California is about to enter the “Becerra era,” though the governor-elect who coined that phrase has dropped few hints about what will define it.
After a decisive Tuesday night victory in the race to succeed termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, Xavier Becerra will take the helm with a slate of potential economic opportunities: luring back Hollywood production, drawing international visitors to the 2028 Olympic Games, implementing voter-approved housing bonds and responsibly growing the artificial intelligence industry.
But a long list of challenges awaits: grappling with worst-in-the-nation unemployment, solving the housing crisis, and preparing for and responding to seemingly endless fires, floods and other natural disasters.
The optimistic 68-year-old told supporters gathered for his campaign party in West Sacramento that his mission is to “deliver a California we can afford and defend a California we can’t afford to lose.”
“Here’s the good news,” Becerra, a Democrat, told the packed and cheering crowd. “Californians don’t expect a miracle from government; they just want government that works. A government that can build things. A government that keeps our streets clean and schools safe. Basic services delivered on time and on budget.”
Easier said than done.
“With billion-dollar deficits on the horizon … he’s going to be limited in his ability to break new ground,” said Steven Maviglio, a Democratic strategist who worked for former Gov. Gray Davis. “He’d be playing catchup on a lot of things.”
Becerra’s victory arrived during a monumental night for Democrats, who won control of the U.S. Senate and House in a stunning rebuke of the Trump administration.
California’s first directly elected Latino governor joined a wave of historic gubernatorial firsts, including Georgia Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, who will become the nation’s first Black female governor, and New Mexico Democrat Deb Haaland, the first Native American woman elected to lead a state. Voters in Florida, Nevada and Wisconsin also picked their first Black governors while Texans selected their first Latina.
After a surprising emergence from a brutal top-two primary in June, and with Republican Steve Hilton placing second, Becerra sailed to election as Newsom’s successor. In a state where registered Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, the matchup nearly guaranteed the former congressman, state attorney general and Biden Cabinet secretary would win.
By the time former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race following sexual assault allegations (which he has denied), many of California’s liberal kingmakers had already made their picks in the governor’s race — and they weren’t Becerra, who was not even included in a four-way endorsement from the California Federation of Labor Unions.
Newsom won his 2018 gubernatorial primary with the help of the California Nurses Assn. He also secured backing from the powerful California Teachers Assn. after pledging to pause new charter schools and strengthen oversight.
Though Democrats flocked to support Becerra as he rapidly ascended in the primary election polls, he won largely without help from unions or influential organizations such as the California Medical Assn.
“A lot of those constituencies didn’t support him until he looked inevitable,” said Republican strategist Rob Stutzman, an alumnus of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration. “So he doesn’t owe a lot of people anything for any role they played in his campaign.”
Still, Becerra, who grew up in a working-class immigrant family, has shown a personal interest in allying with organized labor. He gave shout-outs to union locals at campaign events and has credited his father’s union construction job for giving his family of six access to healthcare while he was growing up in Sacramento.
Governors can’t please everyone, particularly when state funding is limited. Lobbyists, lawmakers and special-interest leaders will watch closely how the affable Becerra prioritizes his first budget proposal — due days after he takes office on Jan. 4 — for hints about his agenda.
California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton concedes the race Tuesday evening to Xavier Becerra at the Hyatt Regency Orange County in Garden Grove.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Though light on specifics, Becerra made his priorities clear during his campaign. He plans to declare a housing emergency and speed up construction. He will take the baton from Newsom on the thorny question of who is financially responsible when megafires burn. And he wants to ensure there are no disruptions to Medi-Cal coverage, a herculean task with as much as $30 billion in federal cuts looming.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), a Becerra ally, said he has had “ongoing conversations” throughout the campaign about the incoming governor’s agenda, though he declined to elaborate.
“He certainly asked a lot of questions. He’s come to the Assembly Democratic Caucus already, engaged with members to begin that conversation and build those relations,” Rivas said. “We’ve been laser-focused on affordability and we’re going to continue to do more work in that space.”
Becerra said he would look closely at regulatory reform to lower housing and business costs.
It could be a small needle for the governor-elect to thread. Regulatory reform could mean easing some environmental protections.
Environmentalists flex considerable muscle in the state and found an ally in Newsom, though the outgoing governor’s aggressive climate agenda ran into affordability and federal challenges in recent years.
Becerra may also be sympathetic to environmental justice communities — poorer neighborhoods, often of color — that have experienced disproportionately negative effects from extraction industries such as oil drilling and mining.
He vigorously defended the state’s environmental rules as attorney general and has credited them with improving air quality and the coasts. During the only debate of the general election, Becerra criticized Hilton for proposing to unleash new oil drilling in the state.
“He wants to, he said it himself, ‘Drill, baby, drill,’” he said during a September CNN debate. “Steve, you weren’t living here in California at the time. You weren’t living in America at the time. We went through that experience. We don’t want to see our coastline damaged.”
“For it to be meaningful, there would have to be substantial regulatory resets, recalculating — I would say even updating and modernizing — some of the climate policies to make sure that they’re affordable,” said Stutzman. Schwarzenegger, his former boss, ushered in the state’s landmark cap-and-invest program, which aims to reduce planet-warming emissions.
Hilton conceded the race to Becerra but told supporters gathered at his party that he would work to break the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority in 2028. His team issued this statement in advance of a news conference scheduled for Thursday: “The election is over, but the desire for change is not.”
Becerra is expected to bring a much different governing style than Newsom. In an interview with KQED days before his election, Becerra named Govs. Pat and Jerry Brown as inspirations, citing the younger Brown’s fiscal expertise and the elder’s work to build infrastructure and grow the University of California.
“After eight years of showmanship, it will be refreshing to have a governor who actually focuses on the issues facing the state instead of his own ambition,” Maviglio said.
