By Daniel Trotta
April 16 (Reuters) – Two more Democrats, former California attorney general and cabinet secretary Xavier Becerra and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, cleared the polling threshold and will join next week’s debate in the state’s gubernatorial primary campaign after Eric Swalwell, accused of sexual assault, dropped out of the race, organizers said on Thursday.
Nexstar Media Group, which will broadcast the debate on news channels in six of the state’s largest markets, said recent polling put Becerra, who was secretary of health and human services under President Joe Biden, at 10%, well over the 5% threshold.
Mahan, the mayor of California’s third-largest city by population, came in right at 5%.
Nexstar commissioned a new poll from Emerson College Polling to re-evaluate the field after Swalwell, 45, left the race on Sunday and resigned from the U.S. Congress after multiple women accused him of sexual assault and other forms of impropriety.
Swalwell has denied the allegations but suspended his campaign, creating an opening after polling had qualified him for Wednesday’s debate.
Becerra and Mahan will join four others – Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, plus Democrats Tom Steyer and Katie Porter – who previously qualified for the debate to be held at Nexstar’s KRON4 studios in San Francisco.
The inclusion of Becerra, a Latino who shot up from 3% support in the previous poll in March, adds a non-white candidate to the debate stage. He appeared to be the biggest beneficiary from Swalwell’s departure.
The University of Southern California canceled a planned March 25 debate following an uproar over race representation as the six candidates to qualify at that time were all white. California, a liberal state where 30% of eligible voters are Latino, has only elected white men as governor.
There are 61 candidates, including 24 Democrats and 12 Republicans, who qualified for the June 2 primary ballot.
In California’s “jungle primary,” the top two vote-getters advance to the runoff in November, even if they are from the same party.
The Nexstar poll showed Hilton, a former Fox News host who received President Donald Trump’s endorsement, leading the pack overall with 17%.
Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, was tied at 14% with the Democrat Steyer, a hedge fund billionaire who is bankrolling his own campaign.
Becerra was tied with former U.S. Representative Katie Porter at 10%, followed by Mahan at 5%.
The largest segment of voters – 23% – were undecided.
Emerson College Polling surveyed 1,000 likely primary voters on Monday and Tuesday. It said the poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Editing by Donna Bryson and Edmund Klamann)