Supporters cheer at an election night event for California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Los Angeles. 

The first poll of California’s upcoming governor face-off shows Democrat Xavier Becerra with a strong lead.

The poll, released Thursday by the UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies, found that Becerra leads Republican Steve Hilton by over 20 percentage points among registered voters.

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This is the first poll released since the election was called this week. The findings are not entirely unexpected given the large number of registered Democrats in the state compared with Republicans.

Becerra, the former state attorney general and health secretary under President Joe Biden, and Hilton, a former Fox News commentator, were the top two finishers in the California governor’s primary race, which was finally called by the Associated Press on Tuesday after nearly a week of ballot counting. The poll found that Becerra is the choice of 52% of the state’s overall electorate, while 31% favor........

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