CA governor’s race primary: Late Tuesday, Hilton and Becerra maintain leads
Republican Steve Hilton has 27.3% of the vote, compared to 25.6% for Democrat Xavier Becerra and 19.7% for Democrat Tom Steyer, in the California gubernatorial primary, according to initial results from the Secretary of State’s office as of 11:24 p.m.
The Associated Press estimates 53% of votes have been counted statewide. The top two vote-getters will advance to November’s general election.
Becerra supporters set up shop at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown Los Angeles in an open-air venue featuring two open bars and three food trucks. The campaign also welcomed influencers, a nod to the role online personalities played in boosting their preferred candidates in the race.
There were sporadic cheers when results appeared on screen that — so far — showed Becerra advancing to the general election. Supporters in the crowd included Andrina Fernandez, who said she made the easy choice on her ballot: She voted for Becerra, her uncle and nemesis in family game nights. The current craze is a dominos game called Mexican train; Fernandez said Becerra’s “the type to let you win.”
Fernandez said the family group chat has been laughing at Becerra supporters who’ve dubbed the former state attorney general, who would be the first Latino governor in more than a century, “Tio Becerra.” “We’re like, ‘Hey, can anyone in the family claim this person?’” Fernandez said.
Another guest, Luis Arguello, assistant manager for LiUNA Local 270, said he believed Becerra’s working class background, including a stint working as a construction worker, gave him credibility in making California more affordable. “And frankly, it doesn’t sit well with me when there’s some, when there’s a billionaire trying to tell us, ‘Hey, we’ll take care of you,’” he said, alluding to Becerra’s top Democratic rival, Steyer.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, a key Becerra backer, projected confidence in an interview, saying he had “no doubt that he will be our next governor.” Rivas said their relationship dates back to Rivas’ election to the Assembly in 2018; Becerra, then attorney general, was the only constitutional officer to call him to congratulate him, and continued to consult his opinion on legislation. “He was never trying to grab headlines, he was always so focused and engaged,” Rivas said.
Steyer’s festivities in San Francisco took place at the Regency Ballroom near the Tenderloin neighborhood. Union supporters from SEIU Local 2015 decked themselves out in “class traitor” baseball caps, a nod to Steyer’s populist platform promising to heavily tax his fellow billionaires.
Mei Ju Liang, a home care worker for 14 years, said she’d only made a final decision to vote for Steyer that morning. Like many Democrats in the state, she’d been waiting to see which candidates seemed the most viable. Liang said she believed Steyer would help workers like her get higher wages and better working conditions. Plus, she said, “Our union supports him.”
Steyer took the stage just before 9:30 p.m. and elicited the first major spike in excitement, despite starting and ending his speech with a gingerly appeal for patience. The candidate, wearing Nikes and a suit but no tie — not too buttoned up — struck a defiant tone. Of the corporate interests who poured money into campaigns against him, he said, “They are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred.”
The people packed on the ballroom floor screamed.
The crowd had begun to thin out by 10 p.m. — Steyer himself had reminded his guests that he did not foresee the race being called Tuesday night. He gave a tepid acknowledgement of the slog of California vote-counting.
“It might take some time to figure out where this is going. We’re gonna wait till every ballot is counted,” he said, to no applause. But, to cheers, he added, “We know we finished really strong.”
The outcome of the race will likely not be officially certified for weeks, due to the state’s notoriously slow vote counting process. The Secretary of State’s office did not affirm the results of the November 2024 presidential race until weeks later in December.
The current race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is term-limited and repeatedly declined to endorse a successor, has been historically expensive and unusually unpredictable.
With more than $315 million in ad spending and reservations, the race is already the most expensive governor’s race on record in any state, according to an analysis conducted by the media tracking firm AdImpact. Nearly two-thirds of that spending came from Steyer, a former hedge fund manager turned progressive activist who has poured more than $200 million into his campaign.
A slew of the most established California Democrats decided to sit the race out, from former Vice President Kamala Harris to U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla. That left a swarm of lesser-known contenders jockeying to break out of the low double-digits heading into spring.
State party leaders pleaded with lower-polling candidates to drop out amid fears that two Republicans could advance out of Tuesday’s jungle primary, where the two highest vote getters will move on to the November general election. Those fears ebbed away in the last few weeks after one major campaign implosion and a flood of money surged into the race to sway voters via both traditional ads and new media platforms.
Former Rep. Eric Swalwell seemed to be gathering momentum before multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct in early April. Swalwell denied the accusations but suspended his campaign and resigned from Congress.
His exit created an opening for Becerra, a former state attorney general who shot up in polls from the single-digits to frontrunner. Members of Newsom’s political team threw their weight behind Becerra and began fundraising on his behalf.
In the final weeks and closing debates, the race took a negative turn.
Becerra’s rivals played up his connection to a corruption case involving a former aide and advisor, though the former attorney general has not been accused of wrongdoing. And they drilled him for his tenure serving as U.S. secretary of health and human services under former President Joe Biden, when critics accused him of mismanaging a surge in migrants, some of whom were trafficked into child labor.
The candidates also piled on Steyer for his past investments in fossil fuels and private prisons, and for his current holdings in offshore private equity funds, accusing him of trying to buy his way into office.
By mid-May, several polls showed Becerra at the top of the pack for Democrats and Steyer in second place, with a series of other Democrats — former Rep. Katie Porter, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond — struggling to emerge from the single digits.
Hilton’s path to the top tier was simpler: In April, the former Fox News host won an endorsement from President Donald Trump, helping him to consolidate GOP support against another Republican, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.
That endorsement could be an albatross if Hilton advances to the general election given Trump’s unpopularity in California; a Public Policy Institute of California poll released last week found just 25% of California adults approve of Trump’s performance as president.
The Bee’s Ariane Lange contributed to this story.
This story was originally published June 2, 2026 at 10:44 PM with the headline "CA governor’s race primary: Late Tuesday, Hilton and Becerra maintain leads."
