wasn\u2019t invited to a debate<\/a> in March.<\/p>\nThat has since changed.<\/p>\n
Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose, was answering a question about wildfire response when he suddenly pivoted to attacking Mr. Becerra on a completely different topic. He said that Mr. Becerra had bungled his role as the health and human services secretary under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., with poor responses to monkeypox, Covid-19 and the wave of migrant children who had crossed the southern border.<\/p>\n
Steve Hilton went on the attack when Mr. Becerra said he would prevent homeowners from losing their insurance by declaring a state of emergency and freezing insurance policies.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you read the statute that sets out the governor\u2019s emergency powers?\u201d Mr. Hilton asked, waving an arm at Mr. Becerra, who was standing next to him in the middle of the stage.<\/p>\n
Mr. Becerra said he had.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you would know that what you\u2019re proposing is not in there. You can\u2019t do it,\u201d Mr. Hilton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not correct,\u201d Mr. Becerra replied.<\/p>\n
In a brief interview after the debate, Mr. Becerra defended his record as health secretary, saying he had helped fix problems created by the first Trump administration.<\/p>\n
He was unfazed by the incoming fire from his opponents. \u201cThat\u2019s what happens when you shoot to the top,\u201d Mr. Becerra said.<\/p>\n
The format made for lively chaos.<\/p>\n
It was the largest debate so far, with eight candidates crowding onto the stage. They often talked over each other during the 90-minute event \u2014 so much so that the moderators repeatedly threatened to cut their microphones.<\/p>\n
In some cases, the moderators gave candidates mere seconds to answer a question, and they did not always allow them to respond to attacks made by other candidates.<\/p>\n
The format made for a livelier, but also more chaotic, scene than in the last debate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow, that was a bit of a mess,\u201d said Ryan Kossarian, a politics student at Pomona College, delivering what was perhaps the best one-liner of the night right before he asked the first student question of the debate.<\/p>\n
The higher energy levels were noticeable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you all of you for having coffee before you came out here tonight,\u201d said Pat Harvey, one of the CBS moderators. \u201cThis has been electric.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the debate, Sara Sadhwani, another moderator, said that she felt voters had learned not only about policy proposals but also about the temperament of the candidates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s what a lot of folks are looking for in this moment and with such a crowded race,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Porter addressed parental anxieties head-on.<\/p>\n
For years, Ms. Porter\u2019s political persona has leaned heavily on her identity as a minivan-driving single mother. She frequently talks about pushing a grocery cart and worrying that her teenagers will never be able to afford to leave home.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, she brought more of that energy to the debate stage with her proposals and her barbs alike. She pitched her plan to make child care free and create a tuition-free path for earning a college diploma.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are all real affordability solutions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ms. Porter, the only female candidate on the stage, sometimes gave the vibe that she was floating above the fray while the others interrupted one another.<\/p>\n
At one point, as several of her opponents talked over each other and the moderator struggled to control the discussion, Ms. Porter theatrically slammed her head in her hands and quipped, \u201cThis is worse than my teenagers at dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most ran away from taxes. Steyer embraced them.<\/p>\n
At one point in the debate, each candidate was asked if they supported suspending the gas tax given high prices at the pump. The two Republicans said yes and the six Democrats said no.<\/p>\n
That was nearly the extent to which the candidates talked about raising taxes. Tony Thurmond, the state schools chief, did mention that he supported the billionaire tax initiative that appears to have enough signatures to reach the November ballot.<\/p>\n
But none of the candidates leaned into taxes like Mr. Steyer, a progressive billionaire who has made increasing them a central part of his platform, and who has said he thinks he should be taxed more.<\/p>\n
During the debate, Mr. Steyer said he supported a windfall profits tax on oil companies that have raised the price of gasoline.<\/p>\n
He also said that he would remove a property tax protection for corporate real estate that he said would deliver $22 billion to the state of California every year. He said the money would help fund single-payer health care, as well as salaries and training for teachers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth is, no one else on this stage wants to talk about revenue,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
What went unsaid, however, was that those proposals have been tossed around the State Capitol for years, and they have been politically impossible to pass so far. Voters even rejected the corporate property tax idea in 2020.<\/p>\n
One Republican was angrier than the other.<\/p>\n
In the debate last week, the two Republicans \u2014 Mr. Bianco and Mr. Hilton \u2014 agreed on nearly everything. It was expected that they would try to differentiate themselves this time around.<\/p>\n
Mr. Bianco instead focused on attacking every Democrat on stage as well as those that are currently in office. He said that \u201cfailed Democrat policies\u201d had made the state unaffordable, pushed out insurance companies, encouraged homelessness and drug use and allowed giant wildfires to wipe out entire neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not afraid of anything. I\u2019m truly not. But actually I\u2019m terrified that one of these people are going to be your next governor, and these kids are all going to have to move. This is absolutely ridiculous,\u201d he said, referring to college students in the audience. <\/p>\n
He still didn\u2019t disagree with Mr. Hilton on much. But the two men did appear very different, at least in terms of temperament, with Mr. Bianco the angrier of the two.<\/p>\n
When Ms. Porter mentioned single-payer health care, Mr. Bianco told her, \u201cIf you want socialism, go somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his closing comments to the audience at Pomona College, many of them students, Mr. Bianco referred to the debate as an \u201chour and a half that you\u2019re never going to get back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eight candidates for California governor vigorously sparred during a debate in Claremont, Calif., on Tuesday night as each…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":760777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[277555,115313,276,22474,52819,312617,312612,90,91675,115316,312615,277556,3703,50,91183,312613,35727,312614,286142,312616,67,16852,132,68,383],"class_list":["post-760776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","category-us","tag-becerra","tag-bianco","tag-california","tag-cbs-corporation","tag-chad","tag-claremont-calif","tag-debates-political","tag-elections","tag-governors","tag-hilton","tag-katie-1974","tag-mahan","tag-matt","tag-news","tag-politics-and-government","tag-pomona-college","tag-porter","tag-steve-1969","tag-steyer","tag-thomas-f","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-politics-and-government","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-xavier"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116486725115688699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}