{"id":346901,"date":"2026-06-04T19:26:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T19:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/346901\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T19:26:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T19:26:23","slug":"california-governors-race-does-tom-steyer-still-have-a-path-to-the-november-runoff-san-bernardino-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/346901\/","title":{"rendered":"California governor\u2019s race: Does Tom Steyer still have a path to the November runoff? \u2013 San Bernardino Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"

As California continues to count mail ballots over the coming days, political analysts predict late-counted ballots from Democratic voters could swing in favor of billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer, who trailed in third on election night<\/a>. But whether it will be enough to propel the progressive Democrat into the November runoff\u00a0by making up a several hundred thousand vote gap remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday afternoon, Republican former Fox News host Steve Hilton led with 1,387,459 votes, or 27.8% of the total vote, followed by Democratic former Health Secretary Xavier Becerra with 1,267,375 votes, or 25.4% of the total vote. Steyer had received 979,265 votes, representing 19.6% of all votes counted.<\/p>\n

Before the polls even closed Steyer\u2019s campaign told his supporters to exercise patience. Early voting data indicated that Democrats were clinging to their ballots until the final days as they weighed how to strategically cast their vote for the best positioned candidate, leading to a potential \u201cred mirage\u201d where Republicans appear to be overperforming.<\/p>\n

ALSO SEE: Steve Hilton and Xavier Becerra lead in California\u2019s unsettled governor race<\/a><\/p>\n

By Wednesday afternoon, the Secretary of State\u2019s Office reported having counted about 5 million votes of the more than 23 million ballots sent out. It\u2019s unclear how many ballots remain as mail ballots can be accepted up to a week after Election Day. Many counties expect to have a better picture of what\u2019s left in the coming days. The Associated Press and CNN, though, both estimated that the election night totals make up roughly 55% of the total vote.<\/p>\n

While Becerra is currently in second, Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in the state nearly 2-to-1, and experts predict the remaining ballots will break in Democrats\u2019 favor \u2014 a trend that would likely lead to the former health secretary coming out on top after the final tally. In order to make it to the November election, Steyer would need to see a higher share of the remaining Democratic vote. Hilton\u2019s vote share would also need to decrease enough that he slips below both Becerra and Steyer.<\/p>\n

ALSO SEE: Live 2026 election results<\/a><\/p>\n

Under California\u2019s primary system, the top two vote-getters, regardless of political party,\u00a0advance to the November runoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s far from over,\u201d Democratic consultant Robb Korinke said. \u201cFor now, (Steyer\u2019s) got every expectation to think that the second half of this counting is going to be more favorable to him than the first.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what does Steyer\u2019s path to November look like?<\/p>\n

Korinke, who called the moment \u201chalftime,\u201d said that in subsequent counts, Hilton\u2019s statewide take would need to dip down into the low 20% range, while Steyer would need to climb into the low-to-mid 20% range to catch up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more ballots left the better for Steyer, and to the degree the assumptions are true that those are mostly Democratic ballots, I think that there is a path back for him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the same conventional wisdom that the Steyer campaign appears to be operating under. In an election night social media post, Steyer said<\/a> \u201cwe\u2019re going to give democracy the time it needs and count every ballot. We finished strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday morning, campaign manager Heather Hargreaves sent an email to Steyer supporters telling them that \u201cthere\u2019s still a lot that remains to be seen and we\u2019re going to give democracy time to work.\u201d The campaign also urged voters to verify that their ballot had been accepted through the state\u2019s ballot tracker.<\/p>\n

Steyer\u2019s chances at making the top two could also hinge on how the Republican vote splits between Hilton and the other leading GOP candidate in the race, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who ended election night with 11.3% of the vote.<\/p>\n

Paul Mitchell, a leading expert on voter data with Political Data Inc., told CNN\u2019s Elex Michaelson on Tuesday that the gap between the two Republicans could present a \u201cchallenge\u201d for Steyer\u2019s odds at advancing.<\/p>\n

Hilton earned the endorsement of President Donald Trump in April and was consistently among the top two or three candidates in the polls this year. In the final weeks of the campaign, he pressed Bianco to drop out, citing a fear that Republicans could be locked out of November if the pair split the vote and Becerra and Steyer continued with an upward trajectory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt tells me there was consolidation on the Republican side,\u201d Mitchell said of the distance between the two candidates on election night. The political data expert predicted the gap would \u201ccarry through to all the counting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hilton has yet to claim victory in the race, though he appeared confident of the outcome during a Wednesday morning press conference on the steps of the State Capitol, stating that \u201cnothing is final yet, but it does look that change is coming to California.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As California continues to count mail ballots over the coming days, political analysts predict late-counted ballots from Democratic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1400,7,9,8,400,119837,204,23387,92191,137,100,13,200],"class_list":["post-346901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-2026-elections","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-politics","tag-california-primary","tag-election","tag-election-results","tag-governor-race","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-south-bay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346901","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=346901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}