# Governor Compare records and positions simply between Steve Hilton or Xavier Becerra for Governor at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person is California's chief executive. They sign or veto laws, propose the state budget, appoint judges and agency heads. - Jurisdiction: State of California - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/governor - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: August 30, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 96 out of 100 (Very strong), across 6 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Steve Hilton** — Small Business Owner · Republican - **Xavier Becerra** — Voting Rights Attorney · Democratic The biggest job in California government is genuinely open — no incumbent, 61 names on the June ballot. Statewide, Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton finished first and second, and they meet on November 3. LA County voted differently — Tom Steyer ran second here — but runoffs are decided by the statewide count. The governor signs or vetoes every state law, writes the first draft of a roughly $300 billion budget, and appoints judges and agency heads — a four-year term that will shape how California handles housing costs, wildfire and insurance recovery, and its relationship with Washington. A useful question for this race: do you want deep government experience steering the machine, or an outsider promising to shake it? ## Xavier Becerra Democrat; former U.S. Health Secretary, California Attorney General, and 24-year member of Congress. He runs on housing, cost of living, and clean energy, with a manager's pitch: he has already run huge public institutions. The knock: he's a career insider in a change election. **Strengths:** Executive experience at every level of government; led California's courtroom defense of state policies as AG; helped shape the Affordable Care Act in Congress. **Trade-offs:** His HHS tenure drew criticism over the agency losing contact with migrant children placed with sponsors — a long résumé cuts both ways. **Keep in mind:** CalMatters reported questions about undisclosed paid influencer posts by his campaign (later given disclaimers), and he entered the general far behind his June rivals in fundraising. ## Steve Hilton Republican; former Fox News host and UK government adviser, ran as a small business owner. His message is affordability — housing, gas, groceries — and a sharp break from one-party Sacramento. He has never held elected office. **Strengths:** A clear, energetic outsider message that carried him to second statewide against better-funded rivals. **Trade-offs:** No governing record to evaluate, and his agenda would face a heavily Democratic Legislature from day one. **Keep in mind:** He ran with Donald Trump's endorsement, which the state Republican convention notably declined to echo — it deadlocked between him and Sheriff Chad Bianco. How you weigh that alignment is a real part of this vote. ## Becerra does not join requested debate *October 6, 2026* The Los Angeles Times and LAist hosted a one-hour forum for the governor candidates on October 6. Steve Hilton took part. Xavier Becerra did not. LAist reported that Becerra was invited and his team did not respond. Hilton posted on X the day before that Becerra "PULLS OUT of tomorrow's LA Times debate." LAist described an invitation that went unanswered rather than a withdrawal, and CalMatters reported on September 30 that Becerra had agreed to only one debate. No second debate had been announced after the two met on September 30 for their only debate hosted by CNN. Becerra's campaign had not commented as of October 6. Per LAist, CalMatters, and Hilton's post on X. ## Financial info - **Xavier Becerra** - Primary: $22,373,949 raised (Small donors: $1,925,183; Individuals: $11,922,051; PACs & committees: $3,923,403; Businesses & other orgs: $4,372,402) - November: $5,336,226 raised (Individuals: $2,796,073; PACs & committees: $1,306,753; Businesses & other orgs: $1,233,400) - **Steve Hilton** - Primary: $17,432,985 raised (Small donors: $3,375,422; Individuals: $12,864,381; PACs & committees: $69,380; Businesses & other orgs: $840,508; Self-funding: $178,204) - November: $1,828,532 raised (Individuals: $1,749,990; PACs & committees: $15,830; Businesses & other orgs: $62,608; Self-funding: $104) Becerra's biggest backers are organized labor — sixteen Laborers' union committees gave a combined $496,400 — tribal governments (San Manuel, Pechanga, and Agua Caliente together gave nearly $210,000), and Wonderful Company owners Stewart and Lynda Resnick at $47,000 each. Hilton's single largest contributor is investor Tim Draper at the $78,400 two-election maximum, and donors listing themselves as retired supplied about $6.7 million — over a third of everything he raised. Figures are CA Form 460 filings through June 30, 2026 by committees controlled by each candidate, and can include transfers from a candidate's earlier committees. Semi-annual reports covering January–June 2026 were due July 31, 2026, so some totals lag a period behind. Per the California Secretary of State's Cal-Access raw data export, retrieved 2026-09-21. Total is itemized (Schedule A) contributions and self-funding loans dated after the June 2, 2026 primary, through June 30, 2026 — small-dollar unitemized (under $100) contributions aren't independently dated in Cal-Access's raw export, so they aren't reflected here and this may undercount true small-donor activity since the primary. This also doesn't include money reported only on 24-hour late-contribution reports (Form 497) that haven't yet appeared in a periodic Form 460 filing. Per the California Secretary of State's Cal-Access raw data export, retrieved 2026-08-30. ## Sources 1. [CA Secretary of State — Statement of Vote, June 2, 2026 primary (certified 2026-07-10)](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/prior-elections/statewide-election-results/primary-election-june-2-2026/statement-vote) 2. [CalMatters — 2026 primary voter guide and statewide race coverage](https://calmatters.org/california-voter-guide-2026/) 3. [NBC Los Angeles — June 2026 primary results coverage, recent news](https://www.nbclosangeles.com) 4. [Ballotpedia — June 2026 California primary](https://ballotpedia.org) 5. [LAist — June 2026 primary voter guides](https://laist.com/news/politics/voter-guides) 6. [Cal-Access raw data export — California Secretary of State](https://www.sos.ca.gov/campaign-lobbying/helpful-resources/raw-data-campaign-finance-and-lobbying-activity) ## The rest of the ballot Governor is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "Governor — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/governor (sources last retrieved August 30, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.