California Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra has cemented his lead by seven more percentage points over Republican rival Steven Hilton in the governor’s race, according to a new poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
About 58% of 4,512 likely voters surveyed from Sept. 15 to 20 said they supported Becerra, a former Health and Human Services secretary under former President Joe Biden, over the 33% who backed Hilton, who is endorsed by President Donald Trump.
The Californians surveyed cited the state’s steep cost of living — with some of the highest housing and fuel costs in the nation — as their top concern.
However, the Dem frontrunner’s lead has grown since a May poll by the same UC Berkeley institute, which found 55% support for Becerra versus Hilton’s 37%.
Hilton has dismissed any worries that his campaign is falling behind.
“Californians are desperate for change and we have momentum,” Hilton told The Post. “Becerra is a career politician and electing him is four more years of the one-party rule of the last 16.”
The widening gap seems to be affirmed by other recent polls, such as one by the Public Policy Institute of California, that also show Becerra leading by 20 percentage points or more.
Experts say the part of the gap could be explained by the fact that 37% of likely voters named fighting the Trump administration’s policies as their highest concern, second only to the 44% of voters who named the high cost of living.
The Hilton campaign has tapped deeply into cost-of-living issues during his general election campaigning — such as $3 gas and no taxes on income below $150,000 — but experts said the odds of a Republican in a deep-blue state like California are too high to overcome.
“The difficult thing is that Steve Hilton’s a Republican in California,” Tim Rosales, a Republican strategist, told the Los Angeles Times, which sponsored the poll. Democrats “understand the cost of living, and they feel it. They just feel like they need a new Democrat to deal with it.”
Rosales said that Hilton’s hope is to convert a lot more independents to his side, but the poll showed more than half of likely voters not registered with either political party supporting Becerra. Hilton had 30% of them.
Institute director Eric Schickler told the Times that many voters are motivated by the opportunity to deal a blow to Trump in the midterm elections.
“With 2026 shaping up to be a strong Democratic year nationally, the headwinds facing Hilton in Democratic-leaning California are even stronger than usual,” he said.
The November election is only a little more than a month away, but Hilton may be counting on a last-minute change of heart from Californians fed up with the status quo.
The two candidates are scheduled to meet in a Sept. 30 nationally televised debate in Burbank hosted by CNN.
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