Candidates target Steyer, Becerra in free-wheeling California governor debate

Six leading Democratic candidates for governor were seeking a breakout moment Tuesday night in a race that has been dominated by its lack of certainty, with two Republican candidates frequently in the lead.

None of them appeared to find one in a chaotic, combative and often hard-to-follow CBS debate at Pomona College, prompting former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter to declare at one point that “this is worse than my teenagers at dinner.”

With less than a week before ballots are mailed to voters, though, the targets were clear: Billionaire Tom Steyer, who has led fellow Democrats in polling and has already spent at least $132 million of his own money on the race; and Xavier Becerra, the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary who has had a sudden surge in momentum since former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out amid allegations of sexual assault.

Porter, once a rising national progressive star, got in a dig at Steyer, who has consolidated support among many of the party’s most left-wing activists. She criticized the fortune he made in part by investing in fossil fuels when he tried to tout his climate-friendly credentials and policy of “making polluters pay.” Steyer has said that he subsequently divested from those investments and devoted himself to addressing climate change.

“How about profiteers pay?” Porter asked pointedly.

Becerra, meanwhile, was criticized by moderate Democratic San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan for his mixed record as former President Joe Biden’s health secretary and for bristling when pressed for policy specifics. At one point, Becerra argued with one of the five debate moderators over the legality of his proposal to call a state of emergency to freeze home insurance rates.

Becerra entered the debate fresh off a recent boost in polling and fundraising, buoyed by an army of online influencers whose posts adviser Michael Bustamante said are “all organic.” The candidate was eager to spar with his competitors, but his newfound spotlight has also come with scrutiny about his record on immigration and health.

Progressives and Steyer’s campaign have also highlighted Becerra’s support from companies like Chevron and his handling of an influx of unaccompanied migrant children as Biden’s health secretary. A 2023 New York Times investigation found that those children — whom Becerra had pressured officials to process and place as if they were running an “assembly line” — ended up in dangerous child labor jobs.

Becerra later dismissed the criticism as a “MAGA talking point” and said the Department of Homeland Security was responsible for the child labor.

“We did everything we could,” he said.

Republican Chad Bianco, the ornery Riverside County sheriff with a penchant for the conspiratorial, was also on the offensive Tuesday night. He leapt to attack Democratic policies wholesale as “lies” whenever he could. He drew groans from the audience when he interrupted Becerra to state, falsely, that COVID-19 vaccines distributed under Biden had “poisoned” millions of Americans.

His frequent broadsides at state regulations prompted Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond to attack Bianco’s recent unprecedented seizure of 650,000 ballots in Riverside County.

Little to differentiate between Democrats

But the Democrats largely failed to differentiate themselves as they tackled questions on the cost of living, health care, education, housing and energy, struggling to promote new policies to address the crushing cost of living. They were careful not to attack the liberal policies of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has declined to endorse any of them.

Even getting a moment in the spotlight was hard in a debate format that seemed to jump from subject to subject and in which candidates frequently interrupted one another.

“They’re all wrong,” Mahan said, as he tried to walk the line between the Republicans supporting a Trump tax policy that will cut up to 2 million people from public health coverage and Democrats calling for publicly funded single-payer health care estimated to cost $392 billion in California.

But Mahan didn’t offer much of an alternative, saying the answer was “incentivizing actual health.”

All eight said they support forcing homeless residents who refuse repeated shelter offers into mandated mental health treatment facilities. Mahan and Thurmond agreed with Republicans Bianco and Steve Hilton that the state gas tax should be suspended; Becerra, Porter, Steyer and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa disagreed.

On energy, Porter agreed with Mahan and Villaraigosa that the state should aim to keep oil refineries open amid skyrocketing gas prices while working toward greater electrification, while Steyer called for more taxes, on oil industry profits. Hilton, who has promised to eliminate many climate goals to lower the price of gas, did not say what he would do to support clean energy. He has dominated most polling in the governor’s race.

“I think I’m more confused on who to vote for now than ever,” said Pomona College politics student Kloi Ogans after the debate. “So I have a lot more researching to do.”

As part of the debate, Ogans was invited to ask the candidates about rebuilding housing in California. She said after the debate that young voters are worried about affordability and concerned about Trump’s immigration enforcement sweeps. She particularly wanted to hear from Becerra and Porter, but the sparring among candidates made her disinterested.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.