Democrats dig into each other on debate stage in crowded California governor race

Grace Hase, The Mercury News on Apr 23, 2026

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The zingers were flying in prime time Wednesday night as six of the leading candidates for California governor duked it out in the first televised debate since Eric Swalwell’s exit over sexual misconduct allegations upended the race this month.

Former Fox News Host Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — both Republicans — railed on the Democrats’ “one party rule” in California that they say has been the main driver of some of the state’s biggest issues like housing and homelessness.

At the same time, billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer and former U.S. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra found themselves with new targets on their backs from their Democratic counterparts as new polls have pushed them to the top of the leader board.

“The only housing Tom Steyer’s built has been private prisons and ICE detention centers,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said in response to a question about what grade they would give Gov. Gavin Newsom on homelessness. Steyer’s former hedge fund, Farallon Capital, invested in private prisons for a short period of time more than two decades ago — a move he has repeatedly said he regrets.

Mahan also attacked Becerra early on, calling him a “DC insider who the Sacramento establishment is now rallying around,” while former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter criticized him for a housing plan that she said doesn’t push “on the status quo.”

“They’re going for that viral moment, they’re going for that juicy quote,” Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at Menlo College, said of the debate. “They didn’t necessarily expect Californians to be watching the whole debate, but they were trying to make sure that they said what they needed to say so that they could clip and save it for later.”

The debate, which was hosted by Nexstar Media Group, is the first of three debates over the next several weeks that will give the candidates one last chance to make their pitch to voters before ballots arrive in mailboxes next month. It came several weeks after Swalwell, the embattled ex-congressman, went from frontrunner to facing criminal investigations after at least five women accused him of sexual misconduct — including one woman who alleged he drugged and raped her.

The fallout led to Nexstar Media Group commissioning a new independent poll from Emerson College to sort out the debate stage. Swalwell voters seemed to have flocked to Becerra, who saw a 15-point bump among Democratic voters that got him onto the debate stage. Mahan also was able to make the cutoff.

During the debate Becerra cast himself as the candidate who “is not going to need on the job training” and positioned himself as the only person who has taken actually taken on President Donald Trump, referencing his role as California’s attorney general.

Hilton, in contrast, embraced Trump’s recent endorsement of his candidacy and boasted about being the only candidate who has never run for public office.

Bianco established himself as the law and order candidate, calling racial profiling “garbage” in response to a question about whether there should be English proficiency tests for drivers.

Michelson said that the four Democrats on the stage “were not cookie-cutter of the same policies.”

“They had very different lanes, very different approaches, very different ideas for how to solve California’s problems,” she said. “I think maybe one of the winners tonight is the voters because now hopefully they have enough information to make a choice.”