What you need to know:
- Seven California gubernatorial candidates faced off in a debate airing live on CNN.
- The Republican candidates participating included Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton.
- The Democratic candidates taking part included former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Follow along for coverage from Times journalists, including observations from columnists Gustavo Arellano, Mark Z. Barabak and Anita Chabria.
Commentary: Who won the California governor debate on CNN? Here’s what our columnists say
The seven participants in Tuesday night’s California gubernatorial debate onstage at East Los Angeles College.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
For the third time in as many weeks, the leading candidates for California governor met on the debate stage Tuesday night.
The latest installment was a two-hour session, hosted and carried live from Monterey Park by CNN. The debate marked the first time the candidates appeared before a national audience and came as mail ballots have begun arriving in homes throughout the state.
To wrap up debate, candidates are asked what characteristics set them apart from the field
Candidates were asked what distinguished them — one characteristic that sets them apart from the others.
Antonio Villaraigosa said he is “willing to say I made a mistake” and willing to “take on my friends.”
Katie Porter said she is willing to push to make government better, while refusing to take corporate donations.
Tom Steyer said “this is a simple campaign, because corporations are driving up the costs for working Californians,” and he is the one taking on corporate special interests.
Steve Hilton said he hates “bureaucracy” and “ridiculous” rules and regulations that “crush the life” out of businesses and normal people, and “will not rest until we restore sanity to our beautiful state.”
Chad Bianco said he is the only candidate with decades of “proven public service” making “life and death” decisions as a law enforcement official.
Xavier Becerra said he has “the experience to take on the toughest challenges,” such as COVID-19 and President Trump. “I’ve proved that I can fight,” he said.
Matt Mahan said he is “relentless about delivering results in people’s lives.”
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‘Which actor would you want to play you?’ How candidates responded
California is synonymous with Hollywood, but the entertainment industry has struggled in recent years and the state’s grip on it has appeared to slip as other places woo production.
Perhaps fittingly, and in one of the few lighthearted moments of an otherwise-tense debate, candidates were asked: “Which actor would you want to play you in a movie about your life?”
Here’s how they responded:
Matt Mahan: Russell Crowe
Xavier Becerra: Antonio Banderas
Chad Bianco: Clint Eastwood
Steve Hilton: Jason Statham
Tom Steyer: Gregory Peck
Katie Porter: Tina Fey
Antonio Villaraigosa: Antonio Banderas
Regarding Banderas, Becerra got first choice of the actor, but when it was Villaraigosa’s turn, he got in an extra line.
“At [a] Hollywood event, when I was mayor, Antonio Banderas said he wanted to play me,” Villaraigosa said.
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Candidates tussle over high-speed rail, environmental and energy policies
Steve Hilton and Tom Steyer sparred over environmental policies and Hilton’s position that California’s governmental rules don’t help the environment.
Hilton complained about a plan for “tripling subsidies” for electric vehicles. That, he said, would lead to higher costs for normal Californians just trying to drive to work.
“Let’s be clear what that is,” he said. “That is high taxes on hard-working Californians driving their gas cars and trucks every day so that Tom’s rich friends can feel virtuous about saving the climate.”
He said California should instead be using the oil under its soil to drive down gas prices.
Steyer called Hilton “ridiculous” and an “apologist for fossil fuels,” and said that California must offer subsidies for people to switch to clean vehicles, deploy more clean energy technology and make “the polluters pay.”
“Drilling more in California is not going to change the price we pay at the pump,” Steyer said, because those costs are what big oil companies are “gouging us for” based on global energy markets.
Hilton has also said he would kill California’s long-running high-speed rail project, which he called a prime example of waste and fraud that would continue if Democrats remain in power.
Antonio Villaraigosa said he built public transportation as L.A. mayor, and would back high-speed rail, too.
“We’ve had incompetence, maybe fraud, but for sure we’ve made mistakes,” he said. But if he were elected, he would get it done right.
Matt Mahan chimed in to say that he would seek to reform state environmental law.
“It shouldn’t cost us more to get to Modesto than it did to get to the moon,” he said, adding that he would “demand fundamental reform” of all of the rules and environmental laws around such projects so we “build faster.”
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They all had one-word reviews of Gov. Gavin Newsom. What’s yours?
By Mark Z. Barabak, Columnist
In one of the crisper — and more subtly revealing — moments, each of the candidates was asked to provide a single word to describe the tenure of departing incumbent Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Their responses, as follows:
Villaraigosa: Performative.
Porter: Bold.
Steyer: Progressive.
Hilton: Failed.
Bianco: Failure.
Becerra: Game-changing.
Mahan: Incomplete.
The responses from Republicans Hilton and Bianco need no explainer. For those without a decoder ring, Villaraigosa ran against Newsom in 2018. Mahan has been a consistent critic, though he’s toned it down since entering the governor’s race.
Steyer, Porter and Becerra clearly saw no point in antagonizing the Democratic base, which remains most supportive of the governor.
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California is at the center of the AI boom. How would candidates approach the industry?
Candidates were asked about artificial intelligence, its “massive potential” and the threat it poses to workers. They were also asked whether they would require AI companies to compensate people whose jobs are taken over.
“People are right to be worried,” said Matt Mahan, whose campaign has received funding from big tech.
But he said he has shown in San José that the “answer is to tax these companies and to fund workforce development,” and “pathways to the jobs of the future” — not to “regulate them to the point where they simply go to other places.”
Tom Steyer said California can’t let AI create “12 trillionaires” while taking the jobs of millions of workers. He said California should charge a fee for every AI calculation that is conducted.
Steve Hilton said such responses were “classic Democrats” — “if it moves, tax it.”
He said we “have to have a bit of humility” on a fast-moving technology. He said AI jobs are going elsewhere, and the next governor should work to bring them back to California. He also said the state should be teaching students to thrive in a new AI-driven world.
Katie Porter said we can decide whether we want such technologies to help us, or let them “gut our economy.” She also said human workers should be paid for inputs that AI takes as fodder for the products it kicks out.
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Becerra takes heat over indictment of former advisor
Antonio Villaraigosa hammered Xavier Becerra over and over on his response to questions surrounding the indictment of his former chief of staff.
The Republicans on stage also went after him repeatedly, with Steve Hilton accusing Becerra of wrongdoing in the matter despite him not being charged with a crime.
The focus on Becerra was a clear result of his surge in the race since the collapse of former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s campaign.
Federal prosecutors allege in court documents that Becerra’s longtime advisor Sean McCluskie and two other consultants skimmed more than $200,000 from one of Becerra’s dormant campaign accounts.
Becerra is not accused of wrongdoing, and has been painted as a victim in the prosecutor’s court filings. Still, Hilton suggested Becerra knew about the scheme, which has led to guilty pleas from two individuals involved.
Hilton pointed out that McCluskie skimmed money so he could more easily travel back and forth between Washington, D.C., where he worked for Becerra, and his hometown of Davis, where his family was located. He pointed out that Becerra wanted him working for him.
Becerra pushed back on the criticism, pointing to the court documents.
“If I had been involved, the U.S. attorney would have had me in that indictment,” he said.
Villaraigosa pointed out that Becerra was paying a very high fee related to one of the consultants named in the indictment who was overseeing the dormant account, and questioned why that was.
“It doesn’t pass the smell test,” Villaraigosa said.
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Candidates give one-word assessments of Newsom’s tenure
All of the candidates were asked to provide one word to describe Gov. Gavin Newsom’s performance as governor of California.
Antonio Villaraigosa: “performative.”
Katie Porter: “bold.”
Tom Steyer: “progressive.”
Steve Hilton: “failed.”
Chad Bianco: “failure.”
Xavier Becerra: “game-changing.”
Matt Mahan: “incomplete.”
Moderators also tried to get the two Republican candidates to weigh in on each other.
Bianco was asked if he thinks that Republican voters can trust Hilton.
“Have Steve and I disagreed? Absolutely we have,” he said. He said those agreements have been “quite big.”
He avoided directly criticizing Hilton, but said he was the only person on the stage “that their entire existence in their job revolves around honesty, integrity.”
Hilton swerved, saying voters cannot keep voting for the same thing — Democratic leadership — if they want to see change in the state.
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Bianco seized 600,000 ballots. Becerra is quietly backing a legal pushback
By Anita Chabria, Columnist
Much has been written about Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco taking control of more than 600,000 ballots from the last election, claiming election fraud like a QAnon conspiracy theorist texting from his basement circa 2020.
What has been written about less is Xavier Becerra’s involvement in one of the lawsuits seeking to quash Bianco’s “investigation.”
Since last year, Becerra, a lawyer, has been advising the UCLA Voting Rights Project. The group filed its own lawsuit against Bianco, arguing that he had broken the chain of custody that protects ballots and that ensures Americans can trust elections.
Becerra (and Antonio Villaraigosa) called out Bianco’s actions in seizing the ballots as illegal.
“That’s why he’s going to lose in the Supreme Court,” Becerra said.
Bianco called the comments “political,” adding with more MAGA flair, that, “election fraud is against the law. There is absolutely nothing we did that was illegal. And the real issue here is the attorney general just doesn’t want them counted.”
“Them” being the ballots, the attorney general being Rob Bonta, apparently part of the Democratic cabal Bianco believes is rigging votes.
“The law is pretty clear,” Becerra responded. “All you had to do was read the law. You cannot take ballots, confiscate them, and count them yourself.”
True that. It’s interesting to me that Becerra has not been more vocal in his involvement with the Voting Rights Project, which has been fighting the good fight to protect American democracy.
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Candidates discuss how to boost housing production, address homelessness
On the issue of housing, Matt Mahan, the mayor of San José, said he has reduced the city’s homeless population by making it easier to build ADUs in people’s backyards, and by reducing red tape for additional types of housing.
Antonio Villaraigosa said he built more market rate, affordable and workforce housing when he was mayor of Los Angeles than anyone else on the stage.
Steve Hilton pressed for building single-family homes in areas of the state with space, rather than forcing more housing into places where residents don’t want them.
Chad Bianco said the issue of homelessness has “nothing to do with homes,” and more to do with mental health issues and drug and alcohol addiction.
Tom Steyer said “Californians can’t afford to live here,” and there has to be a greater conversation about building more housing, and faster.
He also said that cities and counties “do not want new housing” because they can’t afford to pay the health and education costs associated with more residents, and he will solve that issue by closing tax loopholes for big businesses.
Mahan said that would raise costs for small businesses, and exacerbate the problem. Steyer said there would be an exemption for small businesses under his plan.
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Steve Hilton’s obsession with ‘legal’ immigrants
By Gustavo Arellano, Columnist
Steve Hilton’s family story is one of immigration twice over.
His parents were Hungarian refugees who fled their home country to Great Britain, where Hilton was born. He and his family moved to California in 2012. During tonight’s debate, Hilton proudly declared he was the only immigrant on stage.
And then he said one of his campaign’s shibboleths: “legal.”
The question before the candidates was whether they would support President Trump’s deportation deluge, which has destroyed local economies and his support among the very Latinos who ushered him into office two years ago.
Hilton — who was right in criticizing his Democratic opponents for not answer the question of whether their party deserved to stay in power — now did the same when it came to criticizing Trump.
“I don’t think there’s an appreciation of the difference between legal and illegal immigrants,” Hilton said. He claimed he had spoken to a group of “legal” immigrants in East Los Angeles who “resent the unfairness in California” of the state supposedly offering “free benefits and housing” to undocumented immigrants.
“We did it the right way,” Hilton claimed his “legal” immigrant fans said before CNN went to a commercial break and as other candidates tried to interject. “We are not getting fairness.”
In Hilton’s world, undocumented immigrants are the haves and those who did it the “right” way are the have-nots. It’s a trope Republicans have leaned on ever since they figured out in the late 1980s that anti-immigrant politics can win elections, most notoriously with Proposition 187 in 1994, which passed with nearly two-thirds of the voters.
The idea also worked in 2024 — as I wrote in a columna that year, California Latino had soured on illegal immigrants once that population went from mostly Mexican to Central and South Americans.
Hilton is making a hard push for Latinos — but he’s also not reading the room where many of them live. Polls have shown a sharp swing back to sympathy for undocumented immigrants after the horror show that was 2025, when ICE and Border Patrol detained not just recent arrivals but also people who had been in this country for decades whose children were American citizens.
Or maybe Hilton knows that but doesn’t care.
Because all he could do was grin when Antonio Villaraigosa told him that an academic report found that Trump’s deportation deluge cost California $274 billion.
And when Steyer said that immigrants had built this state? “Legal,” Hilton huffed.
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Single-payer healthcare in California? Candidates voice support, doubts, incredulity
On the issue of healthcare, candidates were asked if they as governor would push for a single-payer healthcare system.
Katie Porter, who supports such a system, accused Xavier Becerra of evading the question and demanded that he give a “yes” or “no” answer.
Becerra said that the state should “build” toward such a system. He also said that a recent news report that said he opposed a single-payer system was inaccurate.
Both Antonio Villaraigosa and Matt Mahan painted their rivals as chasing a pie-in-the sky proposal that the state can’t afford.
Villaraigosa said such a system would cost $500 billion and require the intervention of the federal government.
Mahan said he was hearing “a lot of rhetoric at the extreme ends of the political spectrum,” and that real solutions include using technology to bring down the sky-high administrative costs of healthcare in the state.
Tom Steyer pushed back, saying that the healthcare system is so broken that “we don’t have a choice.”
Steve Hilton said the debate about whether to “go left or to go farther left” among the Democrats on the stage is how California got into the position where too few have access to health care. Part of the solution, he said, is to bring down costs by making sure that undocumented immigrants aren’t getting free care in the state.
Several candidates, including Becerra and Porter, said that they would support providing healthcare to undocumented immigrants.
California became the first state in the nation to offer healthcare to all low-income undocumented immigrants, an expansion spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Newsom has since partially walked back that policy after the costs exceeded expectations.
Undocumented immigrants cannot access federal healthcare programs. But California provides state-funded Medi-Cal coverage costing the state $11.2 billion annually.
Steyer said “everybody in California has a right to healthcare,” but the current system is “eating up” the state’s budget. California has to try something different, and that is single-payer, he said.
“We don’t have a choice,” he said.
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Villaraigosa rebounds, but will it be enough?
LOS ANGELES, CA – MAY 5, 2026: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa during a debate with other candidates at East LA College on May 5, 2026 in Los Angeles, CA.(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
By Mark Z. Barabak, Columnist
Maybe it was just an off night.
Antonio Villaraigosa was a non-factor in last week’s debate, receding from the conversation for long stretches and looking wan and every bit his 73 years when he did show up.
By contrasts, he was crisp, animated and assertive Tuesday night, cutting Republican Chad Bianco down to size and wheeling on Xavier Becerra in a heated back-and-forth over how best — and how realistic it is — to expand healthcare accessibiliy to every Californian.
It may be too little, too late.
Villaraigosa, lagging far behind in polls, barely qualified for the debate stage. But at least the former Los Angeles mayor and one-time Assembly speaker made his presence felt.
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All the reasons why Bianco’s chances are less than zero
By Mark Z. Barabak, Columnist
Chad Bianco has amply illustrated why his chances of becoming governor of California are nil. (If there was such a thing as less than zero, that would describe the odds of Riverside County’s far-right sheriff raising his hand to take the oath in January.)
He not only defended his prior membership in the Oath Keepers (speaking of oaths) — an anti-government extremist group heavily implicated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
He also parroted the debunked talking points of Steve Miller, Kristi Noem and others proven to have lied, er, misled the public about the events surrounding the deaths earlier this year of Minneapolis residents Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.
Good, he claimed, tried to run over an ICE officer when she was shot. (She did not.) He condemned Pretti for allegedly threatening immigration officers with a gun when he was killed. (Though armed, Pretti was wielding a smartphone at the time of his death, having come to the rescue of a woman knocked down by officers.)
You can say this about Bianco: He’s sticking to his guns. He’s also sadly misinformed and positioning himself to appeal not on inch beyond the base of California Trump voters — a distinct minority in this solidly Democratic state.
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Candidates discuss how they would work with, or against, Trump
The candidates were asked how they would work with Trump for his final two years in office.
Steve Hilton, a Republican endorsed by Trump, said the next governor is going to have to work with the president to get good outcomes for Californians. But Democrats disagreed.
Katie Porter said Trump hurts California “again and again,” and that she will “absolutely stand up to him.”
He has made it clear that he is “seeking to specifically punish California,” she said, including by denying wildfire relief and trying to drive jobs out of the state.
“If he’s going to attack California, yeah, ‘F’ him,” she said.
Chad Bianco said he promised not to talk about Trump or former President Joe Biden, or to lie to voters about national forces causing problems in California, when he said those problems are being caused by Democrats in Sacramento.
Xavier Becerra said that when he was California attorney general, he took on Trump every time he targeted the state, eventually suing the first Trump administration more than 120 times.
“And most of those cases, we were able to win,” he said, citing women’s and immigrants’ rights, among other issues.
Matt Mahan said his approach would be to “fight for our values,” and that he is willing to challenge Trump when necessary, but “the best resistance is delivering results, showing that California’s progressive values work in practice.”
Tom Steyer called Trump a “crook” who is making life harder in California in a variety of ways.
“He’s a bully, and the only thing you can do is stand up to him,” Steyer said.
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Chad Bianco is an Oath Keeper, and ‘I’m very proud of it’
By Anita Chabria, Columnist
Chad Bianco, the right-wing sheriff of Riverside County, lost his cool on stage, to put it mildly. Steve Hilton has to be doing a victory boogie in his head, because he is now the only viable Republican in the race.
Former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called Bianco a member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist group that cemented its place in American history when some of its members stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Bianco said “I’m very proud of it,” in response to Villaraigosa’s baiting. “I’m very proud.”
Later, when moderator Kaitlin Collins pushed Bianco to clarify his membership, Bianco sorta-kinda-not-really backtracked, implying he was referring to swearing an oath as part of holding office.
But then he added, “Everybody that wants to, like, again lie and emotionally get all spun up about the Oath Keeper organization. I just would, before you do that, and I know none of you have, I want you to go read the mission statement of the Oath Keepers.”
It’s not the first time Bianco has acknowledged his membership with the group, but it does bring fresh questions about his current status.
An Oath Keeper as governor of the Golden State? Perhaps even a line Republicans won’t cross.
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‘Boys, boys, enough with the bickering’
By Mark Z. Barabak, Columnist
The debate, at least in its early phase, is a lot more orderly and comprehensible than last week’s edition.
Yes, there is the inevitable cross-talk and candidates speaking out of turn to work in digs and challenge others on stage.
But it’s nothing like the chaotic pileup that turned large portions of the Pomona College debate into a screaming, unintelligble cacophony.
Maybe the candidates are chastened.
“Boys, boys, enough with the bickering,” Katie Porter chided at one point after a heated back-and-forth involving Matt Mahan, Xavier Becerra and Tom Steyer. (Did she mention she’s the only major female candidate left in the race?)
But credit also goes to the moderators, Kaitlan Collins and Elex Michaelson, who’ve run a much tighter ship.
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Sparks fly as conversation turns to sanctuary policies, immigration enforcement
Chad Bianco claimed to be the only person on the stage who understands California’s sanctuary laws and how they harm the state by allowing criminal immigrants to remain.
He said ICE agents are enforcing the law, and state officials forced them to go into the street to do their work rather than allowing them to do so in California jails.
Antonio Villaraigosa responded that Bianco doesn’t understand what he is talking about, and said California’s sanctuary laws allow authorities in the state to hand over violent criminals.
Villaraigosa called Bianco a “bully” and an “Oath Keeper” — a reference to a far-right extremist group that Bianco held membership in previously — and Bianco said he was proud of it. He later said, in response to a question from the moderators, that he was not still a member of the organization.
Katie Porter summed up much of her Democratic rivals’ thoughts on immigration and how the California governor should respond to the Trump administration’s agenda: “Donald Trump sucks, and I don’t think anyone who doesn’t see that he is targeting and hurting Californians” has “business being governor,” she said.
Xavier Becerra said he is the only person on stage with experience fighting the Trump administration over such issues.
“We stopped him from trying to force local law enforcement to do the bidding of ICE,” Becerra said, and he said he would do it again as governor.
Tom Steyer said it is critical that California’s governor stands up to ICE, which he called a “criminal organization” that should be broken up. Steyer has called for the abolition of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which was created in the wake of 9/11.
The moderators asked Steyer about his position that immigration agents should be criminally charged for their actions during enforcement raids, and asked if former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem should face charges.
“If she has given the orders to break the law in California, yes,” Steyer said.
A California law aimed at prohibiting ICE agents from wearing masks was struck down in court earlier this year, but that didn’t stop the CNN moderators from asking Bianco if masks should be allowed.
“I believe that the state of California doesn’t get to dictate what they do,” he said. The Riverside County sheriff added that his own deputies don’t wear masks, but he would allow them to do so in certain circumstances.
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The Democrats were asked why voters should vote Democratic. Answers were elusive
Xavier Becerra was among candidates stepping around the thorny question of why voters should vote Democratic.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
By Gustavo Arellano, Columnist
For the past 15 years, the Democratic Party has ruled California in a style that Mexico’s old PRI party would’ve looked on with envy.
No Republican statewide elected official since 2011. Democratic super-majority in the state Legislature. A former U.S. senator turned vice presidential candidate in Kamala Harris. A governor turned presidential hopeful in the outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom.
So kudos to CNN co-moderator Kaitlan Collins for kicking off the night with a question that was the equivalent of running into a rosebush: Why do the Democratic candidates feel they should have a chance to be governor considering the state is in the dire straits it’s in in its Democratic one-party rule era?
It’s a loaded question, of course. It assumes all of California’s problems have been caused by the party and not climate change or Donald Trump declaring war on it or the coronavirus pandemic or many, many other things. But it was also a simple question to answer.
But since politics are politics, few of the candidates did.
Xavier Becerra was the first person to not answer Collins’ question. He instead talked about how his family was able to find the American Dream (Collins was too polite or too young to tell Becerra she grew up in an era of moderate Democratic and Republican governors and a usual party split on U.S. senators.)
Steyer said he was the only candidate willing to stand up to “corporate special interests” and didn’t answer the question.
Matt Mahan said he was the only Democrat who had challenged the “establishment” — forgetting that Antonio Villaraigosa and Becerra challenged a white Democratic establishment back in their day and Katie Porter did the same not even a decade ago when she made history in Orange County.
These non-answers were like softballs to the Republicans on stage, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco.
After all the candidates sparred over their non-answers, Bianco roared, “You just listened to 10 to 15 minutes of why they [Democrats] don’t” deserve another chance to govern. “They’ve broken us.”
“The Democrats who are here who’ve been responsible for one-party rule won’t take responsibility,” Hilton claimed, insisting that “all they can talk about is Trump.”
Hilton and Bianco’s answers hit the Democratic candidates, who wouldn’t dare criticize their own party. Too bad they then shot themselves in the foot with their Trump worship.
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Quips, interruptions as candidates jockey for spotlight
Steve Hilton and Tom Steyer took aim at each other with a pair of quippy lines.
Hilton said taxes, gas prices and other costs will all go up under Steyer and his policies.
“Everything will be higher with Steyer,” he said.
Steyer said he found it rich for hear talk about $3 per gallon gas from someone “who is owned by Donald Trump,” who he said is driving up gas prices with his war in Iran.
Matt Mahan and Xavier Becerra also went after each other on the topic of healthcare.
Mahan said the “higher healthcare costs that are squeezing” Americans today are in part because of Becerra, and his record as California attorney general and U.S. Health and Human Services secretary.
He said Becerra “did nothing as AG and as HHS secretary” to solve the issue. “It’s as bad as ever,” he said.
Becerra said that sounded like a “MAGA talking point,” and noted that, under his tenure as health secretary, more Americans had health coverage than at any other time in history. It has been Trump’s administration, he said, that has caused backsliding.
Katie Porter took the opportunity to address one of the scandals of her candidacy — that she snapped at a staffer and a journalist — by denouncing the “bickering” and “name-calling” and “shouting” and “disrespect” on the stage.
Given how things were going, she said she found it surprising that “anyone wants to talk about my temperament.”
Other candidates laughed.
“You were actually interrupting them too,” Chad Bianco said.
But in an unexpected aside, Porter thanked Hilton for not speaking out of turn.
“We were told we could interject,” said Villaraigosa, reacting to Porter’s criticism.
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Steyer is talking about changing Prop. 13, even when it doesn’t sound like it
By Anita Chabria, Columnist
Early on, Tom Steyer said something important and specific that was lost in the clutter: A pledge to reform Proposition 13, the third-rail of California politics that governs how property taxes are raised, or not.
Prop. 13 has long been controversial because many claim it keeps property taxes artificially low, to the detriment of state coffers. But as any homeowner knows, Prop. 13 is also what allows many homeowners to not be priced out of their own houses by taxes.
Reformers have argued for years, through failed ballot measures and legislation, that Prop. 13 shouldn’t include corporate, industrial and commercial properties, they argue, should pay market value taxes.
Allowing corporations to piggyback on the homeowner protections of Prop. 13 “is the biggest, the worst policy decision, and has had such consequences for so many things,” Patrick Murphy, a professor of political affairs at the University of San Francisco, told me.
He points out that as we debate whether to tax the rich, we are allowing the richest corporations to loophole their way out of property taxes. “We talk about taxing the wealth when we don’t tax the wealth that you can’t hide,” Murphy said.
Kirk Stark, a UCLA professor of tax law and policy, uses the Disney headquarters to make this point. The current Disney HQ land is taxed at a value of about $260,000 per acre, he told me. When the nearby Burbank Studios was recently sold, he said, the land there was assessed at its market value of roughly $8 million per acre. That “suggests that the Disney land is taxed at substantially less than fair market value,” he said.
But Prop. 13 is beloved by voters, and any reform will be a hard sell. Steyer has been forceful in his promise to push that reform, though he hasn’t always been clear that it’s Prop. 13 he’s talking about.
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Candidates, including Democrats, split on proposed state billionaire tax
Democratic candidate Katie Porter said she doesn’t support the proposed billionaire tax.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Katie Porter and Tom Steyer split on the proposed billionaire tax that will also be on Californians’ ballots this year.
Despite wanting to tax the highest income earners in the state more, Porter said she does not support that proposal — which would impose a one-time tax of up to 5% on taxpayers and trusts with assets valued at more than $1 billion, with some exclusions, such as property.
She said the billionaire tax is “one-time,” and won’t solve the state’s issues.
“Yes to a progressive tax code, yes to the wealthy paying more, but this tax is about cheap political points,” she said.
Steyer — a billionaire himself — said he would vote for the tax, but that he agrees the state needs to go further, including by taxing corporate interests in the state more.
Chad Bianco agreed with Porter that the billionaire tax was a bad idea.
Antonio Villaraigosa said California over relies on the highest earners in its tax code, leading to “feast and famine” in its budgets. He said businesses and high-income earners are leaving the state, and a plan for taxing the wealthiest Americans needs to be done at the federal level.
Villaraigosa leaned into his experience leading the state Assembly after he was asked about the wisdom of taxing high-income businesses. Raising taxes on large businesses will make more companies leave the state, he said.
“I am the only candidate on this stage that’s actually balanced two state budgets,” he said.
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Pain at the pump in California: Who’s to blame and how to fix
Democratic candidate Matt Mahan said during Tuesday’s debate that there are ways to bring down gas prices in the state.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
The candidates argued over the price of gas, a subject on which they disagree vigorously.
Steve Hilton said we can get to $3 per gallon by restarting drilling in California and removing state gas taxes. Matt Mahan, however, said that, although there are ways to bring down gas prices in the state, Hilton is “lying” about it being possible to get costs down to $3 a gallon in a year.
Mahan also said some regulations are necessary, unless California wants to go back to a time when the air in L.A. was dangerous to breathe.
Tom Steyer said the state needs to go after big oil companies that are “ripping us off at the pump.”
“They are burning up the planet,” he said.
Xavier Becerra said getting rid of the state gas tax would be foolish because it funds the upkeep of roads and bridges. The real issue driving up gas prices currently, he said, is President Trump’s war in Iran.
Becerra attacked Steyer over his former investment company that made money off fossil fuels and accused him of trying to “buy his seat” with the vast fortune that he’s spending in the race.
The back and forth started after Steyer attacked the nearly $40,000 campaign donation that Chevron gave Becerra, and which Becerra has defended taking.
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Steve Hilton still can’t admit that Trump lost the 2020 election
Republican candidate Steve Hilton takes part in Tuesday night’s debate.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
By Mark Z. Barabak, Columnist
Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. Period. Full stop.
It’s something Steve Hilton just can’t bring himself to say, as a needling Antonio Villaraigosa repeatedly pointed out.
It shows the bind Hilton — and many Republicans, for that matter — face in California. And it shows why the party hasn’t managed to win a statewide election in decades.
The party’s base — not to mention the tissue-thin-skinned president — demand utterly loyalty to Trump, which demands refusing to acknowledge his indisputable 2020 defeat. Hilton, who won Trump’s vital endorsement over fellow Republican Chad Bianco, hewed firmly to that line Tuesday night, deflecting by repeatedly insisting Trump is not responsible for what ails California. (Which is true to a point, but also subject to debate.)
Refusing to admit the obvious may please the tetchy resident of the Oval Office. But it’s not likely to win favor among the substantial majority of Californians with little regard for Trump and his MAGA movement.
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Candidates spar early over California’s cost of living
The first issue candidates were asked about was affordability.
Xavier Becerra said Democrats deserve four more years in power in California despite the soaring cost of living, because Democrats do not “leave anyone behind,” and are working to make sure the economy here works for everyone.
Steve Hilton, however, said the Democrats on the stage are responsible for “everything that we see in California,” but “won’t take responsibility” and just want voters to focus on President Trump.
Tom Steyer said costs are too high across the board, and that he is the only candidate who is “willing to take on the corporate special interests” driving up costs in the state.
Asked why the state’s population is declining, Steyer said, “Californians can’t afford to live here anymore. It starts with housing.”
Matt Mahan said change is obviously needed.
“We don’t need MAGA values, but we also don’t need more of the same,” he said — taking a swipe specifically at Becerra.
Chad Bianco answered the first question of the debate — why do Democrats deserve to stay in power? — head on.
They don’t, he said, echoing the main point of his campaign.
“We are going to get nothing but the same from them. They brought us here,” he said. “They do not deserve another chance.”
Democrats have ruined California with “endless regulations” and “we need an unbelievable change to get back” to being a healthy state, he said.
Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been struggling in the polls, opened up by going on the attack against Hilton after the former Fox News host refused to say whether former President Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Villaraigosa also portrayed himself as a moderate who isn’t afraid to criticize Democratic leaders.
Responding to Villaraigosa’s attack on President Trump, Hilton said, “It’s not Donald Trump that’s given us the highest housing costs in the country. It’s Democrat policies.”
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Debate kicks off, with moderator noting ‘wide open’ state of race
Moderators Kaitlan Collins and Elex Michaelson kicked off the latest high-staked gubernatorial debate with Michaelson noting that “this race is wide open.”
There were seven candidates on stage Tuesday, one less than the previous debate at Pomona College. State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond did not qualify this time around.
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What a difference 30 days make
By Mark Z. Barabak, Columnist
One month ago, Eric Swalwell was a leading contender in California’s dozy race for governor and Xavier Becerra — an afterthought — was being urged to quit the contest, for the sake of his dignity and the good of the Democratic Party.
Now Becerra is the front-runner in the simmering contest and Swalwell has been politically exiled. The ignominious end of his candidacy and loss of his congressional seat, amid allegations of sexual assault and other potentially illegal misconduct, are the least of his worries.
It took a scandal — Swalwell’s precipitous decline and fall — to awaken many Californians to the fact there was a gubernatorial contest underway.
Becerra was the clear-cut, if unexpected beneficiary. Many supposed that Swalwell’s supporters would move to either Katie Porter or Tom Steyer, the two other leading Democratic contenders. But Becerra’s solidity in this time of endless upheaval appears to be what many California voters are seeking.
His lead among Democrats in recent surveys, if modest, has alleviated concerns of the party being shut out in the June 2 top-two primary. Polls suggest Becerra is running even with the top Republican and GOP sacrificial lamb, Steve Hilton.
Becerra’s standing also makes him a prime target. With less than four weeks to election day – and voting already underway – time is waning for another dramatic shake-up like the one that took place between April and May.
If some other candidate is going to make a move, tonight’s debate is a big opportunity.
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Coded messages, ‘red boxing’ and other allegations in California’s testy race for governor
Xavier Becerra answers a question during a gubernatorial debate at Pomona College on April 28.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
Intriguing updates emerged on Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra’s campaign website this week.
Highlighted in bright red text, and boxed by a red outline, was a game plan for attacking one of Becerra’s top rivals in the California governor’s race, billionaire hedge fund founder turned environmental activist Tom Steyer.
As ballots arrive, here’s how the top 7 governor candidates stack up in the polls
By Anita Chabria, Columnist
As we kick off tonight’s debate, there are a number of candidates not on stage but on your ballot. Mine arrived in the mail today, giving me the first chance to actually see all the names laid out in their fleeting glory.
Yes, for those of you who haven’t seen it, the ballot contains 61 candidates for governor. Tonight, you’ll hear from seven of them vying for our attention before pens hit bubbles on that complicated ballot.
The most notable absence tonight will be Tony Thurmond, the state superintendent of public instruction, who didn’t make the cut. He’s polling at less than 1% of voters, about the same as disgraced former candidate Eric Swalwell. Ouch.
Though he has yet to drop out of the race, Thurmond has pretty much joined candidates such as Livingforgod andcountry Demott and Barack D. Obama Shaw who are clogging the ballot with no chance of winning. And in case you’re wondering, yes, those are the legal names of two actual candidates.
The California Democratic Party, which has been pleading and screaming for weeks for someone, anyone to drop out and clear the field, released another new poll this week that shows maybe voters are starting to choose from the better-known names, but not by much.
Republican Steven Hilton and former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra tie in the EVITARUS Research survey at 18% each. MAGA Sheriff Chad Bianco comes in at 14%, and billionaire progressive Tom Steyer is holding on at 12%, possibly splitting voters with the other progressive, Katie Porter, who has 8% of voters in her corner.
Tech-backed San José Mayor Matt Mahan is still breathing, though on life support, at 7%, about where he’s been stuck since Silicon Valley started pouring millions into his campaign.
Antonio Villaraigosa, the former L.A. mayor, is at 2% but somehow made the stage.
Tonight may be the last-best chance for one of these folks to break out. While it’s not the last debate, it’s the highest-profile, likely with the largest audience. But even if someone doesn’t light up voters’ excitement, tonight just may push at least one candidate into the company of Thurmond, Demott and Shaw.
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Becerra’s surge in California governor race draws fresh scrutiny to candidacy, long government record
Then-Rep. Xavier Becerra, second from left, attends a 2009 news conference with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, left, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn.
(Susan Walsh / Associated Press)
After winning his first race for Congress in 1992, 34-year-old Xavier Becerra credited a wave of community supporters in Los Angeles, many Latino, for backing his upstart campaign, saying he hoped his win was proof that grassroots politics was more valuable than “heavy dollars.”
More than 30 years later, Becerra, 68, is again an upstart candidate — this time for California governor. Again he is facing monied competition — including from chief Democratic rival Tom Steyer, a self-funded billionaire — and relying on Latino and other grassroots support.
Barabak: Not too early, not too late. Here’s the sweet spot for voting in California
Since 2020, California has mailed an election ballot to every eligible voter in the state. The primary is June 2.
(Bloomberg via Getty Images)
For the next week or so, in homes all over California, ballots will be arriving for the June 2 primary.
Since 2020, a ballot has been mailed to every active registered voter in the state — more than 23 million, by last count. The time to choose is drawing nigh.
Villaraigosa’s dreams for a political comeback meet reality — again
Former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa speaks to reporters during Mayor Karen Bass’ formal endorsement of him for California governor outside the L.A. Sentinel newspaper office in September.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Former L.A. mayor and current candidate for governor Antonio Villaraigosa wants voters to know that he navigated billion-dollar budgets, cracked down on violent crime and championed the expansion of bus and rail lines.
The onetime state Assembly speaker argues he’s the only Democratic candidate with the experience to do the complicated job of running California.
How Cinco de Mayo explains tonight’s CNN California governor debate
By Gustavo Arellano, Columnist
Today is Cinco de Mayo, when Mexicans remember how their countrymen fended off far-superior European forces in the fight for democracy — but enough about Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton.
Tonight, those two California gubernatorial candidates will face off against five rivals in a CNN debate co-moderated by L.A. boy-gone-big time Elex Michaelson. Michaelson, who has interviewed all of them in the past, will most likely use his boyish charms to keep the conversation flowing instead of letting the debate devolve in something similar to a Trader Joe’s parking lot come Saturday morning.
The latest Democratic Party poll shows Hilton and Becerra in a tie for the lead, so expect the others — in case you need a refresher, that’ll be billionaire Tom Steyer, former L.A. Mayor-cum-Becerra frenemy Antonio Villaraigosa, former O.C. Rep. Katie Porter, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, and San José Mayor Matt Mahan — to attack, attack, attack. But a warning to those who wish to charge and lob bombs willy nilly: that’s the mistake the French forces did when they lost the Battle of Puebla in 1862, the ostensible reason for Cinco de Mayo.
And a warning to Becerra, who’s slowly starting to act as if he’s moving onto the general election: Although Mexico won the Battle of Puebla, the French returned a year later and beat the Mexicans on the same battlefield. They installed a puppet emperor, Archduke Maximillian, for four years before Mexico got its act together and toppled the guy.
Now that I think about it, that warning is for Hilton.
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How a Trump-endorsed Republican could become California’s next governor
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks at a March 7 town hall in Mentone.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Steve Hilton is a former Fox News host who has unexpectedly emerged as a leading candidate in the race for governor with a message that California is a failed state in need of radical reform.
But his sudden rise in California politics comes a decade and a half after he pitched the U.K. Conservative Party with a very different idea: Britain could learn a lot from the Golden State.
Your guide to the California governor candidates’ views on housing and homelessness
(Jim Cooke / Los Angeles Times)
The high cost of housing in California and the related homelessness crisis are some of the most pressing issues facing the state.
As such, the candidates for governor have rolled out a variety of proposals, which seek to build more housing, provide more affordability for Californians and get people off the streets.
Column: Here’s who (we think) won the chaotic California gubernatorial debate
Katie Porter reacts during a gubernatorial debate at Pomona College in Claremont.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Read what our columnists thought of the gubernatorial debate on April 28.
Eight candidates for California governor shared a stage for 90 minutes Tuesday night, their second of three scheduled debates before the June 2 primary.
Your guide to the race for California governor: Who will replace Newsom?
(Jim Cooke / Los Angeles Times)
After a long, sleepy start, the race for California governor has turned into a political blockbuster that’s captivated the nation and the state’s fickle electorate with a career-ending scandal, deluge of attack ads and a surprise long-shot candidate now challenging for the lead.
Welcome to your guide to the 2026 California governor’s race.
Candidates for governor scrap in fiery debate that may grab voter attention, finally
Chad Bianco, from left, Tom Steyer and Steve Hilton were among candidates taking part in Tuesday night’s debate held at Pomona College.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Read our report on the gubernatorial debate that took place on April 28.
The top candidates for California governor clashed over the high costs of gas, housing and homeowner’s insurance in a testy debate Tuesday evening, a fiery exchange that may finally draw voter attention as the June 2 primary election fast approaches.