In two debates over 48 hours, the seven leading candidates for California governor took the stage to make their final pitch to voters before the June 2 primary. Whoever wins this race will lead a state with 39 million people and the fourth largest economy in the world.

Under California's Top Two nonpartisan open primary, all voters, regardless of their political party, can cast a vote for any candidate. The two highest finishers, regardless of party, advance to the November general election. California is only one of three states that treat every voter and every candidate exactly the same. 

The seven candidates who participated in the debates are former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra (D), Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco (R), former Fox News host Steve Hilton (R), San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan (D), former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D), billionaire Tom Steyer (D), and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D).

Here is what each candidate said, on every issue, in their own words.

Affordability and the Cost of Living

STEYER (D): "The biggest problem in California is that Californians can't afford to live here anymore. And it starts with housing, but it definitely includes health care. It includes electric costs, which are twice as high as in the rest of the country, and it includes soaring gasoline prices."

BECERRA (D): "If we fight to make California affordable, people will stay, and they will come to this great state."

MAHAN (D): "I want to make government work for people. We need pragmatic, results-oriented leadership. I grew up in a working-class family. We were paycheck to paycheck growing up."

PORTER (D): "My whole career has been about affordability."

HILTON (R): "We have a concrete plan to make our state Califordable, $3 gas, cut your electric bills in half, your first hundred grand tax-free, a home you can afford to buy."

BIANCO (R): "The taxes here, the regulations here are what are causing people to leave. Yes, we want to live here. We just can't. We want to own a business here. We just can't."

Why Democrats Deserve Another 4 Years (Or Don't)

BECERRA (D): "Democrats are the ones that aspire to include everyone and not leave anyone behind, like my parents, who came with $12 in their pocket to California, and they lived the California dream. More than 120 times, I had to sue Donald Trump to keep him from destroying our state of California."

HILTON (R): "The Democrats who are here who've been responsible for 16 years of one-party rule, for everything that we see in California, won't take responsibility, and all they can talk about is Trump."

BIANCO (R): "We are going to get nothing but the same from them. They brought us here. Every single one of these career politicians brought us to the point where we are here today. They do not deserve another chance."

VILLARAIGOSA (D): "I've been challenging my party for years, because it's been Democrats that brought us here."

Housing

HILTON (R): "We've stopped building the kind of starter homes and single-family homes we used to build so well in California that made the California dream a reality. The big change we need to make, which the Democrats on this stage aren't prepared to make, is to end this ideology, which says the only acceptable form of housing is to shove apartment buildings into suburban neighborhoods."

STEYER (D): "I'm going to close a corporate real estate tax loophole for $22 billion a year. That's going to go to the cities and counties. And that's going to make them willing to permit housing and to make it happen."

BIANCO (R): "We will become, for the first time in many decades, a building empire in our country. We will build more homes than we have ever built before because we will allow builders to build them. We will remove the restrictions and the regulations that prevent it right now. And those restrictions come from CEQA. They come from the Coastal Commission."

BECERRA (D): "How about we help you get that last cog in the process of buying a house, the down payment. Then, when you pay a monthly payment, it's not for rent. It's to own the home. How about we make sure Wall Street isn't the person you're bidding against when you're trying to buy that house?"

PORTER (D): "When I'm governor, Californians will have a 5% down payment on their houses, not 20."

MAHAN (D): "If cities don't do their job, the state absolutely has to intervene and hold them accountable. In San Jose, we cut permitting times, cut red tape, reduced one-time fees, and got thousands of homes under construction."

MAHAN (D): "We deserve better. I'm the only Democrat in this race who has challenged the establishment within my own party to demand better results. I have made San Jose the safest big city in the country, unblocked thousands of homes that are now under construction, and led our city to reduce homelessness faster than any other city. We don't need MAGA values, but we also don't need more of the same."

Mahan also took aim at Steyer and Becerra in the housing section: "We do not need the leadership that MAGA candidates on this stage are offering, that's divisive. We don't need the leadership of a billionaire who's now against everything he made his money in, or a career politician who has failed again and again to deliver results. He's trying to remember his lines. Right?"

VILLARAIGOSA (D): "When I was mayor, we went from 20,000 units of housing downtown to 60,000. We transformed downtown, built more housing, market rate, workforce, affordable and homeless housing in eight years, four years of recession, than the 12 years before that."

Hilton attacked Mahan's San Jose record: "Matt Mahan talked about housing. His city was just rated the least affordable for housing in the world."

Mahan responded: "Steve's right that San Jose is expensive. It has been since before I was born. But as a leader in an elected office, I took ownership for that and challenged City Hall to do better."

Gas Prices

Hilton has promised to bring gas to $3 per gallon in his first year. Asked whether that is realistic:

MAHAN (D): "No, it obviously isn't. I grew up in a farming town. I know what it means when the cost of gas goes up a dollar. People start actually having to make really tough trade-offs. I'm the only candidate in this race who has called for a suspension of the gas tax because it disproportionately harms working families."

HILTON (R): "Before the Iran war, there were 40 states in America with $3 gas or lower, most of which don't have the abundant oil reserves that we have in California. Because of the policies supported by Matt and all these Democrats, we are now shipping oil halfway around the world, 7,500 miles from places like Iraq, instead of opening up California oil and gas production."

Mahan responded to Hilton: "It's totally unrealistic that you're going to have $3 gas in a year. You're lying."

BECERRA (D): "The price of gas has gone up $1 to $2 because of Donald Trump and his war in Iran. The price of goods, groceries have gone up in California because of Donald Trump's illegal tariffs."

Hilton fired back: "All they can say is Trump. That's all they have got."

VILLARAIGOSA (D): "We have had the highest gas prices, on average, over $2 the rest of the nation for a very long time. Trump has made it worse, for sure. But it's not."

STEYER (D): "This war in Iran has driven up the gas by at least $1.50. The truth is we should be taxing the oil companies because they are getting a windfall profit as a result of the war that the president that they put into office started for no apparent reason."

Porter cut in on the bickering: "Boys, boys, enough with the bickering."

When asked whether they would sign a bill to increase oil production in Kern County:

VILLARAIGOSA (D): Yes. "We also should stop pushing all of our refining capacity out of state and importing dirtier oil from thousands of miles away." PORTER (D): No. BIANCO (R): Yes. HILTON (R): "We don't need a bill. I'll get it done directly as governor." STEYER (D): No. BECERRA (D): Yes.

Taxes and the Billionaire Tax

The candidates were asked about a one-time 5% tax on billionaire assets, which recently cleared a hurdle to make California's November ballot.

STEYER (D): "I will vote for it if it's on the ballot in November. The tax I'm proposing to close a corporate real estate tax loophole is more money."

PORTER (D): "This billionaire's tax is simply not good tax policy. It's a one-time tax. But we don't have one-time revenue needs. It taxes billionaires as if half-billionaires don't have two nickels to rub together and couldn't chip in a little bit more. Yes, to a progressive tax code. Yes, to the wealthy paying more. But this tax is about cheap political points."

When Porter pressed Steyer directly on whether he supports the tax:

PORTER: "I'm confused. Do you support the billionaire's tax that is going to be on the ballot in November, yes or no?" STEYER: "Katie, I just said I will vote for it if it's on the ballot in November." PORTER: "But you just said it wasn't a good idea."

Porter also accused Steyer of self-interest: "It's convenient to close it after you have profited from it."

BIANCO (R): "These Democrat policies of tax everybody to death and make them leave is how we started this program off to begin with. This is not a billionaire tax bill. The 140,000 people that are paying 50 percent of the taxes are going to leave, and then the wording of that bill makes the middle class and the lower middle class make up all those taxes."

VILLARAIGOSA (D): "I'm the only candidate on this stage that's actually balanced two state budgets with a surplus and a tax cut. We over rely on the upper income tax. That's why you have feast and famine virtually every year."

MAHAN (D): "Where I differ with my Democratic colleagues is they're all talking about how to raise revenue, make government bigger. You know, Secretary Becerra always brags about how big the trillion-dollar budgets were that he managed. I'm interested in making government better. The answer isn't always bigger."

HILTON (R): "Taxes are too high, and we need taxes to be lower. If you think that it can't get worse in California, I've got two words for you, Tom Steyer. Under Tom Steyer, the taxes will be higher, gas prices will be higher, everything will be higher with Steyer."

Steyer fired back at Hilton: "I do think it's rich to hear someone talk about $3 gas who is owned by Donald Trump."

STEYER (D): "I'm willing to take on the corporate special interests. I'm willing to push for single-payer. I'm willing to take on the electric monopolies. I'm the change agent, and I'm the progressive."

MAHAN (D): Tom Steyer is making a lot of false promises up here, things that the legislature already rejected because we don't know how to pay for them."

When asked whether they would sign the wealth tax measure if it passes in November:

VILLARAIGOSA (D): No. PORTER (D): No. BIANCO (R): "Absolutely not." HILTON (R): No. STEYER (D): "If it's on the ballot, I sign it." BECERRA (D): No. MAHAN (D): "No. We should charge billionaires in other ways."

Insurance After The Wildfires

BECERRA (D): "I have called for a freeze of insurance rates. My mom last year lost insurance coverage for a home she has that she had paid for for over 30 years. I will make sure that we base insurance on the rates based on risk and risk based on mitigation."

PORTER (D): "We can't afford to freeze rates because what will happen is every insurer remaining in this state will leave. The solution is more insurers competing for rates. There's a lot of evidence that State Farm has lied, cheated, or stolen here. These folks are victims, and they need someone who isn't taking corporate contributions from the very insurers that they claim they will hold responsible."

MAHAN (D): "We effectively told them they couldn't use climate data to actually model the amount of risk. We effectively told them they had to lose money by writing new policies. The state of California broke the insurance market. We need to bring them back, have them compete."

VILLARAIGOSA (D): "We're the only state that didn't do catastrophic modeling. The only state that didn't do reinsurance. And the only state that took longer than three months to pass a rate hike. So the entire industry left the biggest market. The fair plan is not fair. If I lost my house today, the fair plan wouldn't compensate for me. Maybe three bedrooms, and that's about it."

HILTON (R): "Lawsuits are adding sometimes up to $15,000 a year onto insurance premiums. And these Democrats won't change it because they are funded by the trial lawyers."

STEYER (D): "The governor's job is to stand up and fight and make sure those people pay the claims, pay the FEMA, and pay the cost of having caused a fire in the first place."

BIANCO (R): "The insurance companies are not going to come back if another Democrat is elected. The reasons why they left is because of failed Democrat policies that force them to leave. We absolutely will get rid of CEQA and the Coastal Commission."

Homelessness

STEYER (D): "About 1 in 7 of the people who become homeless have serious mental health or addiction problems. But it's so stressful and dangerous that virtually everybody succumbs to that stress. Rental assistance is much cheaper and more humane than letting someone go on the street."

BIANCO (R): "This is not and has never been about homes. This is about drug and alcohol addiction. This is about mental illness and a combination of both. Until we start calling it what it is and treating it for what it is, we are never going to get out of it."

VILLARAIGOSA (D): "We spent $24 billion from the state and billions more in cities and counties. And during that period, homelessness went up. We have to invest in what works and stop spending on what doesn't. The average unit is $850,000 a unit. Your kids can't afford that. So in San Jose and Los Angeles, we're building small homes for $100,000."

BECERRA (D): "My job as governor is to make sure we prevent more Californians from becoming homeless, because it costs far more to take you off the streets than it does to help you get past that medical emergency or that lost job."

PORTER (D): "The cause of homelessness is the cost of housing. We have higher homelessness in California because our housing costs more than virtually anywhere else. It costs about $6,000 to prevent someone from becoming homeless. I drive a minivan. My license plate is OVRSITE."

MAHAN (D): "I was the first Democrat leading a major city to support Prop 36, because if you're repeatedly committing crime out on our streets due to addiction, we need to get you into treatment to save your life and to benefit the broader community."

HILTON (R): "We need to enforce the law when it comes to homelessness. It's illegal to live and camp on the streets, and that's the starting point."

Hilton then attacked the Democrats collectively: "Some of these Democrats on the stage here, they talk as if we're in some parallel universe where Democrats haven't been running this state for the last 16 years of one-party rule. You look at Javier, 36 years, he's been a career politician. For Democrats, it's just got to change."

Hilton also pressed Mahan on whether homelessness has actually gone down in San Jose: "Mr. Mahan, as you noted, he didn't challenge the fact that homelessness has gone up on his watch."

Mahan responded: "I was the first Democrat leading a major city to support Prop 36. It's about flat. What's important, though, is we've moved thousands of people indoors, 30% of whom have graduated to permanent housing. The number of people dying on our streets has gone down."

Immigration and Sanctuary State Law

HILTON (R): "I'm the only immigrant on stage. I'm a legal immigrant. As governor, I would make sure that we work with the federal government to enforce our laws."

BIANCO (R): "I would eliminate sanctuary state. Sanctuary state is what is creating the issue that we have in California. It is the responsibility of the federal government to enforce immigration laws. Prior to 2017, they would come into our jails and they would come into our prisons, and they would remove those criminals who are victimizing us."

Bianco attacked Porter directly on the sanctuary issue: "Are you doing that by having a sanctuary state policy? Absolutely not. Sanctuary state is forcing us to be less safe."

Porter responded with the "cowboy" exchange: "I can't believe that on a stage with 30 minutes of interrupting and bickering and name-calling and shouting and disrespect for everyone up here who's stepping into public service, that anyone wants to talk about my temperament."

Bianco fired back: "You are actually interrupting them, too. I don't know why you want to act like you weren't."

Porter: "Oh, cowboy."

Bianco: "Steve and I sat here smiling at each other because we're just watching you all prove to everyone why they can't vote for a Democrat."

PORTER (D): "It's the job of the California governor to protect every single Californian, period. There are no qualifications on that. The sanctuary state policy is designed to make sure that our state resources, the taxpayer dollars, the public servants that we have are focusing on doing their jobs, which is not cooperating with the federal immigration authorities."

VILLARAIGOSA (D): "Since 2019, the state has turned over 12,000 violent criminals to the federal government. Sanctuary law does not protect violent criminals."

Villaraigosa attacked Bianco on the Riverside ballot dispute: "I'll tell you what I think is illegal, is a sheriff of Riverside County sequestering thousands of votes in the way that you did. The Supreme Court said that you shouldn't have done it in the first place."

BECERRA (D): "I'm the only one who actually has experience taking on Trump and the way he's handling undocumented immigrants. We took him on straight on in court, we stopped him from trying to force local law enforcement to do the bidding of ICE. We were able to make sure we protected the DACA program for our Dreamers all the way to the Supreme Court, and we beat Donald Trump."

Becerra attacked Hilton on Trump: "You can't stop him if you've got a governor like Steve Hilton, who is his dad. Donald Trump is his daddy, and he will protect him all the way through."

STEYER (D): "ICE to me is a criminal organization. They're coming into our state. They're terrorizing people. They're racially profiling people. I've said all along we should abolish ICE."

MAHAN (D): "We can all agree that we should have a secure border. If you're committing serious and violent crime, deportation is the consequence. But Donald Trump's cruel and indiscriminate enforcement, based on the color of people's skins, the language they're speaking, has terrorized a community."

Bianco challenged Villaraigosa on undocumented crime: "I want Mr. Villaraigosa to tell the mother of the 14-year-old in my county that is dead because of an illegal immigrant that had been deported three times because of DUIs that sanctuary state policy keeps us safe."

Villaraigosa responded: "If an undocumented worker killed somebody, he should go to jail. He should be prosecuted."

Bianco: "It's too late, don't you think? How about the three DUIs before that?"

Porter on sanctuary enforcement (NBC/Telemundo): "We ought to enforce the existing sanctuary laws everywhere so we don't have crazy cowboys taking the law into their own hands."

Bianco: "Tell that to a mother who lost her child."

Porter: "Sir, I don't need any lectures from you about being a mother."

Deporting Undocumented Farm Workers

About half of California farm workers are undocumented. Asked whether he would push to deport them as governor:

HILTON (R): "It is the federal government's responsibility to determine and implement immigration policy. The policy on deportation is the exact same policy that we saw with President Obama. The numbers of deportations right now in our country and in California are slightly lower."

Villaraigosa repeatedly pressed Hilton: "Will you deport them? That was the question." Hilton declined to answer directly.

VILLARAIGOSA (D): "Steve Hilton, let me be clear. You know, I know you're recently arrived to California, but if you've read the Bay Area Institute, the UC Merced study, immigrants, if we took them all out, including the undocumented, it would be a $274 billion hit to California economy."

Hilton on Porter's growth comment: "She said something very revealing, which is the only way, really, that California's economy has been growing in the last few years is through illegal immigration."

Porter responded: "Given that you're an immigrant and you added to our population, and we're all having to live with the consequences of that decision."

Hilton: "Katie, there's a difference I think you'll accept between legal and illegal immigration."

Prosecuting ICE Leadership

Steyer has called for California's attorney general to hold ICE agents and their leadership criminally liable.

STEYER (D): "The governor of California should hold people accountable who break the laws of California, specifically including ICE agents and the people who send them to racially profile, which is illegal, and use violence against Californians, which is illegal. It should go up the chain to the supervisors, right up to Stephen Miller."

When asked whether that should include former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem:

STEYER: "If she has given the orders to break the law in California, yes."

BECERRA (D): "I think we should police Donald Trump's masked mercenary force that they call ICE. I think we should prosecute any of the forces that violate the law. And I think we should jail anyone who has violated the law. That goes all the way to the top."

BIANCO (R): "No one has broken the law in California. ICE agents are enforcing the law. Sanctuary state policy, Democrats forced ICE into our cities and streets and neighborhoods to find these criminals."

PORTER (D): "Donald Trump sucks. And I don't think that anyone who doesn't see that he is targeting and hurting Californians and won't stand up for everybody who is counting on them to be their leader and keep them safe has any business being governor."

Healthcare and Single Payer

In California, new Obamacare enrollments are down 32% after Congress allowed federal subsidies to expire.

BECERRA (D): "I've been consistent for over 30 years. When I was in Congress, I talked about how Medicare-for-all is probably the most efficient way that we can do health care."

When pressed on whether he supports California's own state-run single-payer system, CalCare:

BECERRA: "The most important thing about having a Medicare-for-all plan is that it includes all, everyone, for all. So I am absolutely for Medicare-for-all. We will get there. We'll build towards it because that's the way you get folks covered."

PORTER (D): "Covering everyone with something is not single-payer. It's not even federal Medicare-for-all. Tom ran against single-payer in his presidency before he changed his mind and has decided to run for single-payer. I want Xavier to answer the question. Do you support California having its own single-payer system, yes or no? Californians don't care what you call it, so long as they have affordable health care."

STEYER (D): "I am for single-payer, absolutely, because it's the only way we can deliver health care as a right at a cost that California can afford. The California Medical Association is the strongest group against single-payer in the state. And they just spent the maximum amount of money, they maxed out to your campaign after that meeting."

VILLARAIGOSA (D): "I believe that health care is a right, not a privilege, that it should be universal, affordable, and high quality. I've heard you say that you're against it." (to Becerra) "It's a $500 billion price tag."

Becerra denied saying he was against it: "I've never said I'm against it. Just point to the forum that I said it in, because I've never said it."

MAHAN (D): "Health care costs have gone up relentlessly. Health outcomes have gotten worse." Mahan also attacked Becerra's HHS record directly: "What have those 30 years of experience gotten us? Higher and less affordable health care that's squeezing families today. Worse health outcomes. And as fraudulent and wasteful spending in health care grew, Xavier Becerra did nothing as A.G. and as HHS secretary."

BECERRA fired back: "That sounds like a MAGA talking point. Under my watch, more Americans gained health coverage than ever in the history of the country, more than 300 million. Under my watch, we were able to give folks access to the Obamacare insurance policies on the marketplace for, in some cases, $10 or less a month in premiums. Today, those are skyrocketing and people are losing those premiums and insurance covers because Donald Trump abandoned those health care subsidies. Learn the facts, Matt, before you start talking."

Hilton also weighed in on Becerra's record: "What does a Fox News talking head know about running government? You've never balanced a budget the size of California, Steve. You've never had to worry about declaring a state of emergency the way I had to."

Becerra to Hilton: "I'm proud of my service and my public service. You may. Private profit. I was doing public service."

When asked whether undocumented adults should be able to enroll in Medi-Cal:

VILLARAIGOSA (D): Yes. PORTER (D): Yes. BIANCO (R): No. HILTON (R): No. STEYER (D): Yes. BECERRA (D): Yes. MAHAN (D): Yes.

The Fight Over Undocumented Migrant Children

Hilton, Villaraigosa, and Mahan accused Becerra of failing to track unaccompanied migrant children placed with sponsors during his tenure as HHS Secretary.

MAHAN (D): "Are you proud that you pushed out 85,000 migrant children? They were, according to the New York Times, they were maimed, they were exploited. Some were even killed."

Mahan attacked Becerra and Steyer: "There's a lot of talk on this stage, but we should be honest. The experience we hear from Secretary Becerra didn't lead to better outcomes. It led to 85,000 migrant children who were lost, and more fraud in our health care system. 

BECERRA (D): "It's a MAGA hoax. Trump lied about that whole situation with the migrant kids in the New York Times. Donald Trump campaigned against our Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, in 2024 using these lies. They were lies when Trump said them two years ago. They're lies today. We protected kids. We did not let them be abused. Those were the employers."

VILLARAIGOSA (D): "There were congressional hearings. 26 Democratic Congress members condemned them. They said it was outrageous that he pushed kids out."

Becerra: "What was outrageous was the abuse by the employers, not the care."

Villaraigosa: "You invented the assembly line. Put him on an assembly line. Get him out of here. Illegal."

HILTON (R): "I'll tell you what I haven't done. We could go on about homelessness for an hour here. I'll tell you what I haven't done is break state and federal law by taking PAC account and funneling it to a senior aide, breaking those laws and then denying it. I'll tell you what I haven't done, which we reveal today, which is to take a taxpayer-funded organization from your money. Your taxes are paying illegal immigrants to campaign for Xavier Becerra through an organization called CHIRLA. And he's accepted their endorsement. It is completely outrageous."

Becerra defended CHIRLA: "CHIRLA is one of the biggest defenders of immigrant rights in this nation. They deserve respect."

Working With President Trump

PORTER (D): "When Donald Trump hurts California, as he has again and again, then I will absolutely stand up to him, 100 percent. He has denied wildfire funding to help disaster victims here in California. If he's going to attack California, yeah, eff him."

HILTON (R): "The next governor of California will have to work with the administration and with the president that the American people elected to get good results for Californians. We have a president who has endorsed me for governor, and we've discussed how I can work with his team to lower gas prices in California by opening up energy production, to reduce wildfire risk by proper forest management, to get the fraud and the waste out of our state budget so we can cut taxes."

BECERRA (D): "I had to go toe-to-toe with him in court over 120 times. And most of those cases we were able to win. Whether it was on women's health care, whether it was protecting immigrants' rights, whether it was defending our environmental laws, we took him on. Because Donald Trump doesn't understand the laws very well, we were able to beat him over and over, including taking the Affordable Care Act all the way to the Supreme Court."

MAHAN (D): "As mayor of San Jose, I've sued the Trump administration multiple times, increased funding for our immigrant neighbors who are under attack. We've prohibited ICE from using city property as a staging area. The best resistance is delivering results, showing that California's progressive values work in practice."

BIANCO (R): "I promise every single person out there that you're not going to hear one word from me about President Trump, President Biden, or anything else, because I'm going to be the only one on this stage that's actually going to be the governor of California for Californians."

STEYER (D): "I started an organization in 2017 to impeach Donald Trump because I've been in enough boardrooms to know a crook when I see one. The only thing he respects is strength. He's a bully. And the only thing you can do is stand up to him."

VILLARAIGOSA (D): Pressed Hilton repeatedly on whether Trump won the 2020 election: "How can you say that Democrats have it wrong when you can't admit that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election? All you do is point at Democrats, scream at Democrats."

Hilton refused to answer directly: "Donald Trump is the president in all the other states of America where the cost of living is way lower than in California. Obviously, it is way past time for change in California."

High-Speed Rail

Asked whether to spend an additional $30 billion to finish California high-speed rail from Merced to Bakersfield:

VILLARAIGOSA (D): Yes. PORTER (D): "Yes, if you can build it faster and cheaper than it's been projected." BIANCO (R): "No. I would rather arrest the people that stole our money."

Villaraigosa fired back at Bianco: "That would be on brand for you doing things that are illegal."

HILTON (R): "Stop spending taxpayers' money on pointless things and improve our roads, which are the worst in the country because of Democrat policies." STEYER (D): "Yes, we need a high speed delivery of high speed rail." BECERRA (D): Yes. MAHAN (D): "I would send it back to the legislature and say, fix CEQA, reduce litigation risk. Let's fix the regulatory environment and then I'll sign the bill."

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant

Diablo Canyon, the state's only remaining nuclear power plant, supplies 9% of California's electricity and is scheduled to close in 2030. Asked whether to extend it:

MAHAN (D): Yes. BECERRA (D): Yes, with safety first. STEYER (D): Extend it. HILTON (R): "Yes. Extend it and build new ones." BIANCO (R): "Completely nuclear." PORTER (D): Extend. VILLARAIGOSA (D): Yes.

Film and Television Tax Credits

On a scale of 1 to 10, how much of a priority is keeping film and TV production in California?

MAHAN (D): Yes. VILLARAIGOSA (D): Yes. PORTER (D): Yes. BIANCO (R): Yes. HILTON (R): "I would exceed other countries. We've got to be the best in the world." BECERRA (D): "Yes. And it's 11 on a scale of 1 to 10." STEYER (D): "Yes. I was the first candidate to put out a plan doing just that."

Transgender Athletes In School Sports

Asked whether they would change California's K-12 law allowing students to participate in athletics based on gender identity, to match the International Olympic Committee's birth-gender standard:

MAHAN (D): "At higher levels, I would let the leagues decide." BECERRA (D): "Enforce the law." STEYER (D): Supports trans athletes participating. HILTON (R): "I have a wristband that says save girls sports."

About the 2026 California Nonpartisan Top Two Primary

Under California's nonpartisan top-two primary system, all voters and candidates appear on the same ballot regardless of party. All registered voters can vote in the nonpartisan primary. The top two vote-getters advance to the November general election. 

All active registered voters in California will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. County election offices began mailing ballots on May 4. Ballot drop-off locations opened starting May 5. Vote centers open for early in-person voting in Voter's Choice Act counties beginning on May 23. Vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by June 9.

Sources: CNN California Governor Primary Debate, May 5, 2026 (https://www.cnn.com); NBC4 Los Angeles and Telemundo 52 California Governor Debate, May 6, 2026 (https://www.nbcbayarea.com).