![\"Xavier](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/XP3EYR7ZOJPPLA6ULPWLDT45YE.jpg\")
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Xavier Becerra, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for California, and Steve Hilton, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, shake hands while arriving for a gubernatorial debate at KRON Studios in San Francisco in April.<\/p>\n
Jason Henry<\/p>\n
SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The primary election for California governor is too close to call, with vote counting continuing Wednesday. Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican business executive Steve Hilton lead the field with Democrat Tom Steyer in third place.<\/p>\n
In California\u2019s unusual primary system, all candidates, regardless of party, appear on a single ballot open to any registered voter. The top two candidates<\/a> then move on to the general election, even if they\u2019re from the same party. This year, voters had 60 names for governor to choose from.<\/p>\n The winner will lead the country\u2019s most populous state, where leaders often take on national political prominence. Incumbent Gov. Gavin Newsom is at his two-term limit and could be a Democratic contender for president.<\/p>\n Becerra, former Health and Human Services secretary under President Joe Biden, pitched himself to voters as an experienced political leader who isn\u2019t afraid of President Trump, but his lead caps one of the most surprising and dramatic comebacks in recent state political history. As recently as April, polls were showing Becerra \u2014 also a former member of Congress and California attorney general \u2014 languishing in single digits in a crowded field.<\/p>\n In his remarks at his watch party in Los Angeles, Becerra noted his underdog status.<\/p>\n \u201cHere in Hollywood\u2019s hometown, we love a good underdog success story,\u201d he said, drawing parallels between his campaign and his immigrant parents\u2019 success story in California. \u201cGuess what? The underdog stayed in the fight. Like my parents, I never gave up. Never stopped putting one foot in front of the other. Never stopped believing in the beacon-like goodness of California. And thankfully, neither did you.\u201d<\/p>\n Hilton is a former Fox News commentator who also served as a political adviser to former British Prime Minister David Cameron. He was endorsed by President Trump in April, helping him to pull ahead of Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the other major Republican in the race. Hilton has campaigned on the idea that California needs change after 16 years under total Democratic control.<\/p>\n The race is narrowing down after a tumultuous campaign<\/p>\n At his watch party in Huntington Beach, the British-born candidate \u2014 who became an American citizen five years ago \u2014 said it was the \u201chonor of his lifetime\u201d to receive over 1 million votes so far.<\/p>\n \u201cChange is coming to California and it\u2019s long overdue,\u201d Hilton said. \u201cWe\u2019re not there yet, but it\u2019s looking good. It looks very much as if Californians really will have the chance to vote for change in November and take our state in a new direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Democratic billionaire activist Steyer spent more than $213 million of his own money to boost his candidacy and push a progressive, populist message. While he was trailing Becerra and Hilton on Tuesday night, he said at his watch party in San Francisco that he remains confident he can close the gap in the days ahead.<\/p>\n \u201cTogether, we\u2019ve scared the hell out of the corporate interests used to getting their way,\u201d Steyer said. \u201cIt might take some time to figure out where this is going. We\u2019re going to wait until every ballot is counted. We\u2019re gonna give democracy a time to work. And we know we finished really strong.\u201d<\/p>\n The early results are not certain to hold, in part because of unusual voting patterns in this primary election: Ballot-tracking data heading into Tuesday evening showed that Republicans were more likely to vote early by mail, while Democratic voters in this deep-blue state held onto their mail-in ballots or chose to vote in person. That\u2019s the reverse of recent elections, which saw more Democrats voting by mail and Republicans tending to vote in person on Election Day.<\/p>\n The uncertainty on election night capped a race that remained crowded and unsettled to the end. To some extent, the race was defined by who wasn\u2019t running.<\/p>\n Some of the state\u2019s most high-profile Democrats \u2014 former Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla and California Attorney General Rob Bonta \u2014 all passed on a potential bid to succeed Newsom.<\/p>\n The race was disrupted in April when then-U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell\u2019s campaign for governor imploded amid allegations of sexual assault and harassment<\/a>. Swalwell resigned from Congress shortly after the accusations surfaced and has denied assault allegations.<\/p>\n Swalwell had been gaining in polls and racking up high-profile endorsements, and his exit seemed to primarily benefit Becerra, who had been stuck in single digits<\/a> in many polls. Ultimately, it quieted fears among Democrats who worried that the messy Democratic field could result in Bianco and Hilton winning the top spots in the June primary.<\/p>\n Marisa Lagos<\/a> covers California politics at KQED and co-hosts the Political Breakdown<\/a> show and podcast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Xavier Becerra, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for California, and Steve Hilton, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, shake hands while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,2582],"class_list":["post-344825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-national-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344825","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=344825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}