Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra gathers supporters on election night in downtown Los Angeles onJune 2.
Jen Osborne for the S.F. Chronicle
Steve Hilton attends an election night event on June 2, 2026, in Huntington Beach.
Gregory Bull/Associated Press
Tom Steyer looks to attendees as he approached the podium to address the crowd during his election night watch party at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco on Tuesday, June 02, 2026. Steyer is a Democratic candidate for governor.
Santiago Mejia/S.F. Chronicle
Dolores Huerta, center, attends Xavier Becerra’s election night watch party in downtown Los Angeles.
Jen Osborne for the S.F. Chronicle
Supporters of former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra attend an election night party in downtown Los Angeles on June 2, 2026.
Jen Osborne for the S.F. Chronicle
Tom Steyer during his election night watch party at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco on Tuesday, June 02, 2026. Steyer is a Democratic candidate for governor.
Santiago Mejia/S.F. Chronicle
Attendees look over at the podium as Tom Steyer addresses the crowd during his election night watch party at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco on Tuesday, June 02, 2026. Steyer is a Democratic candidate for governor.
Santiago Mejia/S.F. Chronicle
Anthony York, senior adviser to Tom Steyer, meets with the press during Steyer’s election night watch party at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco on June 2, 2026.
Santiago Mejia/S.F. Chronicle
From right to left, candidates for California governor Matt Mahan, former U.S. Xavier Becerra, Chad Bianco, Steve Hilton and Tom Steyer take part in a CNN debate at East Los Angeles College on May 5, 2026, in Monterey Park.
Justin Sullivan/TNS
Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra led a crowded governor’s race in early vote totals shortly after polls closed at 8 p.m.
With just 4.1 million votes counted, Hilton, a former Fox News host, had 26.7%. Becerra, who served as Health and Human Services Secretary under President Joe Biden, had 25.8%.
Democrat Tom Steyer, a billionaire and liberal activist, was trailing in third with 19.6%.
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If Becerra and Hilton advance to the general election, Becerra will be the overwhelming favorite to win in liberal California.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, former Rep. Katie Porter, San Jose Mayor Mahan, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state schools chief Tony Thurmond trailed with less than 12% of the vote each.
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Tuesday night represents the end of one of the most chaotic and unpredictable governor races in California history. Candidates began lining up years ago to run to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who cannot run again because of term limits.
The allure of a wide-open race for one of the highest-profile roles in Democratic politics and the most powerful office in the nation’s most populous state drew so many Democrats that party leaders began to worry that they may be shut out of the race entirely.
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About 45% of California voters are registered Democrats while just 25% are registered Republicans. Most voters registered without party preference in California tend to vote for Democrats. But in the first few months of the year, polls showed nine Democratic candidates for governor were splitting the liberal vote, compared with just two leading Republican candidates. In California’s open primary system, where the first- and second-place finishers advance to the general election regardless of party, that could mean that two Republicans advanced, shutting Democrats out entirely.
In March, California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks called on low-polling candidates to drop out. The request did not prompt any major exits, but did spur accusations that party leaders were trying to shut out candidates of color because the Democratic frontrunners at the time — Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Castro Valley, Steyer and Porter — were all white.
The race was rocked by two April surprises.
One was seismic: On April 10, the San Francisco Chronicle published an investigation into allegations that Swalwell had sexually assaulted a former staffer, which prompted an almost-immediate rebuke from essentially all of his top supporters. Within days, Swalwell resigned and dropped out of the race.
The other was less dramatic but still significant: President Donald Trump endorsed Hilton. The Republican president’s stamp of approval boosted Hilton, who had been polling neck-and-neck with Bianco, ahead of his Republican rival, dimming the chances that both would win enough support to advance to the general election and shut out the Democrats. Bianco was winning 11.3% of the vote as of 9:30 p.m. Tuesday.
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In the wake of Swalwell’s exit, Becerra quickly surged to the top of the pack in polling. His swift rise was a validation of his at the time somewhat surprising decision to stay in the race even when he was polling in the single digits. If elected, he has promised to expand access to health care and bring down the cost of living, though he has not laid out many detailed plans about how he will accomplish those goals.
His rise in the polls prompted his rivals to attack him over several scandals during his long tenure in public service, which included two terms as California attorney general and over two decades in Congress. Becerra, 68, has faced particular scrutiny over the indictment of his former chief of staff and his role in placing unaccompanied migrant children into sometimes exploitative situations with sponsor families.
Hilton, 56, has been one of the leading attackers of Becerra during the primary campaign. Hilton, a naturalized American citizen from the United Kingdom, has never held elected office, but served as a top aide to former British Prime Minister David Cameron before he moved to California in 2012.
Steve Hilton, the Republican candidate for California governor, spoke on Tuesday, June 2, 2026 in Huntington Beach, California. Hilton has been one of the leading attackers of Becerra during the primary campaign.
Courtesy of Associated Press
If elected, Hilton promises to take the state in a very different direction than his predecessors. He pledged in an interview with the Chronicle to do away with California’s climate policies in favor of more gas production and said he thinks lawmakers should focus less on regulating AI and more on improving its education system. On housing policy, he agrees with many of his Democratic rivals on cutting housing costs and regulations, but diverges in his support for building more sprawling communities with single-family homes.
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Steyer, who is self-funding his campaign, has spent more than anyone else in history to campaign for the state’s top job. The 68-year-old has spent $216 million, more than the $144 million Republican Meg Whitman spent in her unsuccessful 2010 campaign against former Gov. Jerry Brown.
He’s running on a platform of raising taxes on big companies and billionaires like himself to facilitate more state spending on progressive policies. He wants to create a state-funded healthcare system for all Californians, known as single-payer healthcare, though he said he has yet to work out the details. He has no prior government experience, but he has pointed to his past success running statewide ballot measure campaigns as evidence he’s up for the job.
At Steyer’s election night party at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco waited for results, his senior adviser Anthony York told reporters not to take Tuesday’s results at face value. It could be “days, or even weeks” before the results of the primary were settled, he said.
“It might take a while,” York said. “We think Tom will either increase the lead he has or close the gap over the next couple of days.”
York cited accelerating rates of ballot return in the last week, predicting that Steyer would continue to gain vote share as late ballots were tallied. Election Day votes have “tended to be more Republican,” he said.
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Porter, an early frontrunner in the race, became mired in controversy after video surfaced of her being testy with a reporter and a years-old clip of her yelling at a staffer, even as some of her male rivals avoided similar scrutiny of their temperaments. She began to call out the disparity, but the damage was done, and her support has declined in recent polls. As of 9:30 p.m., she was winning just 5% of the vote.
Mahan was the last of the leading candidates to enter the race, after he previously announced he would not run. His moderate, business-friendly platform won him the support of some of the country’s most powerful billionaires, who poured money into efforts to elect him. But he failed to catch fire with voters. As of 9:30 p.m., he was winning 4.6% of the vote.
Villaraigosa and Thurmond have long careers in public office, but failed to gain traction in the crowded race. They were winning about 2% of the vote combined as of 9:30 p.m. Villaraigosa conceded the race not long after the polls closed Tuesday.
Despite ending his candidacy for governor in April before ballots dropped, Swalwell has still won 15,000 votes so far.
That represents just 0.39% of the vote.