BECERRA VS. HILTON IS THE CALIFORNIA ELECTION THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING
Five days after California’s June 2 primary, the state still doesn’t know for certain who will face Xavier Becerra in November. That’s not a malfunction. That’s California doing what California does. But what we do know is enough to read the shape of the fight ahead — and it’s a genuinely interesting one.
Becerra leads with roughly 27 percent of the vote as counts continue. Steve Hilton sits at 26 percent, with Tom Steyer pulling about 21 percent from the center-left. With 71 percent of expected votes counted and about 95,000 votes separating Becerra and Hilton, the Associated Press has called Becerra for November. The second slot is still unsettled.
If Hilton advances — and as of this writing he’s the most likely Republican to do so — the November race sets up a contrast that would have seemed almost cartoonish a decade ago: a former U.S. attorney general and progressive stalwart against a former Fox News host endorsed by Donald Trump, running on a platform of cutting income taxes on the first $100,000, halving electric bills, and getting California back to $3 gas by drilling more oil.
Hilton’s pitch works on a specific frequency. California is expensive. People feel that. His slogans — “Cal affordable,” tax-free first $100K — are linguistically clever even if the policy math is thin. And Trump’s endorsement is not the liability in a California Republican primary that conventional wisdom assumes; it’s actually why Hilton is where he is. The GOP base in California is smaller but more nationalized than it used to be, and Hilton speaks that language fluently.
Becerra has the structural advantage. California hasn’t elected a Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger left office in 2011, and the state’s demographics continue to favor Democrats. But Becerra carries some baggage. His tenure as California’s attorney general, and then as HHS secretary under Biden, made him a familiar national face but a less compelling state figure. The “what has he actually done for California housing costs, homelessness, or affordability?” question is one his campaign will have to answer repeatedly.
Then there’s Trump. Before anyone had finished counting votes, the former and current president posted that Democrats were trying to “steal” the California primaries. Becerra fired back, calling Trump a “repeat loser” in California who was “trying to undermine confidence” in elections he can’t win. That exchange, happening in real time while votes were still being counted, is a preview of November — where legitimate ballot-counting delays will be twisted into conspiracy content before the results are official.
The voter turnout numbers tell a quieter story. Less than a quarter of Californians cast ballots in the primary, based on early data. That’s a civic participation failure that both parties share responsibility for, though the consequences will play out differently for each. Low turnout primaries tend to reward energized bases, which is partly why Hilton, running on Trump enthusiasm, performed better than polling suggested he would.
The Swalwell vacancy in California’s 14th Congressional District, with its June 16 special election, adds another layer to a state already navigating multiple ballots simultaneously. California voters are being asked to engage with a dense election calendar, and many of them are simply not showing up.
What the governor’s race actually reveals is a California that is more contested than its national reputation suggests — not because Republicans are winning, but because the cost-of-living crisis has opened a lane that didn’t exist ten years ago. Whether Hilton or another Republican can actually drive through that lane to win a general election is a different question. But the lane is real. And Becerra, if he wins in November, will have to govern a state where millions of residents feel left behind by the party that’s been in charge for most of their adult lives.
That’s not a comfortable inheritance. It’s an honest one.