California Governor’s Race – Becerra vs. Hilton, Views on Top Issues

The California governor oversees the nation’s most populated state of 39 million residents with a $300 billion budget. The governor  signs or vetoes bills from the state legislature and oversees any crisis in the state from wildfires and other natural disasters to influences from federal government.

California has the fourth largest economy in the world ahead of Japan, India, and the United Kingdom. All of that means the governor of California has great influence in the state, nation, and abroad.

On the ballot in November is Xavier Becerra, Democrat, former United States Secretary of Health and Human Services and former California Attorney General, and Steve Hilton, Republican, former director of strategy for British Prime Minister David Cameron and former Fox News host.

Background Information:

 Becerra represented Los Angeles in Congress for 24 years.  He was appointed California’s attorney general in 2017 when Kamala Harris resigned to join the Biden ticket. As attorney general he filed numerous lawsuits against the first Trump administration and Republican states. He was U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden, which included during  the  COVID-19 vaccine rollout. and received criticism for the agency’s lack of care of migrant children in its custody. Becerra says he is open to revising California’s climate goals to keep fuel affordable and wants to declare a state of emergency to freeze utility and insurance rates.

Hilton, who is British American, was senior adviser for former conservative U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron from 2010 to 2012 before moving to California, where he co-founded a Silicon Valley political crowdfunding platform. He supports decentralizing power in bureaucratic institutions from government to food and healthcare systems. From 2017 to 2023 he hosted a weekly show on Fox News called The Next Revolution a political talk show focused on right-leaning politics. Hilton wants to lower gas prices by suspending environmental regulations, cut income taxes for middle-class and wealthier Californians, and open natural spaces for housing, particularly suburban single-family homes.

General Interests:

Hilton wants to:

§  lower gas prices by suspending environmental regulations

§  Cut income taxes for middle-class and wealthier Californians

§  Open natural spaces for housing – suburban single-family homes

Beccera wants to:

§  consider revising California’s climate goals to keep fuel affordable

§  declare a state of emergency to freeze utility and insurance rates

Economy:

Becerra

Regarding the high cost of living, Becerra wants to focus on housing and utility prices. He would declare a state of emergency to freeze rates and address price gouging. 

Hilton

Hilton supports business deregulation, would end greenhouse gas reduction requirements, restrict labor and environmental laws used to sue businesses, and eliminate the $800 registration fee for businesses.

Housing:

Hilton

Hilton wants to reduce fees and building regulations on the development of smaller single-family homes and create a state loan program for first-time buyers. He also wants to prevent people, companies, and unions from using the California Environmental Quality Act to stop construction. He supports building suburban developments over denser city/urban apartment projects.

Becerra

Becerra wants to use state resources to fund 40,000 units of approved affordable housing that need financing. He supports zoning more residential land to build apartments, duplexes, condos. He supports expanding the state’s down payment assistance program for homebuyers. He wants to prevent large corporations from buying up homes and cities making it difficult to build more housing.

Homeless Issues:

Becerra

Interested in creating state funding for rental assistance to keep people from becoming homeless. He said people offered shelter should not be allowed to voluntarily stay on the street, but he did not say they should be arrested.

Hilton

He believes camping on the street is illegal and police should be involved in clearing all encampments. He wants to use state funding to pay for sober housing rather than low barrier shelters that accept people regardless of their sobriety. He wants to change the current spending allocation for homeless services.

Climate:

Hilton

Hilton wants to change the current mandate of transitioning to clean energy. He would end requiring utilities and businesses to use solar and wind. He would support increasing natural gas production. He would start a volunteer program to plant trees to reduce carbon in the atmosphere.

Becerra

Becerra supports California’s clean energy transition goals but said he is open to revising them if they make energy unaffordable. In particular he was looking at Governor Newsom’s ban on selling new gas cars by 2035.

Justice:

Hilton

He wants to open currently closed state prisons, reduce the practice of early release based on prisoners’ good conduct, and boost rehabilitation programs in prisons. He would loosen restrictions on the state anti-discrimination law that prevent police from stopping people on the street. He wants to overturn California’s sanctuary law that limits police cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He supports reducing restrictions on owning and using firearms.

Becerra

Becerra voted for Proposition 36, the tougher-on-crime 2024 measure that voters backed, and he says he would fully fund its provisions and make sure defendants are given court-mandated drug treatments to avoid jail time. But he has not backed longer or stricter criminal sentences in general, saying that decision should be left to judges. He supports California’s sanctuary law and defended it in court during the first Trump administration.

Healthcare:

Becerra

Becerra is a long-time supporter of single-payer healthcare but has changed his position to support expanding state coverage to as many residents as possible. He wants to cut insurance companies’ administrative spending, cover more telehealth appointments, and start a state fund to recruit and retain more healthcare workers by offering things like student loan repayment. 

Hilton

Hilton’s primary healthcare policy is to end California’s state-provided MediCal coverage for undocumented immigrants and redirect that money to lower healthcare costs for legal residents. He has not proposed concrete policies. He wants to encourage more competition by allowing more insurers into the market and preventing consolidation among providers like clinics and hospitals.

Tech - AI:

Hilton

Hilton has concerns about children using social media and the potential for AI to create wealth inequality. But he has not backed any regulations or bans and wants to reduce regulations to keep the AI industry growing in California. He also wants to encourage a society where no child under 16 uses a smartphone. 

Beccera

Becerra says he supports the state banning children under 16 from being on social media. He wants to track the economic and workforce impacts of AI and will pursue policies requiring AI developers to be transparent about how the technology is used in employment decisions. He does want to use AI to make the government more efficient.

For more information, check out the voter guide from CalMatters - a nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism organization founded in 2015 that covers California policy, state politics, and regional government issues.

https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2026/governor/

Compiled by Debra Shrout