Becerra and Hilton are deadlocked, and last night the gloves came off on stage while ballots were already in mailboxes. Welcome to California Governor's Race. Today we're tracking the money behind the top contenders, a debate that got genuinely combative, and a few late endorsements that could still scramble the field. A tie at the top with mail voting already underway is not a comfortable place for either campaign. This is turnout math right now, not in June. And we've got the donor maps pulled up, so let's see whose money is actually behind these poll numbers. From Bill McEwen at GV Wire:
Voters finally appear to be paying attention to California’s crazy governor’s race and it’s benefiting former state Attorney General Xavier Becerra. A poll released Monday by the state Democratic Party shows Becerra, an establishment Dem, tied for the top spot with Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator, at 18% support.
GV Wire's Bill McEwen has the numbers from a California Democratic Party-commissioned poll: Becerra and Hilton are tied at 18, Steyer is at 12, and the June 2 top-two primary is less than a month out. One thing to flag, though — the client on this poll is the state Democratic Party, so the internals come with some seasoning. Eighteen percent. That's your frontrunner in the biggest state in the country, one month out. The field is genuinely unsettled, and anybody telling you the top two are locked should show their math. And Villaraigosa and Thurmond sliding off the bottom of the chart is the real headline here. Becerra's movement is partly a Swalwell dividend. Swalwell's campaign collapsed over that sex scandal, and the establishment lane consolidated fast. Whether that holds through mail ballots is a different question. Here's one from r/California (315 upvotes):
Lol if it's Hilton v. Steyer I'm gonna laugh I would really prefer Becerra v. Steyer because we'd get some actual discussion about where California is going to go. If it's Hilton v. Steyer it'll be even more bad faith attack ads on Steyer to wade through. Plus we'll have to suffer through that weird little English man on the TV.
The Hilton-Steyer nightmare scenario is real. If a Fox News commentator and a billionaire are your top-two finalists in California, the November turnout math gets genuinely weird. That's not a general election either one is built for. Here's one from r/California (241 upvotes):
DNC doing it again. They are just picking who THEY want. No one wants Becerra.
The 'DNC is picking winners' read gets recycled every cycle, but the actual tell here is who's spending and where. Becerra's consolidation tracks with institutional money moving his way since Swalwell dropped. That's donor math, not conspiracy. Although eighteen percent is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the establishment's chosen guy. If the party machine is behind him and that's the ceiling, there's a problem. ABC News, with Michael R. Blood:
Seven candidates who want to be California’s next governor traded sharp attacks Tuesday in a wide-ranging debate that touched on issues from gas prices to raising taxes to healthcare in a contest that has no clear leader. The televised debate came as mail voting was already underway in advance of a primary election that ends June 2.
The debate we previewed last edition is no longer theoretical. Seven candidates met on CNN Tuesday night, and ballots are already in voters' hands, so this wasn't just positioning for later. AP's Blood and Austin out of LA had the cleanest tick-tock on the exchanges. Seven candidates, no clear leader, mail voting already running — that's a chaotic primary arithmetic problem. When the field is that fractured, second-choice momentum and turnout micro-targeting matter more than who won the debate room. The Hilton-Bianco lane is pretty straightforward: fifteen-plus years of Democratic governors, so they're running the change argument. The Democratic side is messier — Becerra, Porter, and Steyer are all competing for overlapping donor and voter pools, and June 2 is closing fast. Here's one from r/California (176 upvotes):
Hopefully if he wins, he truly does. I'm not holding my breath though. His entire campaign is a lot like Trump's. He says things he thinks will get him votes with no real plan to do it. The fact he's spent 300-400m on this campaign is also worrying.
Three to four hundred million dollars of self-funding and no clear plan is a legitimate structural concern. That's not vibes — that's a candidate who can paper over weak organizing with ad buys all the way to election day. Watch the turnout numbers in the final two weeks, not the poll averages. Here's Saskia Kennedy at Fullerton Observer:
One thing that comes to mind, looking through the required financial disclosures, is that lower contribution limits must be put in place, and that “Citizens United” must be reversed to remove corporate and dark money from campaigns. Below is a snapshot of the money supporting the top five candidates who appear at the top of recent polls.
Shoutout to the Fullerton Observer for doing the actual work here, digging through cal-access disclosures so the rest of us don't have to. Sixty-one candidates on the June 2 primary ballot, top two advance, and a CNN debate tonight with the six polling leaders: Bianco, Hilton, Becerra, Mahan, Porter, Steyer, and Villaraigosa. Seven names, two slots. The math is brutal. And in a jungle primary with this many bodies, you don't need to win — you just need everybody else to split badly enough. That's the whole game right now. The donor map is where this gets interesting. The piece is flagging dark money and Citizens United concerns, which is the right instinct, but the cal-access numbers are the receipts. Who's bundling for whom tells you more than any poll. Over on r/California (190 upvotes):
Pretty sure the only reason Mahan hasn't dropped is because his tech backers are hoping he eats enough of the primary vote from Steyer and Becerra that two Republicans sneak through.
This is the smartest read in the thread. Mahan doesn't need to win — he needs to be a vote sink. If his tech-funded operation pulls three or four points from Becerra and Steyer, Bianco and Hilton could literally both clear the top two. That's a nightmare scenario for California Democrats, and it is not impossible. I'd want to see the actual donor overlap before I call it a coordinated strategy, but the incentive structure the commenter is describing is real. Follow the money and ask who benefits if Mahan stays in. r/California (412 upvotes), weighing in:
Him and Porter are the only options imo. Fuck the tech bro, fuck PG&Es buddy.
Porter and Becerra as the only legitimate options is a pretty common take, but Villaraigosa has the LA infrastructure and labor money to complicate that. Vibes aren't a firewall against turnout operations. From r/California (105 upvotes):
The Steyer push on Reddit is insane. How is no one seeing he’s a wolf in sheep clothing? He immediately got chummy with Bianco after the debate. Are you all blind???
The post-debate Steyer-Bianco chumminess is worth watching. I'd like to see that on the record before drawing conclusions, but if there's video, somebody's going to clip it. Voter skepticism about late-entry billionaires in Democratic primaries is not new, and it is not wrong. Steyer spent nine figures trying to buy a presidential primary in 2020. The Reddit enthusiasm for him baffles me too. Money doesn't equal mandate. From San Diego Union-Tribune:
I’m running for governor to bring down costs on the biggest line items in families’ budgets: housing, child care, health care and more. As governor, I will deliver free child care for all, so that families can stay in the workforce and afford high-quality care and early childhood education that will create dividends for our economy.
San Diego Union-Tribune ran a full Q&A with Katie Porter ahead of the June 2 primary, and she came in swinging on cost of living, framing herself explicitly against, quote, billionaire or corporate-backed candidates. That framing is doing a lot of work. Free child care, zero tuition at the UCs and CSUs, single-payer health care — that's an expensive platform, and the question is whether the donor math can sustain a campaign built on attacking donors. Credit to the Union-Tribune for actually getting her on record with specific policy commitments instead of just stump speech highlights. That's the kind of sourcing that matters at this stage of a primary. Here's Aidin Vaziri at San Francisco Chronicle:
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown has endorsed Tom Steyer for California governor, giving the billionaire climate activist a high-profile Bay Area boost as he tries to turn a massive self-funded campaign into a path through the state’s crowded June primary. Steyer’s campaign announced the endorsement Tuesday, casting Brown’s support as a vote of confidence from one of California’s most recognizable Democratic powerbrokers.
Willie Brown — 92 years old, six decades in California politics, Assembly Speaker, two-term SF mayor — just endorsed Tom Steyer. The Chronicle has the story, and credit to Aidin Vaziri for breaking it this morning. Bay Area marquee name, sure, but Willie Brown doesn't move precincts in the Central Valley or the IE. That's where Steyer's massive self-funding still hasn't cracked the numbers he needs. The strategic read is simpler than that. Steyer needed a Democratic establishment validator to soften the out-of-touch billionaire frame weeks before the June primary. Brown is that validator, whatever his statewide reach is in 2026. Validating optics don't close a polling gap. Show me a bump in the next round of likely-voter screens, then we're talking. If California Governor's Race helps you stay on top of the campaign, take a moment to subscribe and leave a review wherever you're listening. It really helps other people find the show.
We've put links to every story we covered today in the show notes, if you want to dig deeper or revisit anything that caught your ear.
That's California Governor's Race for today. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back with more soon. This is a Lantern Podcast.