For the first time in more than two decades, California voters are about to pick a new governor who is not already a national figure.
The race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom has been a tumultuous affair. It began with Kamala Harris’s flirtation with a run. It continued with Senator Alex Padilla’s brief consideration. Representative Eric Swalwell entered the race, only to implode with a flurry of sexual misconduct allegations that resulted in his resignation from Congress rather than promotion.
Voters have been left sifting through about a half-dozen contenders who have mostly struggled to capture their imagination. The top two vote getters advance to a November runoff, regardless of party.
The most intense contest has been between the race’s two highest polling Democrats, Tom Steyer, the billionaire financier who has run hard to the left, and Xavier Becerra, the former state attorney general and health secretary under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who would be the state’s first Latino governor in the modern era. President Trump endorsed Steve Hilton, a Republican former Fox News personality, giving him an edge to advance because there are only two serious Republicans in a race with far more Democrats.
California counts its votes slowly, so don’t necessarily expect the results to be clear on Tuesday night. But here is what to watch in the contest for governor, the Los Angeles mayoral race featuring a former reality television star, and other key congressional battles across the state:
Do voters actually want experience?
Mr. Newsom served eight years as lieutenant governor before taking the state’s top job. His predecessor, Jerry Brown, served as attorney general for four years — and eight years as governor more than two decades earlier — before seeking the office again.
Like them, Mr. Becerra has emphasized his governmental bona fides: a state legislator, a leadership role in Congress, a former state attorney general and a cabinet post under Mr. Biden. He’s the candidate who won’t need “training wheels” in the governor’s office, he likes to say.
The contrast with Mr. Steyer, who has never been elected to anything despite his 2020 presidential run, could not be sharper.
The former hedge fund manager is running as an unabashed progressive outsider who wants to raise commercial property taxes and radically change the way people get health care and electricity.
Other Democratic contenders are also campaigning as disrupters of the status quo. They include Katie Porter, the former congresswoman, and Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose, who both have some experience in government but have never held statewide office and have promised to upend how Sacramento does business.
But the main — and most vicious — contest has been between Mr. Becerra and Mr. Steyer.
Will Democrats embrace a billionaire of their own?
California’s political graveyard is littered with the ultrawealthy who tried to buy their own way into power. There was Al Checchi, a businessman who ran for governor in 1998. There were the tech executives Meg Whitman, who ran for governor in 2010, and Carly Fiorina, who ran for Senate the same year. And Rick Caruso, the developer who spent $100 million losing the 2022 Los Angeles mayor’s race.
Mr. Steyer, who has smashed records by spending more than $200 million in a California governor’s race, is trying to change that, deluging the airwaves with ads more than 1,300 times a day in the month of May, according to an analysis by AdImpact. He has run four times as many ads as all of the other campaigns combined. And that doesn’t even count the paid influencers promoting his candidacy on social media.
But Mr. Steyer has added an unusual twist, campaigning as a billionaire who wants to raise taxes on billionaires and corporations. He is now in a close race with Mr. Becerra and Mr. Hilton to make the top two, polls show.
Mr. Becerra, who emphasized his roots as the son of working class immigrants, did not pour personal wealth into his campaign, but was helped by numerous interest groups that do business at the state Capitol. Oil companies, electric utilities, health care businesses, tech platforms and soda companies were among the donors that collectively put about $54 million into opposing Mr. Steyer and supporting Mr. Becerra.
Can Republican TV personalities break through?
California has been led by Democrats for more than a decade, both in Sacramento and in its biggest cities. Yet the state has shed population during that time to lower-cost red states, as rising prices and the image of homelessness has smudged the state’s once-golden image.
Now, Republicans known more for their television personas than their California policy acumen are seeking high office, both in the race for governor and for Los Angeles mayor.
Mr. Hilton, the former Fox News host, has emerged as the Republican front-runner for governor since President Trump endorsed him in April. And in Los Angeles, Spencer Pratt, a former reality TV star, is running a splashy campaign for mayor fueled by fantastical A.I. videos his fans have circulated on social media. Mr. Trump recently said he hopes Mr. Pratt will do well in the race since “he’s a big MAGA person.”
Mr. Hilton may likely advance to November but would be an extraordinary long shot to capture the governorship. But Mr. Pratt, who is challenging Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles, has emerged as an X-factor in the race to run the nation’s second largest city.
He lost his Pacific Palisades house in last year’s fires, which he blames on Ms. Bass and other Democratic leaders and has made a major theme of his campaign. Ms. Bass is also facing a challenge from the left in Nithya Raman, a liberal City Council member. Recent polls show a tight race, with Ms. Bass clinging to a narrow lead and Ms. Raman and Mr. Pratt in competition for second place.
Will one Republican and one Democrat advance in each race?
For months, the California Democratic Party has warned about a nightmare scenario: that so many Democrats would split the vote for governor that two Republicans would advance in the nation’s biggest blue state.
After all, Mr. Steyer, Mr. Becerra, Ms. Porter and Mr. Mahan are joined by Antonio Villaraigosa, the former Los Angeles mayor, and Tony Thurmond, the state schools chief, on the ballot.
But those fears largely subsided after Mr. Hilton opened a big lead on the other leading Republican, Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff. Now with Mr. Hilton, Mr. Becerra and Mr. Steyer all clustered close together in polls it is at least theoretically possible that two Democrats advance, which would mean a bruising race all the way through November. Mr. Hilton seemed concerned enough about that possibility that he asked Mr. Bianco to drop out of the race on Saturday.
In the mayor’s race in Los Angeles, a key question is if Ms. Bass will be fending off a progressive challenger in November or a more Trump-aligned rival. Mr. Newsom recently endorsed Ms. Bass, who has faced criticism over both her initial absence during the fires that tore through parts of the Los Angeles region and her handling of homelessness.
California House races are a window into national dynamics.
With 52 House seats, California’s congressional elections offer a microcosm of the country’s many political fissures.
In San Francisco, the race to replace Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, includes fights over progressivism, Israel, gender, artificial intelligence and more.
In the Central Valley, Republicans have been trying to elevate a more progressive Democratic challenger, Randy Villegas, to run against Representative David Valadao, one of the nation’s more endangered Republican incumbents. Republicans think it would be easier to defeat Mr. Villegas in the general election, while national Democrats have embraced Dr. Jasmeet Bains, a moderate assemblywoman, as their preferred challenger.
In Orange and Riverside counties, Representatives Ken Calvert and Young Kim were put on a collision course by Democratic redistricting. The contest has involved a caustic flurry of accusations of insufficient fealty to Mr. Trump.
In Northern California, two longtime Democrats, Representatives Doris Matsui, 81, and Mike Thompson, 75, are seeking to stave off younger Democratic challengers making arguments for generational change. A similar dynamic is playing out in Southern California, where Representative Brad Sherman, 71, is facing a younger Democratic challenger named Jake Levine.
