{"id":292988,"date":"2026-04-30T10:52:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T10:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/292988\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T10:52:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T10:52:38","slug":"eight-candidates-spar-in-crowded-california-primary-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/292988\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight candidates spar in crowded California primary debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eight candidates in the race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom<\/a> struggled to rise above the din of cross-talk, accusations and rebuttals at a 90-minute Tuesday evening debate hosted by CBS News.<\/p>\n

The event included two Republicans, six Democrats and five moderators in what organizers billed as the largest and most inclusive debate ahead of the June 2 primary. The sprawling event at Pomona College in Claremont, California, in part reflects the lack of frontrunners in the race.<\/p>\n

A CBS News\/YouGov poll released on Monday<\/a> showed roughly a quarter of likely primary voters remain undecided, a total larger than any of the highest polling candidates. Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, drew support from 16% of those polled, trailed by billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer with 15% support, and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra with 13% support.<\/p>\n

The thin margins and packed stage led to a debate where no candidate was safe from interruptions \u2014 including from the moderators. The event was at times so chaotic that even the college students in the audience took note of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWow, that was a bit of a mess,\u201d said one Pomona College student told the candidates after a particularly unruly exchange.<\/p>\n

Becerra was a frequent target. The former state attorney general shot up in the polls after former<\/a> Rep. Eric Swalwell suspended his campaign earlier this month<\/a> in the face of sexual assault allegations that he\u2019s denied<\/a>.<\/p>\n

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who polled at 5% in the CBS survey, accused Becerra of bungling the federal government\u2019s response to COVID-19, mpox and the influx in child migrants under former President Joe Biden. He said Becerra had \u201cnever met a crisis he couldn\u2019t ignore.\u201d Those attacks echoed ones from Steyer, who has launched ads focused on a New York Times investigation<\/a> that found thousands of children had been trafficked into child labor under Becerra\u2019s watch.<\/p>\n

Becerra pitched his tenure at HHS as a success.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not wearing a mask,\u201d he told Mahan. \u201cAre you mad?\u201d<\/p>\n

Becerra described himself as the field\u2019s most battle-tested candidate who\u2019d taken on President Donald Trump repeatedly in court. At one point he referred to the president as \u201cSteve Hilton\u2019s daddy\u201d in a nod to Trump\u2019s endorsement of the British TV commentator<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hilton and his Republican rival, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, accused Democrats of trying to pin their failures in California on Trump. At one point, Bianco claimed the state\u2019s misspending and fraud were so rampant that it dwarfed any single action by Trump, including his signing of a Republican megabill that experts say will cause millions of Californians to lose health insurance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHundreds of billions of dollars and we\u2019re worried about President Trump taking away that?\u201d Bianco said.<\/p>\n

Former Rep. Katie Porter clashed with Steyer, both of whom cast themselves as stalwart progressives. Porter called the environmental activist a \u201cprofiteer\u201d for his past investments in fossil fuels and touted her campaign\u2019s refusal of corporate funds. Steyer said some of the state\u2019s business interests, including the California Chamber and PG&E, are funding a multimillion dollar effort to keep him from winning because, he said, \u201cthey\u2019re scared of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were moments of substantial policy discussion. Mahan, Bianco, Hilton and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, a low-polling Democrat, all said the state should suspend its gas tax, while Becerra and the other Democrats said that move would imperil transportation funding.<\/p>\n

The candidates all said they would support a hypothetical plan that forces people who repeatedly refuse \u201ca pathway out of homelessness\u201d to accept treatment at a facility. Porter qualified her answer by saying there would need to be safeguards and Bianco suggested drug treatment should be handled through the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published April 29, 2026 at 5:00 AM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Ben Paviour<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

Ben Paviour is the California political power reporter for The Sacramento Bee\u2019s Capitol Bureau. He previously covered Virginia state politics for public radio and was a local investigations fellow at The New York Times. He got his start in journalism at the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh. Before becoming a reporter, he worked in local government and tech in the Bay Area.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eight candidates in the race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom struggled to rise above the din of cross-talk,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-292988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292988","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=292988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}