Xavier Becerra advances to California’s general election

from Jeanne KuangCalMatters

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Democrat Xavier Becerra will continue into the November general election in the California governor’s race, ending a sudden and dramatic ascension for a career politician who built on his experience and desire to take on President Donald Trump.

Becerra, the former state attorney general, secured nearly 27 percent of the vote in the June 2 primary, with about two-thirds of the votes counted as of Friday afternoon. If elected in November, he would be the first Latino to serve as governor of California in more than a century.

It’s not yet clear who his opponent will be: Results so far show Republican Steve Hilton most likely to advance with more than 26 percent of the vote counted, though trailing Democrat Tom Steyer hasn’t trailed and could catch up in the nearly three million votes that remain to be counted.

California uses a first-two primary system; the two candidates with the most votes advance to the November ballot, regardless of party.

The competition in November can differ dramatically depending on the opponent. If it’s Hilton, Becerra would be heavily favored to win: California Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two to one, and Hilton is backed by Trump, whom Californians overwhelmingly disapprove of.

If it’s Steyer, California can expect an all-out battle between opposing wings of the Democratic Party, fueled by the hundreds of millions of dollars Steyer has spent from his personal fortune in the primary alone.

While the hedge fund manager turned Democratic donor and climate activist ran a progressive campaign and won the support of Bernie Sanders surrogates, Becerra is favored by much of the Democratic establishment.

Becerra, who has been stuck in the single digits in the polls, has grown in popularity since the political implosion of former favorite Eric Swawellwith establishment Democrats favoring the former Health and Human Services secretary and former state attorney general over former congresswoman Katie Porter and outsider Steyer.

The decision comes at a particularly important time for California. Residents face a crushing cost of living, high gas prices exacerbated by the Iran war, wildfire risks that have driven insurance companies out of the state, a shaky state budget, impending federal cuts to the state’s vast health care system and an economy weighed down by immigration crackdowns.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.