From an LGBTQ+ rally to Trunk or Treat, Becerra and Hilton barnstorm California hoping to be next governor
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- In the final days before Tuesday’s election, Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton crisscrossed California, trading barbs at rallies and Halloween events in a largely one-sided governor’s race.
- Polls give Democrat Becerra a commanding lead; he has made the contest a referendum on President Trump, seeking to mobilize Democrats and boost House candidates.
- Hilton has cast himself as an underdog, blaming Democratic rule for high prices and homelessness while promising sweeping tax cuts and lower gas prices; voters also voiced concerns about housing and living costs.
Donning a creepy mask of Democratic rival Xavier Becerra, Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton dashed around a children’s Halloween event dishing out candy and warnings about potential liberal tax policies.
“Vote for Becerra, and your parents will have to pay every mile they drive. Isn’t that great?” Hilton sarcastically said at a Trunk or Treat gathering Saturday in Highland Park. “These children are very pricey because if their parents vote for Becerra, they will be taxed every mile they drive. Yay! Yay! Mileage tax! Mileage tax! Mileage tax!”
Becerra was not spooked when he heard of Hilton’s get-up and put-down.
“I suspect, if he takes off that mask, you’ll see Donald Trump right underneath,” Becerra, a former congressman, state attorney general and member of President Biden’s Cabinet, said at a campaign event in Sacramento on Saturday. “That’s who he really is. Either that or he’s a clown.”
As Tuesday’s election barrels toward them, Becerra and Hilton traded barbs and barnstormed California in a relatively sedate race to succeed Democrat Gavin Newsom, who is wrapping up his final term as governor and considering a run for president. Recent polls show Becerra leading Hilton by a wide margin, which is unsurprising in a state where Democratic voters vastly outnumber Republicans and GOP candidates last won a statewide election two decades ago.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris and Newsom — two potential 2028 presidential candidates — campaigned for Becerra on Sunday evening in Hollywood.
Harris, who has been campaigning for candidates across the country and seemed optimistic about Democrats’ prospects in the midterm election, told voters to use their frustration and ire about Trump’s attacks on the vulnerable and bungling of the economy as motivation to take action.
“The momentum is on our side ... because people are done with the brutality,” Harris said. “They’re done with living in fear. They’re done with not being able to pay for gas or groceries. They’re done with an administration that cuts Medicaid.
“The last year and a half, we’ve [spent] plenty of time throwing things at the TV, saying things ... that we don’t say where we pray,” Harris said. “That phase is over, because we’re now in the phase where we can do something about it, where we can turn anger into action, where we can show the world who we are and what we care about.”
Becerra has spent the final days of the campaign stumping for Democrats in competitive congressional races in the Central Valley and Southern California.
On Sunday, Becerra sought to boost support for Reps. Dave Min (D-Irvine) and Derek Tran (D-Orange) alongside Newsom.
“I’m so grateful to our current and future governor for being here, passing the baton,” Min said at a rally in Irvine, where he and Becerra referred to Newsom as a future president. “We are living in a historic moment, one that everyone’s going to look back [at and] ask, ‘What did we do at this moment when America was in crisis, when our democracy was in crisis?’”
Newsom said Californians could have lamented Trump’s attempts to gerrymander districts in GOP-led states to boost his party’s ability to keep control of Congress, but that Californians responded by redrawing the state’s congressional boundaries last year.
“Donald Trump does not believe in the rule of law. He believes in the rule of Don,” Newsom said.
Democratic leaders are capitalizing on anti-Trump sentiment to juice the state’s liberal electorate and win House seats that were redrawn to favor their party, including a Sacramento-area seat held by Republican-turned-independent Rep. Kevin Kiley of Rocklin.
“We’re not just gonna take back these seats in California. We’re gonna take back the House and the Senate,” Becerra told costumed, cheering volunteers during a quick Saturday stop in support of Richard Pan, the Democrat challenging Kiley, who Becerra said wants to “destroy democracy.”
The Republican president is a big motivator for Democrats this year. California’s high cost of living was among the top concerns of California voters this election, but that was recently eclipsed by fears about Trump’s policies and their desire for a governor to fight back against his administration.
“Everything the Trump administration has done so far is something I disagree with,” 19-year-old Arthur Galvan said after Becerra spoke at Pan’s campaign headquarters. But the UC Davis sophomore said his top priorities are education and one day being able to afford a home, even in Lincoln, the semi-rural and fast-growing town he grew up in.
LA Times/Berkeley poll on California governor’s race, October 2026
“Compared to the rest of the state, housing over there is slightly cheaper. But even still, that’s not attainable,” Galvan said. “I don’t think that there’s many easy ways to go about this but it’s something that we have to look into.”
Asked about his support for a proposed mileage tax — which would require drivers to pay a fee based on the total number of miles driven in a period of time — Becerra said he is considering all options to maintain road funding as more Californians adopt electric vehicles and stop paying the gas tax.
“We need to pay for our roads and our bridges and our highways. We need to pay for mass transit. You can’t do it if you don’t have the money,” he said. “I’m not gonna say exactly how it will be, because that’s work we have to do with the Legislature, and with every community having a chance to speak up.”
Hilton, a former Fox News commentator and political advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron, has embraced his underdog status. The quick-witted Republican has pinballed from California’s deeply red northern territories to Democratic strongholds in San Francisco and L.A., generating enough heat to remain in the spotlight but not enough to catch fire. He tailgated with Chargers and Rams fans at SoFi Stadium on Sunday, and spoke with survivors of the devastating 2025 wildfire in the Pacific Palisades.
Hilton blamed the disaster on the state’s Democratic leadership, which he described as a combination of incompetence, ideology and corruption.
“This is not a blue state. It is not a red state. It’s the Golden State,” Hilton said. “We are going to fight with everything we’ve got in the two days left to make sure that this Golden State that we love so much is truly golden again.”
He has promised to lower gas prices to $3 per gallon, and on Thursday held a $3-a-gallon fill-up event in the San Joaquin Valley. Hilton also vowed to eliminate state taxes on workers’ first $150,000 of income, scuttle the behind-schedule, over-budget high-speed rail project and abolish the DMV.
Though endorsed by Trump, Hilton has framed his campaign around the many ills facing California — including the lack of affordable housing, a persistent and worsening homelessness crisis, entrenched budget deficits and high gas prices — all of which he blames on years of Democratic rule.
At the Halloween event Saturday, Hilton asked Italia Sandoval’s 3-year-old daughter Milania if she would prefer candy or a potential mileage tax. The toddler, understandably confused, opted for candy. Her mother, 31, jumped in, saying that such a levy would mean less story time, field trips and park and library visits for her family’s home-schooled children and further hamper their dreams of one day buying a home.
“Taxes are killing Californians. I want to buy my own home. Can’t afford it,” said the Huntington Park resident, a registered Republican who become politically engaged after studying theater at Cal State L.A.
Federal judges have repeatedly rejected the Trump administration’s efforts to wrest control over state voting processes and intimidate state and local elections officials.
The daughter of a Mexican immigrant said her husband proposed moving to Idaho because of the cost of living in California, but she balked because their families live here. So they found other methods of cutting their budget.
“I shop at Goodwills, yard sales, Facebook Marketplace, you name it,” Sandoval said. “I even sadly say I pick up clothes off the side of the street sometimes. ... It’s taught me to be resourceful in this state. But it’s like, come on.”
Aided by his Halloween mask and cardboard cutouts portraying Becerra as a hand puppet controlled by Newsom, Hilton has turned his opponent into a symbol of California’s high cost of living and “killjoy” rules. During a Friday night rally in Sacramento, the Republican candidate lamented local bans on gas appliances and a statewide prohibition on flavored tobacco products.
“It’s ridiculous. They don’t mind the fentanyl, they give out free drugs to hopeless addicts, but you try getting flavored Zyn in California — no way. That is insane,” he said, drawing cheers mostly from younger audience members. Lawmakers approved the ban in 2020 and voters upheld it two years later.
Though Becerra is considered unbeatable in blue California in the race, many Hilton fans are clinging to hope that the Republican candidate will overcome the odds.
“We need help. I bought a hybrid and still am like, the gas, it’s killing me,” said Marina Gabel, adding that the paycheck from her school district job is “crumbs.” The Roseville Republican wore a shirt to Hilton’s Sacramento rally that described Newsom as a “California Horror Story” in a nod to the long-running FX anthology series.
Hope and despair simmers among California Republicans as election day approaches.
In the final days of his campaign Becerra seized on voter anxiety about Trump’s policies, heightened by the administration’s recent efforts to wrest control over state voting processes.
Becerra forcefully argued that Tuesday’s election is a referendum on the president, and accused Hilton of being beholden to a White House that has attacked immigrants, launched an unnecessary war against Iran and created economic havoc by imposing tariffs and other unhinged policies.
“We see that wolf in that sheep’s clothing. We see right through you, Donald Trump,” Becerra said Friday at a social club in San Francisco’s Castro district, one of the nation’s most iconic LGBTQ+ communities. “In California, we say no más ... that’s why this election is so important, because we gotta prove that California does not take a knee to Donald Trump.”
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