{"id":669961,"date":"2026-05-28T11:10:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T11:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/669961\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T11:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T11:10:15","slug":"becerra-hilton-lead-in-california-governors-race-poll-ahead-of-june-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/669961\/","title":{"rendered":"Becerra, Hilton Lead in California Governor\u2019s Race Poll Ahead of June Primary"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Public Policy Institute of California survey suggests it\u2019s likely that one Democrat and one Republican will advance to the state\u2019s top-two November runoff.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Chad Bianco, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, Xavier Becerra, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for California, and Steve Hilton, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, arrive for a gubernatorial debate at KRON Studios in San Francisco on April 22, 2026. A new poll by the PPIC indicates that Becerra and Hilton are leading in the race for California’s next governor.\u00a0(Jason Henry\/Nexstar\/Bloomberg)<\/p>\n

Becerra, former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary under President Joe Biden, leads the poll with 23% support among likely voters, followed by Hilton, a former Fox News commentator and businessman, at 20%.<\/p>\n

Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund manager turned progressive activist, garnered 15% support, while Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco<\/a> and former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter<\/a>, a Democrat, rounded out the top five at 13% and 12% respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first poll that we\u2019ve done that showed with some clarity that we have two candidates with more than 20% of the vote \u2014 one a Democrat, one a Republican,\u201d PPIC survey director Mark Baldassare said. \u201cThere\u2019s always the possibility that we end up with two Democrats [in the November runoff], but it\u2019s much more likely at this point that we have a Democrat and a Republican.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"California gubernatorial candidates former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, businessman Tom Steyer, businessman Steve Hilton, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, San Jos\u00e9 Mayor Matt Mahan look on during a CNN California Governor Primary Debate at East Los Angeles College on May 5, 2026, in Monterey Park, California. (Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Democrats have largely rallied around Becerra, who was stuck in the single digits in the PPIC poll as recently as early April, after East Bay Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race<\/a> amid allegations of sexual assault and harassment against him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSwalwell\u2019s exit and the circumstances surrounding it led to support for Becerra \u2014 who has experience in Sacramento, unlike really any other of the major candidates, and spoke to Democrats about something that really mattered to them, which was that he had experience taking on Donald Trump,\u201d Baldassare said.<\/p>\n

Hilton likewise surged further ahead of Bianco among Republican voters after President Donald Trump endorsed him<\/a> in early April. That\u2019s despite the latest PPIC poll also finding a sharp drop in the number of Republicans saying the U.S. is going in the right direction \u2014 down to 50%, from 64% in PPIC\u2019s February survey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Despite that shift, Baldassare said, Trump looms large among Republicans, earning a 75% approval rating from GOP voters in California.<\/p>\n

\u201cEndorsements by President Trump, we\u2019ve seen again and again, in primaries makes a big difference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The poll indicates that Steyer, who has far surpassed California\u2019s self-funding record by spending more than $213 million of his own fortune on his candidacy, seems to have hit a ceiling in the mid-teens, Baldassare said. He didn\u2019t count Steyer completely out, though \u2014 and Steyer\u2019s significant war chest means he\u2019ll have no problem funding wall-to-wall ads in the campaign\u2019s final days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t seen much change in support for Tom Steyer since he entered the race,\u201d Baldassare said. \u201cBut Tom Steyer is still a contender, and we\u2019ll watch and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The poll also found that the cost of living and affordability<\/a> remain Californians\u2019 top concerns within the state, and nearly one-third of respondents see political extremism or threats to democracy as the most important problems facing the U.S. An additional quarter of Californians told PPIC the economy was their top concern nationally.<\/p>\n

The poll has a sampling error of plus or minus 3.2%. It was conducted May 14-18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Public Policy Institute of California survey suggests it\u2019s likely that one Democrat and one Republican will advance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-669961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}