{"id":337518,"date":"2026-05-29T13:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/337518\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T13:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:42:08","slug":"uc-berkeley-poll-becerra-leads-hilton-2nd-steyer-3rd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/337518\/","title":{"rendered":"UC Berkeley poll: Becerra leads, Hilton 2nd, Steyer 3rd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gettyimages-2272001187.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-v-7d0efd03=\"\"\/> article <\/p>\n<p data-v-7d0efd03=\"\">(Photo by: Jason Henry\/Nexstar\/Bloomberg &#8211; Pool\/Getty Images) <\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">SACRAMENTO, Calif. &#8211; With just days left for California voters to cast their ballots in the primary election, a newly released poll offers a fresh glimpse into the race for the state&#8217;s next governor. The June 2 election will not only decide a number of local races and measures, but will also determine which top two candidates advance to the general election in November.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">A new poll from <a href=\"https:\/\/escholarship.org\/uc\/item\/59q1s333#main\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">UC Berkeley&#8217;s Institute of Governmental Studies, <\/a>which surveyed likely voters between May 19 and May 24, shows Democrat Xavier Becerra holding a clear lead with 25% support. Republican Steve Hilton follows closely behind with 21%, while Tom Steyer sits in third with 19%.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">The findings show a shift from a Public Policy Institute poll released earlier this week, which recorded the same three candidates in the lead but placed Steyer lower at 15%. Political analysts note that the UC Berkeley IGS poll is more recent, capturing voter sentiment from within the past 10 days.<\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5a-fsc-for-allie-5-29.png\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" fetchpriority=\"auto\" data-v-2fe2fe3e=\"\"\/>  <\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Political scientists are pointing to the significant momentum Becerra&#8217;s campaign has generated over recent weeks. On March 5, Becerra was polling at just 5%.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">&#8220;It wasn&#8217;t a coordinated push, but there was positive comments from leading Democrats about Becerra,&#8221; said Jason McDaniel, a political science professor at San Francisco State University. McDaniel added that candidate Katie Porter has been unable to recover, and voters remain skeptical of Steyer despite his campaign efforts.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">In addition to candidate preferences, the poll tracked the primary concerns of California voters. The high cost of living remains a dominant issue, with 74% of those surveyed stating it is &#8220;very important&#8221; to them. In contrast, only 2% of respondents answered that the issue was &#8220;not important at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">As the weekend approaches, overall turnout among registered Democrats remains sluggish. As of Thursday, only 11% of registered Democrats had returned their mail-in ballots. By comparison, 14% of registered Democrats had already voted by this same point during the 2022 primary election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: UC Berkeley poll, PPIC poll, SFSU professor Jason McDaniel\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ktvu.com\/tag\/politics\/ca-politics\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">California Politics<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article (Photo by: Jason Henry\/Nexstar\/Bloomberg &#8211; Pool\/Getty Images) SACRAMENTO, Calif. &#8211; With just days left for California voters&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[5713,100,143,145,144,13],"class_list":["post-337518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-ca-politics","tag-news","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337518","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=337518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}