California’s Problems Take Center Stage in Tense Debate

The structure favored quick soundbites over in-depth exchanges, leaving viewers with flashes of competing rhetoric rather than a detailed policy debate.

“Wow, that was a bit of a mess,” remarked Pomona College student Ryan Kossarian as he stood to ask a question.

The field – including six Democrats and two Republicans – has been reshuffled in recent weeks following the exit of former Rep. Eric Swalwell amid sexual misconduct allegations, leaving voters and party leaders still searching for a clear frontrunner. The debate did little to provide one.

Affordability dominated the debate’s opening, with Democratic and Republican candidates offering sharply contrasting visions for how to ease the burden on California families.

Steve Hilton, who carries an endorsement from former President Donald Trump, laid out the most sweeping set of promises: He pledged to bring gas prices down to $3 per gallon, cut electric bills in half, and make every Californian’s first $100,000 of income tax-free. He also argued that his policies would make housing affordable for younger Californians.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, another Republican on the stage, offered a simpler diagnosis: “The regulations and the taxes have to go.” Bianco argued that California’s government overreach is the core driver of unaffordability and called for sweeping rollbacks as the solution.

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan staked out a middle ground among the Democratic-aligned candidates, calling for a suspension of the state’s gas tax, which he described as “the most regressive tax in the state,” hitting lower-income drivers hardest. He also called for removing all barriers to new housing construction.

Attorney and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra took a different path, explicitly ruling out ending the gas tax. Instead, he called for reducing prescription drug prices and accelerating housing production.

“We’ll reduce prescription drug prices and start building the homes that we need,” Becerra said, adding that 40,000 shovel-ready housing units are waiting to break ground.

“I’ll get them going the first day I’m in office,” he pledged.

In a separate lightning-round segment, billionaire Tom Steyer also declined to end the gas tax, vowing instead to target the oil and gas industry with a windfall profits tax as a way to address fuel prices without eliminating the tax revenue.

Former Rep. Katie Porter similarly said she would not end the gas tax, though she pressed Steyer on his investments in the oil industry.

“So, they were causing great damage while you were investing in them?” Porter interjected, jabbing at Steyer’s billionaire status and profits he made from investing in oil, coal, and gas companies through a hedge fund he ran until 2012. 

The debate also surfaced sharp disagreements over California’s insurance industry, which has been roiled by insurers exiting the state amid massive wildfire-related losses, leaving many homeowners struggling to find coverage.

Becerra proposed declaring a state of emergency to freeze insurance rates – a move that drew pushback from CBS News moderator Julie Watts, who challenged its legal and practical basis.

“I’d be willing to go to court” with the insurance industry on the matter, Becerra fired back, and if his legal challenged failed, he said he would investigate insurance companies’ practices of dropping coverage even for longtime customers who never filed claims.

Other candidates argued the problem requires longer-term market reforms and deregulation to lure insurers back, though detailed proposals varied across the field.

Homelessness remained a central concern throughout the evening, with candidates largely agreeing on the scale of the problem but differing over solutions.

Hilton and Bianco pushed for stricter enforcement approaches, arguing that current Democratic leadership has allowed encampments to proliferate by prioritizing permissive policies over accountability.

Mahan, who has dealt directly with the issue as mayor of San Jose, highlighted his records of “leading the state” in clearing streets and expanding interim housing. Mahan argued for “a more functional, accountability-drive approach” combining enforcement with dramatically expanded shelter capacity. He criticized the lack of consequences for both individuals and ineffective government programs.

“Without the support of our state and counties for practical and scalable alternatives to the streets, our most vulnerable neighbors will continue to suffer and die on our watch,” he argued.  

Democrats including Becerra and Porter emphasized the need for housing-first strategies and mental health resources, though they clashed with critics who say such approaches have yielded limited results after years of heavy state investment.

Some of the evening’s sharpest moments came in exchanges between Becerra and Hilton when the former Democratic attorney general tried to play the Trump card against the GOP frontrunner.

When asked about healthcare affordability, Becerra pivoted to a broadside against his Republican rival, saying, “The first thing we have to do is stop Steve Hilton’s daddy, who has endorsed him” – a pointed reference to Trump’s backing of Hilton.

Hilton’s response drew laughter from the audience. He noted that his actual father spent his career working for a Hungarian sports team, and said that regardless of endorsements, pointing fingers at the former president does nothing to solve California’s problems.

“Blaming Trump won’t lower your gas bill,” he argued, turning the attack back on Becerra and other Democrats who have often leaned on anti-Trump rhetoric rather than offering their own solutions.

Becerra’s campaign against Hilton’s credibility was a recurring theme.

“We can’t have a governor who doesn’t understand how the government works,” Hilton said at one point.

“And we don’t need a talking head from Fox News to tell us how the government works,” former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa shot back.

But Becerra, who has surged in the polls since Swalwell’s departure but still trails Hilton and Bianco, couldn’t simply sit back and rely on his long public service record. His time serving in President Biden’s Cabinet came under attack from fellow Democrats.

Mahan trained his fire on Becerra’s record handling the COVID-19 pandemic, the mpox outbreak, and the surge of immigrant children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

“The secretary has never met a crisis that he couldn’t ignore,” Mahan said.

At one point, another contender on stage shouted that Becerra was so ineffective in the Biden administration that he almost got fired, although it wasn’t clear who made the assertion amid the crosstalk.

Bianco pounded home a theme that all of the Democrats on the stage would be worse for California than current Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“I’m not afraid of anything … but I’m terrified one of these people will be governor and these kids with have to move [out of California],” he told the crowd of college students.

Mahan was the Democrat offering the most criticism of Newsom’s record, at one point offering a pointed jab on the state’s record educating its students.

“It’s a crime that with half of the spending per pupil, Mississippi is doing a better job of educating low-income students,” he said.

Beyond the top contenders, candidates fought visibly for relevance. State Superintendent Tony Thurmond and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa appeared on stage Tuesday after failing to meet polling thresholds for last week’s debate, raising questions about their viability.

Thurmond at one point appeared to ignore the role he played in declining public school enrollment by spearheading rules requiring teachers and administrators to keep secrets from parents about children gender-transitioning in school.

“What folks aren’t saying on this stage is the biggest challenge for our schools is declining enrollment,” he said. “Schools get their revenue based on attendance, and we’re one of only six states in the nation that still gives revenue based on average daily attendance.”

“We have to move to an enrollment system as we recognize that schools are losing revenue,” he added.

Bianco complained repeatedly about a lack of airtime, at one point remarking, “I wasn’t sure I was even up here anymore.”

Porter, meanwhile, tried to rise above the fray by poking fun at the chaos itself, saying her fellow candidates’ back-and-forth was “worse than my teenagers at dinner, and at another point offering to “summarize the squabbling for everybody.”

At one point, Porter laid her head down on her podium out of utter frustration over the crosstalk.

“I think that about sums up tonight’s debate,” longtime California political researcher and analyst Rob Pyers remarked on X.com about Porter’s dramatic gesture.

Rob Stutzman, a longtime GOP political consultant who served as deputy chief of staff for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the polls aren’t rewarding the best Democratic candidates in the field.

“[The] two worst Ds on stage were the ones supposedly ahead in the polls,” he said on X.com. “Would think Porter and Mahan helped themselves with viewers. Awful night for CBS. Moderators should never talk that much.”

The political math remains a problem for the Democrat-dominated state. Steyer led Democrats with 15% in a CBS News/YouGov poll released ahead of the debate, with Becerra and Bianco in double digits. Hilton topped the field at 16%. California’s jungle primary on June 2 will send the top two vote-getters – regardless of party – to the general election, and Democrats are anxious over the possibility of a scenario where internal vote-splitting could allow the two Republicans to advance to the fall contest.

Mail ballots begin going out to voters on May 4. The candidates will meet again next Tuesday in a debate hosted by CNN.