By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
Xavier Becerra is almost certainly the next governor of California.
Though it’s not official, it looks like Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton will face each other in the November general election to choose a successor to the term-limited California governor Gavin Newsom. Due to the state’s extremely deliberate vote-counting system, it is taking a bit of time to confirm the winners of Tuesday’s top-two gubernatorial primary. But Becerra and Hilton appear to have held off Democrat Tom Steyer, who spent over $200 million of his own money in the state’s most expensive campaign to date. Becerra will go into the general election as the heavy favorite thanks to the Golden State’s deep-blue political complexion, especially given the national pro-Democratic midterm breeze blowing across the nation.
