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With Election Day a week away, the two-years-long race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom is winding to a predictable end.
Polls released throughout the summer and fall show Democrat and former Attorney General Xavier Becerra maintains a commanding double-digit lead over Republican former Fox News host Steve Hilton since they finished in the top two spots in the June primary.
The latest, conducted by Emerson College from Oct. 17 to 19, places Becerra 27 percentage points ahead: 60% of likely voters supported him compared to 33% for Hilton. When pressed, nearly two-thirds of the small share of undecided voters in the survey leaned toward Becerra.
In Sacramento, policy advocates have for weeks been scrambling for a chance to meet with the presumptive next governor.
If the results hold as expected, it won’t be for a lack of trying on Hilton’s part.
The GOP candidate, a first-timer in California politics, has tried everything and more to boost his candidacy: barnstorming the state, flooding social media with provocative ads, using AI to portray himself as a gladiator in Becerra’s colosseum and texting selfie videos from Los Angeles’ Skid Row.
He’s proposing a wide and eclectic range of policies, from $3 gas and steep tax cuts across all income levels to building 10 new cities and establishing an “Office of Fun and Freedom.” (Responsibilities would include loosening regulations on nightlife and allowing dogs in more state parks.) His latest proposal would require animal shelters to notify the public before euthanizing dogs so that someone might adopt them instead. He’s said little about how he would get Democratic supermajorities in the Legislature to support his many plans that would require their approval.
The try-it-all approach has led to some stumbles: His ad series aimed at courting liberals who should “just try” voting Republican triggered a conservative backlash. Days later, he accused Becerra of lying about his parents’ immigrant backgrounds because his father was born in Sacramento, brought to Mexico as a child and then worked as a young person on both sides of the border before settling again in California. Latinos said the accusation misunderstood the common Mexican American experience of families moving back and forth across the border. Hilton, who is British American, moved to California with his wife, a Silicon Valley executive, in 2012.
Republican strategist Mike Madrid said it made Hilton, whom he otherwise praised as a “substantive” candidate, look out of touch: “He’s literally saying, ‘I’m not one of you.’”
Becerra’s approach couldn’t be more different. Careful to avoid flashy promises, he rolled out few specific policies, instead speaking generally about how his decisions would prioritize middle- and working-class families.
Some of his proposals represent incremental adjustments to what the state already is doing under Newsom, like reducing bureaucratic hurdles for developers to get housing projects approved. His most ambitious campaign promise is for California to continue covering everyone who would lose Medi-Cal healthcare under steep federal cuts of up to $30 billion annually; he won’t say where he’ll find the money, but has said he could cut some wasteful and administrative spending. He also wants to provide certain low-income households two hours of free electricity during off-peak daytime hours, and expand down payment assistance programs.
He’s leaned hard on his opposition to Donald Trump, who is widely unpopular in California. Trump endorsed Hilton in the primary; Hilton has since tried in the general election to court Democratic voters by saying he wouldn’t align with the president on everything.
Becerra has been eager to tie Hilton to the president at every turn. The tactic was on full display during a CNN debate last month; it was the only debate Becerra agreed to and did not appear to change much about the race.
At a Bakersfield rally for Democratic House candidate Randy Villegas, Becerra told reporters he would lead the state to sue federal immigration agencies over their aggressive enforcement. Asked by reporters what he would do about gas prices, Becerra acknowledged that state policies on oil drilling and refining could affect prices, but pointed out the immediate cost issue was Trump’s war in Iran.
“The first thing, obviously, we have to do is get Trump to end his crazy war abroad,” he said. “But what we can do in California is make sure we don’t allow the spikes to come because of anything we do in California.”
Becerra makes appearances in final weeks
After a summer with few public appearances or media interviews, Becerra has been back on the campaign trail in recent weeks rallying voters and volunteers around the state, but often not on his own behalf. With a comfortable lead in the polls, he instead spent most of his time holding press conferences with fellow Democrats to oppose Proposition 39, the Republican-backed voter ID measure, and boosting Democrats running for legislative seats.
He appeared with several Democrats running in competitive House districts in Southern California and the Central Valley, where Becerra’s campaign believes he could help turn out an important group of Latino voters.
Perhaps Hilton’s biggest impact in the race has been to force Becerra to answer for Democratic policies that he blames for the high cost of living, and to run on a message of changing “16 years of one-party rule” in an attempt to appeal to the majority of California voters who want the state to go in a different direction.
In Bakersfield, which sits in a Republican county that supported Hilton in the primary, Becerra said his experience in government sets him apart. He also took care to distinguish himself from Newsom, who has had generally favorable approval ratings, pointing to both his time in Biden’s cabinet and his personal background.
“I am different from every governor that we’ve ever seen because no one brings the experience or the credentials that I bring, and no one brings the life experience,” he said.
Tim Rosales, a GOP consultant, said Hilton has done the best he could given the Democratic advantage in California, and shown “that a unique Republican personality can influence the political debate to some degree.” He has raised $33.6 million to Becerra’s $40 million — double what the leading Republican candidate raised in 2021 during the failed Newsom recall election.
“He’s run a good race,” Rosales said. “The fact is that Democratic voters in California, which there are a lot of them, can agree with Hilton on the issues. They just want a Democrat to try to solve them.”
