new homes working Californians can afford.”
Making big promises on housing may be tempting, especially when the field is so closely aligned, but Democratic strategist Garry South, who helped Gray Davis win the governorship twice, said he wouldn’t suggest that if he was advising any of the candidates in the race.
Newsom, when running for governor in 2017, famously said would lead an effort to build 3.5 million homes by 2025. The state didn’t get close to that number.
The next governor can serve as a “pressure agent,” South said, but local governments and developers play more significant roles in how many homes ultimately are being built statewide.
The candidates in this year’s race see an important role for the governor. But in another sign of harmony at the Realtor forum last week Hilton, the Republican, didn’t say that he was the only one who could help ease the state’s housing issues. He instead touted the “great ideas” he and his fellow competitors were pitching.
“Whoever of us gets there,” he said, “we got to be really tough with the interests that are holding us back.”
This story was originally published March 11, 2026 at 3:57 PM.
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Stephen Hobbs is an enterprise reporter for The Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Bureau. He has worked for newspapers in Colorado, Florida and South Carolina.