In what may have been their final televised matchup before the June 2 primary election, the leading candidates for California governor made their closing pitches to voters in what has been a murky race.
Election Day is just a little more than two weeks away, and early voting is already underway. Thursday’s debate, broadcast live from San Francisco offered one of the last opportunities for many voters to hear directly from the candidates as they seek to secure their place in the general election.
For 90 minutes, the seven top candidates for governor debated a range of issues, including affordability, housing, public safety, climate, education and healthcare. And like the previous debates, there were also moments of heated exchanges.
The candidates who appeared on stage included Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and political commentator Steve Hilton, both Republicans. The Democrats joining them were former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, former Rep. Katie Porter, billionaire environmental advocate Tom Steyer and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Becerra, who’s been surging in polls in recent weeks, was a clear target for many of the other candidates on the debate stage.
Earlier Thursday, Dana Williamson, a former top aide to Becerra, agreed to plead guilty to charges that included conspiracy to commit bank fraud related to a scheme to steal funds from one of Becerra’s dormant campaign accounts while he was health secretary under the Biden administration. Becerra has not been charged in the case.
Hilton alleged that Becerra knew about the illegal transactions.
“I like you personally, Xavier, but you shouldn’t be … in this race,” he said. “You should be preparing your criminal defense.”
Becerra maintained his innocence.
“I had nothing to do with that. I did nothing wrong,” Becerra said. “And don’t take my word for it. Take the word of the U.S. attorney, who said no candidate running for governor has been implicated in this particular matter.”
Porter, who, like Becerra, is a lawyer, also harped on the connection, saying the former California attorney general might not be fully out of the woods of the scandal yet.
And the attacks on Becerra didn’t end there.
Mahan said Becerra, as U.S. health secretary, oversaw a bureaucracy that put out tens of billions of dollars in fraudulent hospice claims.
“He wasn’t minding the shop. … This is not the leadership we need,” Mahan said.
Porter, known for asking tough questions during congressional hearings with the use of a whiteboard, at one point held up her notepad while pressing Becerra on his revenue source for his housing plan.
Becerra chalked up the attacks directed at him as the price of leading in the polls.
“This is what happens when you take the lead in the polls — they all come after (you),” he said.
Thursday’s debate took place one day after a new Emerson College poll showed a further shift in the race.
It wasn’t that long ago that Hilton and Bianco, the two leading Republicans in the race, often polled in the top two of all the candidates running for governor.
Those earlier polls left some Democratic Party leaders worried that Democrats might get shut out entirely from the general election. In California, the top two vote-getters in the primary election, regardless of party affiliation, are the ones to move on to the general election in November.
But more recent polls, like ones conducted or paid for by Emerson College and the California Democratic Party, have shown Bianco slip from the No. 2 spot. Meanwhile, Hilton, who in April received President Donald Trump’s endorsement, has remained among the top two in these polls while widening the gap between himself and his close Republican rival.
Perhaps with Bianco being viewed as less of a threat now, Hilton refrained from attacking the Riverside County sheriff and instead focused his criticisms on Democrats.
When asked toward the end of the debate who each candidate would pick should they not make it through the primary, both Bianco and Hilton pointed to each other.
Thursday’s debate, presented by CBS California and the San Francisco Examiner and broadcast from the Merchants Exchange Building in San Francisco, was billed as “one final opportunity to hear directly” from the candidates before Election Day.
Recent polls have shown the number of undecided voters hovering around 12% to 14%, including an Emerson College poll, released Wednesday, which had the number of undecided at 12%.
The Emerson poll, conducted May 9 and 10, had Becerra in first place among all the candidates, with 19% voter support. He was followed by Hilton at 17.1%, Steyer at 16.6%, Bianco at 10.7%, Porter at 10.3%, Mahan at 7.9% and Villaraigosa at 4%.
California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who had 1.1% voter support, did not participate in Thursday’s debate.