This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
Democrat Xavier Becerra will advance to the November general election in the race for California governor, capping a sudden and dramatic ascent for a career politician who is running on his experience and his willingness to take on President Donald Trump.
Becerra, the former state attorney general, has secured nearly 27% of the vote in the June 2 primary, with about two-thirds of votes counted as of Friday afternoon. If elected in November, he would be the first Latino to serve as California governor in more than a century.
It’s still unclear who his opponent will be: Returns so far show Republican Steve Hilton most likely to advance with more than 26% of votes counted, though the trailing Democrat Tom Steyer has not conceded and could make up ground in the nearly three million votes that remain to be counted. Many Democratic voters held onto their ballots until the last minute, meaning the uncounted votes skew more Democratic.
California uses a top-two primary system; the two candidates with the most votes advance to the November ballot regardless of party.
The November race could differ dramatically depending on the opponent. If it’s Hilton, Becerra would be heavily favored to win: Democrats in California outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one, and Hilton is endorsed by Trump, whom Californians disapprove of in high numbers.
If it’s Steyer, California can expect an all-out slugfest between opposing wings of the Democratic Party, supercharged by the hundreds of millions of dollars Steyer has spent from his personal fortune on the primary alone.
While the hedge fund manager-turned-Democratic donor and climate activist has run a progressive campaign and garnered the support of Bernie Sanders surrogates, Becerra is favored by more of the Democratic establishment. He also received consequential endorsements — and funding — from labor and industry groups.
Becerra, who had lingered in the single-digits in polling, surged in popularity following the political implosion of former frontrunner Eric Swalwell, with establishment Democrats favoring the former Health and Human Services secretary and former state attorney general over former Rep. Katie Porter and the outsider Steyer.
It was a surprising and swift ascent for the mild-mannered career politician who was previously part of a crop of lower-polling Democratic candidates that party chair Rusty Hicks was publicly pressuring to drop out of the race.
“Guess what? The underdog stayed in the fight,” Becerra said at an election night rally Tuesday in Los Angeles, calling his near-victory “the everyday miracle of living in a state that regularly makes the improbable seem inevitable.”
The decision comes at a particularly consequential time for California. Residents face a crushing cost of living, nation-topping gas prices made worse by the war in Iran, wildfire risks that have driven insurance companies out of state, an unstable state budget, impending federal cuts to the state’s expansive health system and an economy dampened by immigration enforcement.
