California Gubernatorial Primary

The California gubernatorial primary is a so-called “jungle” primary, meaning that all candidates, from any party, run against one another in a single election. If one candidate receives more than fifty per cent of the vote, they immediately win the election. Otherwise, the two candidates who receive the most votes face each other in the general election in November.

Election 2026
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On the Democratic side, the main candidates are Xavier Becerra, the former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and California attorney general, and Tom Steyer, a billionaire hedge-fund founder and environmental activist who ran for President in 2020. Their main challengers are Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose, and Katie Porter, a former U.S. congresswoman. Initially, the former California rep Eric Swalwell, a Presidential candidate in 2020, was a front-runner in the race. Then, in April, multiple women accused Swallwell of sexual misconduct. Swalwell denied the accusations, but dropped out of the race and resigned from Congress. (Owing to his late withdrawal, Swalwell will still appear on the ballot.) More than a dozen other Democrats are running, including Tony Thurmond, the superintendent of Public Instruction at the California Department of Education; Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles; Satish Rao, a computer-science professor at U.C. Berkeley; and Barack D. Obama Shaw, the host of a talent show at a local theatre in Alameda.

On the Republican side, the front-runner is Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host who previously served as an adviser to the former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron. Hilton was born in the U.K. and is a naturalized U.S. citizen. While hosting “The Next Revolution” on Fox News, he became a major figure in the MAGA movement, with President Donald Trump often posting clips of Hilton calling for an investigation into claims of fraud in the 2020 Presidential election. Hilton has been endorsed by Trump and Jon Voight, an actor and a special ambassador to Hollywood, as well as the Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, the Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, and the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who announced his support for Hilton before his assassination last year.

Los Angeles Mayoral Primary

The Los Angeles mayoral primary is also a “jungle” primary, and, while the incumbent mayor Karen Bass is the front-runner in a crowded field, no one is expected to receive more than fifty per cent of the vote, meaning that the election will likely go to the general in November. Bass, the first female mayor of Los Angeles, was elected in 2022. Previously, she was a six-term congresswoman representing parts of Los Angeles and the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus from 2019 to 2021. Bass was the mayor during a devastating series of wildfires in 2025 that killed more than thirty people and destroyed some eighteen thousand structures in Los Angeles, and her administration’s response has emerged as a major issue in the race.

The main Democratic challenger to Bass is Nithya Raman, a city-council member and member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Raman’s background is in urban planning, and before entering public office, she ran a homeless-outreach nonprofit in Los Angeles. The leading Republican candidate is Spencer Pratt, a reality-television star who has made improving the city’s response to wildfires a major part of his campaign, announcing his candidacy on the anniversary of the Palisades Fire, which destroyed his home. Pratt has also criticized the Bass administration’s approach to the city’s homelessness crisis, accusing it of funding wasteful N.G.O.s, which he has dubbed the “homeless-industrial complex,” and has vowed to increase funding for the L.A.P.D. and to clear all homeless encampments. There are more than a dozen other candidates on the ballot, including Asaad Alnajjar, a neighborhood councillor; Rae Huang, a community organizer; and Adam Miller, a tech executive.