Becerra advances in California governor race after late surge

The Associated Press projected Becerra would advance to the general election after California’s all-party primary, which put every candidate on one ballot and sent the top two vote-getters forward from a field of about 60 hopefuls. As of the AP’s live count, Becerra had 1,470,100 votes, or 26.1 percent, while Steve Hilton led with 27.2 percent and Tom Steyer held 20.2 percent. About 60 percent of votes had been counted, with an estimated 3.5 million ballots still outstanding.

Becerra’s rise was striking because he had been sitting in single digits in polls as recently as April. He built his climb around a résumé that stretched from California attorney general to U.S. congressman to U.S. health and human services secretary under President Joe Biden, a profile aimed squarely at voters looking for experience in a state that will hand its next governor the keys to the nation’s most populous state and a roughly $4 trillion economy.

That makes November more than a simple party contest. California’s next governor will have to deal with affordability, homelessness, wildfire risk and a large budget deficit, and the election will show whether Democrats want to keep the current political order intact or move toward a more aggressive ideological turn. If Becerra wins in November, he would become the first Latino elected governor in California, where roughly 40 percent of residents are Hispanic or Latino. His likely base appears to be voters who prefer institutional experience, along with a coalition that values Democratic continuity in a state still dominated by the party at the top of the ticket.