The billionaire primary's over — and one finalist's first move as governor would be to reopen 2020. If you're just joining, California's race to replace term-limited Gavin Newsom came out of a chaotic top-two primary with a Becerra-versus-Hilton general. With 99% of expected votes in, NBC had Becerra at 28.1 percent, Hilton at 24.7, and Tom Steyer at 22.8 — enough to end the billionaire-heavy primary and start the November contrast. This is the California Governor's Race. Today: a COVID-lockdown probe, an 11-billion-dollar housing bond nobody's claimed, and whether 'abundance' politics just flopped on the left. Sarah's first up. Becerra-Hilton general election isn't over. Follow us wherever you're listening, and the next chapter comes to you. This one's from Sacramento Bee:
Speaking to attendees at the American Association of Political Consultants’ California conference in downtown Sacramento, they routinely turned to the role of billionaires in politics and the difficulties in breaking out of a crowded field. Anthony York, a Democratic communications consultant who worked on Tom Steyer’s campaign, said his candidate had an obvious deficiency. “Newsflash: Democratic voters don’t like billionaires,” he said.
Steyer dumped $215 million and finished two points BEHIND Hilton. Two hundred fifteen million dollars to lose to a guy who barely cracked the field. And his own comms guy said it out loud at the consultants' conference — "Democratic voters don't like billionaires." Anthony York, who actually ran Steyer's shop, basically turning the race into a referendum on his own candidate. That might be the only honest line in the whole panel. All that spending just made him the easiest target in the race. What I want to know, after a five-campaign pileup, is whether Becerra actually built a coalition or just consolidated everyone who wasn't Hilton. York's defending Steyer's progressive bona fides — but the spending shattered records, and the field still collapsed to the two least surprising names. Right — five months out, the consultants are spinning. Becerra 55, Hilton 32 in the average gives you a snapshot; it doesn't prove the coalition's solid. Nobody's voted yet. Abc7, with Jaylyn Preslicka:
On the campaign trail, Hilton has discussed launching California's own version of DOGE and investigating fraud. But when asked about this, Hilton discussed investigating something else. "We had the longest and most cruel lockdowns and school closures in the country, and some of that, I suspect, was the result of a corrupt relationship between the politicians who made the decisions and the unions who fund them," Hilton said.
So here's Hilton defining his runoff: a promised investigation into the 2020 COVID lockdowns. That's the first concrete governing pledge we've got from him against Becerra. And I want to stress-test it on the merits. A governor can convene panels, lean on agencies — but compelling a real lockdown inquiry, with subpoenas and findings? That runs straight into what the office can actually do. Sarah, read the numbers he's selling it on. He's not pitching the investigation cold — he's stapling it to 29% Trump approval, 57% wrong-track. The lockdown probe is the sweetener for the base he has to turn out. And notice what he leads with in that ABC7 sit-down. Gas, taxes, cost of living. The COVID investigation's the headline somebody else wrote — his own pitch is $3 gas. From Snejana Farberov at Realtor.com:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging the state's voters to adopt a proposed $11.25 billion housing affordability bond aimed at boosting residential construction and homeownership rates. The governor’s office announced on Monday that Newsom, the state Senate and Assembly have reached a deal to place the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026 on the ballot in November.
Newsom and the legislature struck a deal Monday to put an $11.25 billion housing bond on the November ballot — the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act. And what matters for this race is, that's the same ballot that elects either Becerra or Hilton governor. So the outgoing governor is staking out the housing terrain before either finalist has to take a public position on it. Neither one owns this bond. Neither one has to. Right, and Buffy Wicks is out there pitching 40,000 shovel-ready units. Shovel-ready. We've heard that phrase before. The bond's the easy part — the 35-year repayment off state tax revenue is the part Republicans are already circling. But politically? Newsom just handed his successor a freebie. If it passes, you inherit the win. If it fails, hey, the voters did that, not me. That's the governing-capacity question I keep coming back to. A governor doesn't conjure 40,000 units — local permitting, financing, the whole pipeline has to line up. The bond writes the check. It doesn't pour the foundation. This one comes via 270toWin. Two post-primary polls now, and they basically agree — Kreate has it 58-33, Berkeley IGS 52-31. Average them out and Becerra's up 23. That's a wall. And notice the Berkeley sample — 8,578 registered voters at plus-or-minus two. That's not a back-of-the-envelope poll; that's a serious read. Here's what I keep circling, though — Kreate's got 9% 'other,' Berkeley's got 17% undecided. Hilton's path runs through everybody who hasn't landed yet, not through Becerra voters. And in a 55-32 state, that math doesn't get him there. That's why I'd pair this average against the nightly CAL-ACCESS pull — the money signal and the polling signal pointing the same direction tells you more than either alone. If the cash gap tracks the 23 points, there's no hidden Hilton surge waiting in the filings. From R Street Institute:
At the end of the day, the top-two system, which pits candidates from all parties in a jungle primary, resulted in a final choice between establishment-backed candidates that a partisan primary might have yielded. Others can assess the pluses and minuses of Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton, but the head-scratcher is the collapse of Matt Mahan.
R Street's putting the whole question on Matt Mahan, and look — under 4 percent tells me he never had a base to collapse from. You can't lose altitude you never gained. Right, but that's the interesting part for me. Mahan ran San Jose — bigger than San Francisco, the literal heart of Silicon Valley — with the abundance pitch, and the Democratic primary electorate just didn't show up for it. Because abundance reads great in a white paper, but it doesn't automatically become a turnout coalition. You don't move voters with zoning reform and permitting math — there's no constituency knocking doors for faster environmental review. And that's where I'd push the R Street read. We hit the Sacramento Bee consultants earlier — pair that against this, and I'm still stuck on Becerra: did he build an ideological coalition, or did everybody-but-Hilton just consolidate? Mahan's 4 percent doesn't tell you which. Steyer dropped two hundred million and didn't make the top two either, so let's not pretend money or vibes settled this. The establishment lane just had more bodies lined up in it. Got a question, correction, or story idea for the California Governor’s Race? Send it our way at californiagovernorsrace at lantern podcasts dot com. We always want to know what you're watching.
What we’re watching next: California voters will decide the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026 on the November ballot, and the Becerra-Hilton general election is set for November 3.
You’ll find links to every story we mentioned in the show notes. If one caught your ear, that’s the place to dig in.
That’s California Governor’s Race for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.