Becerra beats Trump-backed Hilton to take California governor's mansion

Xavier Becerra is California's next governor. NBC News projects the Democrat defeated Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host who had Donald Trump's endorsement but entered the race as a clear underdog.

Becerra, 68, takes a four-year term and replaces Gavin Newsom, who is term-limited out and has been floated as a possible 2028 presidential candidate. It's a familiar ceiling for Republicans in the nation's biggest state: California hasn't put a GOP governor in the office since Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006, and Trump lost California by 20 points in 2024.

The résumé is long. Becerra ran Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden, served as California's attorney general, spent 12 terms in the House and logged two years in the state Legislature, where he chaired the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the House Democratic Caucus.

He campaigned as Trump's chief antagonist, branding Hilton a rubber stamp for the president. His website leaned hard into that pitch: “I am that fighter, and have a proven record facing and winning against Donald Trump, having sued him 122 times in fact as California's Attorney General.” The platform also promised cheaper healthcare, more homebuilding, action on price-gouging and rate hikes, clean energy investment and disaster mitigation as wildfires, floods and earthquakes keep hammering the state.

On AI, Becerra wants regulation paired with adoption in government and schools, and he has argued data centers can “add value” to California's energy grid — provided they meet environmental disclosure rules.

The road here wasn't smooth. Biden administration alumni slammed his handling of Covid, the baby formula shortage, an mpox outbreak and a surge of unaccompanied children at the U.S.-Mexico border. He still survived a crowded all-party primary in June after former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell quit in April amid sexual assault and misconduct allegations he denied. Hilton, a U.K. native who became a U.S. citizen in 2021, advanced past billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, then hammered Becerra's record as unhelpful to the state's problems. At CNN's September debate, Becerra torched Hilton's tax plans, asking whether promising Trump-style tax cuts and expecting different results “isn't it the definition of insanity.”