![\"Xavier](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778880802_400_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nSAN FRANCISCO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0As Californians cast ballots in the most unsettled governor\u2019s race in recent history, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, a Democrat surging in the polls, once again took most of the heat during a contentious debate among the top candidates for California governor. <\/p>\n
Becerra\u2019s rapid rise as the top Democrat in the race was greeted on stage by a fusillade of political attacks from rival Democrats and Republicans, notably regarding his former campaign manager\u2019s guilty plea to federal corruption charges hours before the clash. <\/p>\n
Then came accusations that he wavered on support for single-payer healthcare, and failed to stem healthcare and unemployment fraud while serving as California\u2019s attorney general. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what happens when you take the lead in the polls and you\u2019re ahead of everyone else. They all come at you,\u201d Becerra said. \u201cI get it. So they have to try to beat you down. This is a great Trump tactic that\u2019s used. I didn\u2019t expect it to come from fellow Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith friends like that, who needs enemies?\u201d Becerra later said.<\/p>\n
The face-off took place at a critical moment before the June 2 primary. Republican voters appear to be consolidating behind Hilton, who was endorsed by President Trump, while Becerra and billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer are favored most by Democrats. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Katie Porter, left, Chad Bianco, Antonio Villaraigosa and Xavier Becerra at Thursday\u2019s debate.<\/p>\n
(Godofredo A. V\u00e1squez \/ Pool via Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Up for grabs<\/p>\n
As ballots land in mailboxes, California voters are finally tuning in to the race to lead the nation\u2019s most populous state and fourth-largest economy in the world. Thursday\u2019s 90-minute CBS debate may have been the final opportunity for candidates to directly address large numbers of voters.<\/p>\n
Until now, scandal drew the most attention to the contest, as former U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), once an establishment favorite and nominal front-runner, dropped out in April amid allegations of sexual assault and misconduct.<\/p>\n
Five Democrats \u2014 Becerra, Steyer, San Jos\u00e9 Mayor Matt Mahan, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa \u2014 and two Republicans \u2014 Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and former conservative commentator Steve Hilton \u2014 clashed about affordability, housing, public safety, climate, education and healthcare. State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, a Democrat, failed to reach the polling threshold to qualify for the debate.<\/p>\n
CBS News Bay Area reporter Ryan Yamamoto, CBS News Los Angeles reporter Tom Wait and San Francisco Examiner Editor-in-Chief Schuyler Hudak Prionas moderated the face-off in front of nearly 200 people at the historic Julia Morgan Ballroom in San Francisco\u2019s Financial District, with sweeping views of the city.<\/p>\n
The opulent Beaux Arts venue contrasted with the tense confrontations among the candidates that underscored Becerra\u2019s swift rise among Democrats in the field after Swalwell dropped out of the race. Even before the face-off, his Democratic rivals began ramping up their focus on Becerra.<\/p>\n
Becerra under attack<\/p>\n
Becerra faced a barrage of attacks over a string of unfavorable publicity this week, including a widely circulated exchange with a KTLA-TV reporter in which the Democratic candidate asked, \u201cThis is a profile piece, this is not a gotcha piece, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier Thursday, his former campaign manager Dana Williamson, who also spent time as Newsom\u2019s chief of staff, pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges<\/a> alleging she and Becerra\u2019s former top advisor<\/a> were among those who illegally siphoned $225,000 from Becerra\u2019s campaign accounts. <\/p>\n Although Becerra has not been accused of wrongdoing, that did not temper criticism from his political rivals during Thursday\u2019s debate. They questioned his judgment and said Becerra should have noticed where his money was going.<\/p>\n Hilton said Becerra should be preparing his own criminal defense, rather than running for governor. Porter warned that damning evidence against Becerra could come out later \u2014 which, if he finishes as the top Democrat in the primary election, could undercut his campaign and lead to a Republican being elected California\u2019s next governor. <\/p>\n Becerra defended himself, pointing out that federal prosecutors never accused him of being involved and stated that none of the candidates for governor was implicated in scandal.<\/p>\n Democrats also painted Becerra as a leader who allowed fraud and mismanagement to fester under his watch.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wasn\u2019t minding the shop\u201d as state attorney general, Mahan said, pointing to fraudulent unemployment and hospice claims early in the COVID-19 pandemic. \u201cI mean, the Biden administration had to sideline him during COVID. This is not good leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n Matt Mahan, left, is polling in the single digits and made a last-ditch effort to leave an imprint during Thursday\u2019s debate.<\/p>\n (Godofredo A. V\u00e1squez \/ Pool via AP)<\/p>\n Major focus on kitchen table issues, a critical concern among voters<\/p>\n Affordability was a major theme in the debate, which included an introductory video of a single mother struggling to fill her gas tank and buy groceries.<\/p>\n Steyer said he would reduce costs by taking on special interests and bringing about structural change and breaking up monopolies.<\/p>\n \u201cI am the person who will tax the billionaires like me, and the big corporations so we can afford to make the changes\u201d to pay for healthcare and great education, he said.<\/p>\n Mahan said the answer was to \u201cput more money in people\u2019s pockets by bringing down costs,\u201d and that that would not occur under either Steyer or Hilton.<\/p>\n \u201cTom Steyer\u2019s structural change sounds to me more like socialism. His plans literally would double the size of state government,\u201d Mahan said. \u201cThat\u2019s not going to drive affordability. Steve Hilton is touting his Donald Trump endorsements. You\u2019ve got tariffs and wars driving up costs.\u201d<\/p>\n Hilton returned fire: \u201cI love the way Matt talks about how he\u2019s going to lower costs when his city was recently rated the most expensive, the least affordable for housing, in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Daylight between Republicans about climate change<\/p>\n The Republican candidates avoided attacking each other during the debates, offering compliments instead. But the two split when asked about whether climate change was having a real-world impact.<\/p>\n Bianco said California is destroying itself with its environmental policies.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course we can say that temperatures are increasing,\u201d he said, but he also said he was not \u201cnaive\u201d enough to think that humans can affect or control the climate, which has been changing since he was a child, and that California has to stop all the environmental regulations that are \u201cactivist related\u201d and destroying the state\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n Tom Steyer spoke Thursday of affordability, a hot-button issue: \u201cI am the person who will tax the billionaires like me.\u201d<\/p>\n (Godofredo A. V\u00e1squez \/ Pool via Associated Press)<\/p>\n Hilton said he believes in climate change but that California needs to have \u201ccommon sense\u201d on the issue rather than ideological responses. He said it is \u201cof course\u201d right to want clean water and air but that policies in California are not working \u2014 as has been made clear by the recent \u201cmega-fires\u201d in the state.<\/p>\n The Democrats on stage were closely aligned on the need to respond to the climate crisis and ensure that environmental protections are not dismantled by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n Last-ditch efforts by struggling candidates<\/p>\n Candidates in the crowded field who have struggled to break through \u2014 centrist Democrats Mahan and Villaraigosa, who have languished in the single digits in the polls \u2014 made a last-ditch effort to leave an imprint during Thursday\u2019s gathering. <\/p>\n Mahan went after nearly every candidate on the stage in the opening moments of the debate.<\/p>\n \u201cThe change we need is rooted in accountability for results,\u201d Mahan said. \u201cIt\u2019s not the change billionaire Tom Steyer\u2019s offering, which is higher taxes and bigger government. It\u2019s not the change Fox News talking head Steve Hilton\u2019s offering \u2014 fear, division and more Donald Trump. And let\u2019s be honest, Xavier Becerra is not offering change; he\u2019s the embodiment of the status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n Villaraigosa leaned heavily into his experiences leading Los Angeles and in the state Assembly to argue that he was most qualified to lead the state while castigating his fellow Democrats\u2019 policies.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a state with big challenges, the challenge of affordability, the challenge of healthcare, homelessness, and dirty streets and crime-filled streets,\u201d Villaraigosa said. \u201cThe fact is, I\u2019m the only candidate on this stage who, in addition to hitting Donald Trump, which I do, have challenged us, challenged this party, and said, \u2018Hold it, a lot of the problems that we face have come from Sacramento policies.\u2019 We need someone with the courage to take on Donald Trump, but also take on our friends when they\u2019re wrong. I\u2019ve had a record of doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n Mehta reported from Los Angeles and Nixon from San Francisco.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0As Californians cast ballots in the most unsettled governor\u2019s race in recent history, former U.S. Health and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[17799,1595,7795,408,5734,6856,17801,17797,17800,8,1599,1601,9,751,17798,10131,1690,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-29215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-affordability","9":"tag-becerra","10":"tag-california-governor","11":"tag-candidate","12":"tag-change","13":"tag-debate","14":"tag-donald-trump-endorsement","15":"tag-fellow-democrats","16":"tag-final-governor","17":"tag-headlines","18":"tag-hilton","19":"tag-mahan","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-race","22":"tag-single-payer-healthcare","23":"tag-state-government","24":"tag-thursday","25":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116580738845069431","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778880802_252_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Tom](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778880802_669_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n