A new poll Thursday found Republican Steve Hilton losing ground to Democratic front-runner Xavier Becerra in California’s governor race shortly before ballots are set to go out to voters next month.
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The poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies released Sept. 24 found Becerra widened his already considerable lead in the heavily Democratic state’s governor race, with 58% support among likely voters in the Nov. 3 general election, up from 55% last month. Hilton’s support fell to 33% from 37% when IGS last polled on the race in August. The poll found 9% undecided, up slightly from 7% in August.
“These results suggest that Becerra is in a commanding position heading to November,” said IGS poll co-director Eric Schickler. “With 2026 shaping up to be a strong Democratic year nationally, the headwinds facing Hilton in Democratic-leaning California are even stronger than usual.”
Becerra showed “significant leads” over Hilton among voters of all ages, both men and women, and across major racial and ethnic subgroups, the poll found.
The results were highly partisan, with 90% of Democrats backing Becerra and 90% of Republicans supporting Hilton. But poll director Mark DiCamillo noted the state’s lopsided party registration, in which Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2-to-1, heavily favors the Democratic candidate. More concerning for the Republican challenger, DiCamillo added, is that Becerra also leads Hilton among voters registered with no party preference, 56% to 30%, similar to the 58% to 30% margin in August.
“Since Democrats outnumber Republicans by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, these preferences tilt the race decidedly to Becerra,” DiCamillo said. “In addition, voters not affiliated with either major party also are supporting Becerra by a wide margin.”
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Becerra also benefits from being perceived more positively than negatively, the poll found, with 48% holding a favorable view of the former Biden administration health secretary, California attorney general and congressman, and 40% an unfavorable view. Hilton had 35% of likely voters showing a favorable view of him but 51% with an unfavorable view. Results last month were similar for both.
Those findings were highly partisan, but the poll found that among voters with no party preference, similar numbers held favorable, 43%, and unfavorable, 44%, views of Becerra. But 32% of independent voters held favorable views of Hilton, while 52% held unfavorable views; the poll found, again, little had changed from a month ago for both candidates.
“Among non-partisan voters, who are often viewed as a swing voting bloc, about equal proportions view Becerra favorably as unfavorably, while Hilton is viewed more negatively than positively by a five-to-three margin,” DiCamillo said.
The poll found that reducing California’s high cost of living was the issue cited by a plurality of likely voters, 44%, among top issues of concern, followed by fighting Trump administration policies at 37%, ensuring their party maintains control of Congress at 30% and reducing taxes at 24%. Among Becerra supporters, fighting Trump administration policies led issues of concern with 59%, while among Hilton backers, 62% favored reducing taxes, and among undecided voters, 61% chose reducing the cost of living.
The poll was conducted online Sept. 15-20 in English and Spanish among 6,989 registered voters, of which a weighted subset of 4,512 were considered likely voters in the general election. The margin of error was plus or minus 2 percentage points.
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