Governor's Race Tightening as Hilton Points to Beccera's Misleading Statement about His Parents and Hilton's Digital Ad Creates Controversy
Democrat Xavier Becerra has not agreed to another debate with Republican Steve Hilton after their only scheduled fall matchup, while a Hilton campaign poll taken immediately afterward shows the governor’s race tightening. The week has also brought a fight over Becerra’s family story and a backlash, much of it from Republicans, against a sexually suggestive Hilton ad aimed at liberal voters.
The two nominees to succeed termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom had debated for an hour on CNN on Sept. 30 in Burbank. CNN and the New York Times described it as the only scheduled fall debate. Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano wrote afterward that Becerra “hasn’t agreed to any more debates with Hilton.” Hilton had already needled Becerra on stage for a cautious campaign, thanking CNN for “bringing Xavier out of hiding.”
On the horse race, the public polls and the Hilton campaign’s numbers do not tell the same story. A Public Policy Institute of California survey of likely voters, taken Sept. 4–10, had Becerra ahead 60 percent to 38 percent. A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll released Sept. 24 had Becerra at 58 percent and Hilton at 33 percent, a wider gap than Berkeley’s August survey. A poll commissioned by Hilton’s campaign and conducted by David Wolfson on Oct. 1–2, among 1,020 California voters, had Becerra at 45.7 percent and Hilton at 40.1 percent, with 14.1 percent undecided. That was a narrower margin than an earlier Hilton-commissioned survey that had Becerra up 52 percent to 37 percent. When undecided voters in the Wolfson poll were pushed to choose, 72.5 percent leaned to Becerra.
This week's sharper fight is over a statement Becerra has repeatedly made during his campaign. On the CNN stage, Becerra said, “My parents came to California with $12 in their pocket. They lived the California dream.” He has described himself for years as the son of immigrants, and his campaign biography has used the same framing.
His mother is from Mexico. The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that she is from Guadalajara. His father, Manuel Guerrero Becerra, was not. An obituary and the Times both place his birth in Sacramento on July 14, 1928. The family later moved to Tijuana during the Depression. Manuel returned to California as a teenager, worked as a farmworker, a railroad worker, and in road construction, and was a U.S. citizen by birth.
Hilton seized on the distinction. “Unlike Xavier Becerra, I am an immigrant. Unlike Xavier Becerra, my father was an immigrant,” he wrote on X. Critics say the “came to this country with $12” line treats a U.S.-born father as if he had immigrated. A review of Becerra's father's obituary shows this was not two newcomers arriving with nothing and staying that way: the father was already a U.S.-born citizen who had worked in California for years, and the couple bought a house not long after marrying and settling in Sacramento.
Becerra did not concede the point. On Tuesday, he accused Hilton of “casting lies” about the family and said that even though his father was born in the United States, “my dad was a proud immigrant” because of how Mexican Americans were treated. “I am the son of immigrants,” he said. He also said his parents later left the Guadalajara area for Tijuana and then came to California with $12.
Hilton’s own campaign then supplied the other controversy. A digital spot titled “Just Try It, California,” posted late last week and also described as a television ad, shows two young women on a bed in a dim room, a Pride flag behind them. One wears an anti-Trump “Resist” shirt and says she has never done anything like this and worries what her father would think. The other tells her to close her eyes, takes her hand, and says, “I’ll do all the work.” The camera drops to their laps, where they are marking a mail ballot for Hilton. The spot ends with “Now lick it,” a line the campaign presents as a direction to seal the ballot envelope, under the tagline “Just try it.”
The Los Angeles Times reported that the ad drew millions of views and condemnation from allies on the right as well as from Democrats. Sonja Shaw, the Republican candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, called it “creepy, weird, disturbing garbage” and said it crossed a line for someone who has fought to protect children. Michael Gates, the party’s candidate for attorney general and a frequent Hilton campaign partner, wrote that he “emphatically denounce[d] the use of young women as a political tool.” Pastor Jack Hibbs criticized the ad in homophobic terms while saying he would still support Hilton.
Hilton defended the spot. “Obviously, we need to do things differently in California,” he told CBS Los Angeles. “The way we do campaigns, we have to do that differently as well.” CalMatters described the ad as an attempt to coax liberal voters into trying a Republican.
Becerra answered on X on Sunday by linking an old article about his support for Medicare for All and writing, “Steve, just try it.” A Becerra spokesman, Jonathan Underland, said the backlash showed Hilton “willing to abandon his own twisted values to get ahead.”
Election Day is Nov. 3.
