By admin 
The June 2 primary for California governor shattered spending records and upended precedent. The eventual winners — Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton — only emerged from a large scrum of candidates in the final months of the campaign.
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On Tuesday, representatives from five of those campaigns offered up a few takeaways from the race.
Speaking to attendees at the American Association of Political Consultants’ California conference in downtown Sacramento, they routinely turned to the role of billionaires in politics and the difficulties in breaking out of a crowded field.
Anthony York, a Democratic communications consultant who worked on Tom Steyer’s campaign, said his candidate had an obvious deficiency.
“Newsflash: Democratic voters don’t like billionaires,” he said.
York characterized the race as a “referendum on Tom Steyer” given the $215 million he sank into his campaign, which is on track to finish around 2 percentage points behind Hilton. He acknowledged Steyer was “an imperfect messenger” but defended the donor’s progressive bona fides and said his policies have a real audience, pointing to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s national clout.
“I do think there is a reckoning coming within the Democratic Party,” York said.
Becerra benefited from a wave of support following the collapse of former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s campaign after he was accused of sexual misconduct, claims Swalwell denies. Becerra went from polling in the low single digits to frontrunner status in the span of a little more than a month.
The moment crystallized the role of social media, according to Lindsey Cobia, a Democratic strategist and former deputy chief of staff to former Gov. Gavin Newsom who is now an advisor to Becerra’s campaign. Influencers played a mayor role in surfacing the allegations against Swalwell and were heavily involved in boosting both Steyer and Becerra.
“You could attribute [social media] to basically all the twists and turns that happened, and I do think it is kind of the future of campaigning and how we are going to operate,” she said.
Cobia said the boost Becerra received after Swalwell dropped out was “all organic,” though she said the campaign worked with influencer Becerra supporters to spread his message. She argued Becerra’s image as a Toyota Prius-driving dad next door also made him more relatable to voters, including on social media.
Cobia, who, like several other strategists in Newsom’s orbit, initially worked for Swalwell’s campaign, said she hoped he would become “a footnote in history that we all forget.”
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For Hilton, who will face Becerra in the November general election, winning President Donald Trump’s endorsement in April was a crucial breakout moment. But Republican strategist Duane Dichiara said Hilton was already gaining ground by attacking rival GOP candidate Chad Bianco. The Riverside County sheriff drew flak for conservatives like Laura Loomer for kneeling alongside activists in the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and, when pressed by a CNN reporter, for signaling openness to a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Dichiara said Republican voters he met “don’t necessarily want to talk so much about Hilton, they want to talk about this immigration stuff and this BLM stuff with Bianco, because it makes the blood boil.”
Former Rep. Katie Porter went from an early frontrunner in 2025 to winning roughly 4% of the vote, a finish that Democratic strategist Erica Kwiatkowski Nielsen, a consultant for former Rep. Katie Porter, attributed in part to “deep-seated misogyny.”
While Nielsen saw a viral video showing Porter shouting at a staffer in 2021 as “a small thing” compared to treatment she and other political staffers have experienced, she said focus groups showed it was difficult to overcome with voters.
“This was such a vibes race in a lot of ways,” Nielsen said, noting the limited financial resources for many of the candidates.
Money wasn’t the issue for San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who struggled to win support despite tens of millions in support from top tech leaders. Mahan’s centrist platform centered on a critique of Sacramento Democrats over spending and regulation.
His spokesperson, Tasha Dean, agreed that Democrats would eventually embrace a disrupter — but not with President Donald Trump in office.
“When there’s the threat of authoritarianism in the White House, you can’t focus on bread and butter issues,” Dean said.
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