Xavier Becerra will go to the November election for governor of California

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Democrat Xavier Becerra will advance to the November general election in the California governor’s race, marking a sudden and dramatic rise for a career politician who is basing his campaign on his experience and willingness to take on President Donald Trump.

Becerra, the former state attorney general, won nearly 27 percent of the vote in the June 2 primary, with about two-thirds of the votes counted by the time the result was announced by The Associated Press on Friday afternoon. If elected in November, he would be the first Latino to hold the position of California governor in more than a century and the first to win an election, which his campaign described as a historic event.

It’s not yet clear who his opponent will be: Preliminary results show Republican Steve Hilton likely to advance with more than 26 percent of the vote, though Democrat Tom Steyer, who is trailing, has 21 percent and could be back in more than 3 million votes not yet counted. Many Democratic voters held onto their ballots until the last minute, meaning that the uncounted votes usually went in favor of Democrats.

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

The competition in November can vary dramatically depending on the opponent. If it’s Hilton, Becerra would be the clear favorite to win: California Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two to one, and Hilton has the support of Trump, whom Californians largely disapprove of.

If Steyer wins, California can expect a bitter battle between opposing wings of the Democratic Party, exacerbated by the hundreds of millions of dollars Steyer has spent from his personal fortune in the primary alone.

Although Becerra, a former hedge fund manager turned Democratic donor and climate activist, has run a progressive campaign and won the support of those close to Bernie Sanders, he enjoys the support of much of the Democratic establishment. Similarly, it received significant support – and funding- of trade unions and business groups.

Becerra, who remained in the single digits in the polls, experienced a surge in popularity after political decline of former favorite Eric Swalwell with establishment Democrats favoring the former secretary of Health and Human Services and former state attorney general over former congresswoman Katie Porter and establishment outsider Steyer.

It was a surprising and rapid rise for the mild-mannered career politician, who had previously been part of a group of lower-polling Democratic candidates who had been publicly pressured by party chairman Rusty Hicks to drop out of the race.

“Guess what? The underdog stayed in the fight,” Becerra said at an election night rally Tuesday in Los Angeles, calling his near victory “the daily miracle of living in a state that regularly makes the improbable seem inevitable.”

The decision comes at a particularly important time for California. Residents face exorbitant costs of living, nation-leading gas prices compounded by the war in Iran, wildfire risks that have driven insurance companies out of the state, a shaky state budget, looming federal cuts to the state’s sprawling health care system and an economy weakened by immigration crackdowns.

So far, Becerra has proposed no major policy changes in Newsom’s two terms.

He said that to tackle the state’s affordability crisis, he would declare a state of emergency to freeze utility rates and home insurance, analyze the reasons for their increases and enforce existing housing laws to ensure local governments plan for new construction. Like other California Democrats, he has also expressed his willingness to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions and transition to clean energy to keep gas prices affordable.

The son of Mexican immigrants and raised in Sacramento, Becerra began his political career in the 1990s, winning a seat in the Los Angeles Legislature as a young attorney and two years later being elected to Congress. He served in that role for 24 years until he was appointed California attorney general in 2017 during the first Trump administration. He later served as health secretary during the Biden administration.

On the campaign trail, he was dogged by criticism of his handling of the administration. Some Democratic leaders have renewed complaints about his leadership during the pandemic, while his main opponents have repeatedly highlighted his agency’s work in selecting homes for large numbers of migrant children who were later found working in dangerous or exploitative jobs.

Steyer, in particular, also highlighted how various corporations and special interests stepped up their donations to boost Becerra’s campaign in the final weeks of the race.

Hilton, tapping into Republican frustration with high spending and government regulations, cast Becerra as a symbol of the status quo under Newsom. So far, Becerra has not proposed significant policy changes from Newsom, even going so far as to say during a debate that he would give Newsom an “A” for his efforts against homelessness, which has increased significantly over the past two terms.

But Becerra fended off most of the attacks, emphasizing his extensive government experience and the years of litigation he brought against Trump when he was attorney general.

“You can make all these big over-promises,” he said this week, referring to critics like Steyer. “But what matters is that we get them done.”