{"id":272199,"date":"2026-04-17T07:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/272199\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T07:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:01:09","slug":"xavier-becerra-surges-in-poll-after-eric-swalwell-drops-out-of-california-governors-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/272199\/","title":{"rendered":"Xavier Becerra surges in poll after Eric Swalwell drops out of California governor’s race"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new poll shows a major shift in the California governor’s race after former Rep. Eric Swalwell,<\/a> who was once a frontrunner, dropped out of the election following several allegations of sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n

“This definitely throws this race into even more volatility, creates a huge vacuum,” Pomona College politics professor Sara Sadhwani said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the new numbers, Xavier Becerra, the former state attorney general and Health and Human Services Secretary under President Biden, is surging in popularity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Emerson College’s Inside California Politics poll, Becerra is now polling at 10%, a seven-point jump since March<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Republican Steve Hilton remains in the lead with 17%, followed by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco at 14%.<\/p>\n

Among Democrats, billionaire Tom Steyer leads the pack with 14%, followed by Becerra and former Rep. Katie Porter at 10% each. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan sits at 5%.<\/p>\n

The poll showed that 23% of voters remain undecided.<\/p>\n

“Xavier Becerra should be the happiest of them all because he’s the biggest move in this survey,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, director at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs.<\/p>\n

Emerson College conducted the poll right after Swalwell dropped out of the race and President Trump endorsed Hilton.<\/p>\n

“I believe over time, because Trump has endorsed Hilton for the governorship, that Hilton will continue to edge up and Bianco by definition will have to go down,” Yaroslavsky said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last weekend, the California GOP held its convention, and, similar to the Democrats, the party did not make an endorsement. However, Bianco received the most votes from the GOP delegates.<\/p>\n

“We’re extremely happy with how it came out,” Bianco said. “There was a lot of effort put in by my opponent. Hundreds of thousands of dollars to try and win this election.<\/p>\n

With the large number of undecided voters, Yaroslavky believes that the race is still in the air.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s still early,” Yaroslavsky said. “It’s a little less than seven weeks before the election. The ballots go out at the beginning of next month. People, at least 30%, still haven’t made up their mind.”<\/p>\n

In the state’s primary system<\/a>, only the top two vote-getters in the June primary will advance to the November general election.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new poll shows a major shift in the California governor’s race after former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-272199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}