Candidates target Steyer, Becerra in free-wheeling California governor debate

May 1, 2026 By Jeanne Kuang 1 Comment

With so many candidates running for governor, it’s hard to keep up. We’re here to help: Sign up for our 2026 election newsletter to get the latest on the candidates.

Six leading Democratic candidates for governor were seeking a breakout moment Tuesday night in a race that has been dominated by its lack of certainty, with two Republican candidates frequently in the lead. 

None of them appeared to find one in a chaotic, combative and often hard-to-follow CBS debate at Pomona College, prompting former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter to declare at one point that “this is worse than my teenagers at dinner.” 

With less than a week before ballots are mailed to voters, though, the targets were clear: Billionaire Tom Steyer, who has led fellow Democrats in polling and has already spent at least $132 million of his own money on the race; and Xavier Becerra, the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary who has had a sudden surge in momentum since former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out amid allegations of sexual assault. 

Porter, once a rising national progressive star, got in a dig at Steyer, who has consolidated support among many of the party’s most left-wing activists, criticizing the fortune he made in part by investing in fossil fuels when he tried to tout his climate-friendly credentials and policy of “making polluters pay.” Steyer has said that he subsequently divested from those investments and devoted himself to addressing climate change.

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Becerra, meanwhile, was criticized by moderate Democratic San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan for his mixed record as former President Joe Biden’s health secretary and for bristling when pressed for policy specifics. At one point, Becerra argued with one of the five debate moderators over the legality of his proposal to call a state of emergency to freeze home insurance rates. 

Becerra entered the debate fresh off a recent boost in polling and fundraising, buoyed by an army of online influencers whose posts adviser Michael Bustamante said are “all organic.” The candidate was eager to spar with his competitors, but his newfound spotlight has also come with scrutiny about his record on immigration and health.

Progressives and Steyer’s campaign have also highlighted Becerra’s support from companies like Chevron and his handling of an influx of unaccompanied migrant children as Biden’s health secretary. A 2023 New York Times investigation found that those children — whom Becerra had pressured officials to process and place as if they were running an “assembly line” — ended up in dangerous child labor jobs. 

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Walters: First TV debate in race for governor mostly bypassed California’s serious issues

April 24, 2026 By Dan Walters 2 Comments

Welcome to CalMatters, the only nonprofit newsroom devoted solely to covering statewide issues that affect all Californians. Sign up for WeeklyMatters for a Saturday morning digest of the latest news and commentary from the Golden State.

This story is part of California Voices, a commentary forum aiming to broaden our understanding of the state and spotlight Californians directly impacted by policy or its absence. Learn more here.

There will be 61 names of would-be governors on the June 2 primary election ballot, but the top two finishers will — as certainly as anything can be in politics — come from the six who participated Wednesday evening in the first statewide televised debate.

Former Congressman Eric Swalwell’s scandal-ridden departure this month shook up the field and seemingly lifted former Attorney General (and ex-Biden cabinet member) Xavier Becerra into contention after months in the low single digits.

However, no one has achieved support anything close to what would be needed to claim one of the top two finishes, probably in the mid-20% range, and a spot on the November ballot.

The debate, staged by the Nexstar string of television stations in San Francisco, was a chance for them to shine.

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None did — if shining means presenting a compelling case that he or she is what California needs to confront the existential issues that will determine whether the state can once again be a unique place where people can see their ambitions become reality.

Those issues include housing shortages, rampant homelessness, the nation’s highest levels of unemployment and poverty, uncertain water supplies, soaring utility costs, shamefully low academic achievement in public schools and a state budget in chronic deficit.

The topics posed by the debate moderators touched on only a couple of those issues, and then too briefly to be significant. Otherwise, the questions dealt with, at best, peripheral matters that may be trendy on social media but have little or nothing to do with governing the nation’s most populous and complex state.

Really folks, do we yearn to know what streaming program the candidates have most recently watched?

The potential for voters to learn more about what the candidates would do as governor was also undermined because only the first hour of the debate was broadcast on old-fashioned television. Viewers had to switch to their computers to see the last half hour.

Given all of that, what could one have gleaned from watching?

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University cancels California governor debate after accusations of bias from candidates of color

March 26, 2026 By SOPHIE AUSTIN 1 Comment

The University of Southern California has canceled a gubernatorial debate scheduled for Tuesday after candidates of color were excluded and accused the university of discrimination

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The University of Southern California canceled a gubernatorial debate planned for Tuesday after candidates of color who would have been excluded accused the school of discrimination.

Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, and Democrats Tom Steyer, Katie Porter, Eric Swalwell and Matt Mahan, who are all white, were slated to participate in the debate hosted by the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Center for the Political Future and KABC-TV. But four established Democratic candidates of color, Antonio Villaraigosa, Xavier Becerra, Betty Yee and Tony Thurmond, didn’t meet the criteria to participate.

No clear front-runner has emerged in the crowded race ahead of the June 2 primary. Ballots will go out in early May.

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The university has defended a formula used to select the participants and denied allegations of bias. A public policy professor independently developed the criteria based on candidates’ polling and fundraising, the university said in a statement Friday.

A group of 50 public policy and social science scholars from across the country defended the professor in a letter to the university’s president on Monday.

“We urge USC to stand firm in rejecting all efforts to apply political pressure on its faculty and its overall academic mission,” they wrote.

But the university reversed course Monday night, saying that the debate co-hosts couldn’t agree on a solution.

The “data-driven candidate viability formula is based on extensive research and enjoys broad academic support,” it said in a statement. “At the same time, we recognize that concerns about the selection criteria for tomorrow’s gubernatorial debate have created a significant distraction from the issues that matter to voters.”

The debate cancellation comes weeks after state Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks urged candidates to drop out of the race if their campaigns were no longer viable, citing the possibility that the two leading Republicans could advance to the general election. The all-GOP general election is possible under California’s unusual top-two primary system, which puts all candidates on one ballot and only the top two vote-getters advance to November, regardless of party.

Hicks on Tuesday unveiled the results of a poll commissioned by the party that shows Hilton, Porter, Bianco, Swalwell and Steyer in close competition, and the other candidates trailing behind them. It’s consistent with other recent polling.

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