By admin 
It wasn’t as if the two men running to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom — Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton — had nothing to agree about at their first and possibly only debate Tuesday night in Burbank.
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Both men said that California was expensive, housing too scarce, homelessness too common and education too often failing to serve the state’s children.
But they spent less time discussing solutions than turning to a predictable set of culprits: President Donald Trump, in the case of Becerra, and Sacramento Democrats in the case of Hilton.
Moderated by CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, the debate was arguably Hilton’s best shot at a reset in a race where he trails Becerra in momentum, money and polls — by 25%, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll released last week.
The British-born former Fox News host thanked CNN for bringing Becerra “out of hiding” — a reference to the Democrat’s lower octane campaign — and positioned himself as a change agent in a broken state.
“It’s impossible for regular working people to live in this state anymore,” Hilton said. “All you’re offering is more of the same, backed by the same corrupt machine in Sacramento. We’ve got to change direction.”
Becerra, meanwhile, cast himself as an experienced policymaker and his opponent as a lightweight pundit tethered to an unpopular president.
“You’re going to end up with Trump results if you follow Steve Hilton’s plans,” Becerra said.
Here are some of the topics they covered:
Housing and affordability
Hilton vowed to cut taxes on the first $150,000 of income and pay for it by eliminating high-speed rail funding. Becerra said that plan contained loopholes that would amount to major tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.
Both men said they would embrace cutting red tape to speed housing construction. Becerra said he would “close the housing gap” by expanding down payment assistance programs, cutting red tape and forcing local governments that resisted building more homes to comply with state law.
Hilton proposed cutting permitting costs and building out rather than up. A move, he argued, that would spare localities from cramming housing where existing homeowners didn’t want it. Hilton also suggested creating 10 new cities, although he did not elaborate where they would go.
Artificial intelligence
The moderators asked both candidates whether the state should add more regulations on AI. Hilton said his goal was safety, protecting jobs and pausing the use of AI in the classroom. Hilton said it was too soon to say if the state needed broader regulations on the industry.
“They made a number of commitments yesterday,” he said, referring to a meeting between Trump and AI executives where the industry pledged to self-regulate. “This is very urgent, and I will hold them to that.”
“If you listen closely, you can hear Donald Trump in that response,” Becerra responded.
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Becerra argued Hilton didn’t have the gumption to take on the AI firms and he did — pointing to lawsuits he filed against tech companies while serving as state attorney general.
Hilton cast doubt on that, noting that Anthropic and its employees as well as OpenAI were major donors to Becerra’s campaign.
Immigration and the border
California law bars local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration officials except in the cases of people convicted of certain high-level felonies.
Asked whether he would seek to change that, Hilton said the existing law wasn’t being widely enforced and dangerous immigrants were left to commit crimes. The Republican, who became a U.S. citizen in 2021, didn’t clearly state whether he would seek to expand existing state law.
“Immigration law is obviously a federal matter, and my whole aim here would be to lower the temperature,” Hilton said.
Becerra accused Hilton of welcoming ICE “mercenaries” into California. And he noted that Hilton called Trump’s deportation efforts “perfect” in a 2025 Fox News interview conducted early in Trump’s second term.
“You seem to welcome immigrants who look like you, but deport immigrants who look like me,” Becerra said, a comment Hilton called “disgraceful.”
Hilton also attacked Becerra’s handling of an influx of child migrants when he served as U.S. secretary of health and human services. A 2023 New York Times investigation found Becerra’s agency loosened the vetting process for placing migrant children into homes, and thousands of children ended up being trafficked into unsafe jobs.
“I cannot believe you haven’t apologized,” Hilton said.
Becerra said he was “proud” of his work at the agency and said he’d helped rebuild a more humane immigration system after Trump’s family separation policy during his first term.
Vaccinations
The CNN moderators pressed Hilton on previous comments where he’d said the government should have “nothing to do” with decisions about vaccines.
The Republican appeared to partly walk those comments back. Hilton said he would “follow the law” and said he was “pro-vaccine.” But he said he hoped to move away from an “over-prescriptive attitude” that he said actually discouraged parents from vaccinating their children. Hilton blamed Becerra’s tenure as HHS secretary, when the agency encouraged parents to mask and vaccinate their children against COVID-19, as counter-productive and not backed by scientific evidence.
“He went along with the groupthink,” Hilton said.
Becerra argued the policies were supported by science and blamed the Trump administration’s vaccine skepticism for a surge in measles cases.
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“We can’t reward those who are willing to let families die,” Becerra said.