Voter guide: California June 2, 2026 Primary

Governor

California uses a very silly jungle primary system where the top two candidates in the primary, regardless of party, proceed to the general election. This means if two Republicans get the most votes in the June 2 primary, we're guaranteed to have a Republican governor.

Because so many Democrats are in the race and splitting the vote, there's still a chance that the two MAGA Republican candidates will finish in the top two. We need to make sure at least one of the Democrats finishes in the top two in order to avoid locking in a MAGA Republican as California governor.

Polling is still a bit volatile since Swalwell dropped out, but here's a recent average:

Source: 270toWin polling average of the 5 most recent polls, as of 5/1/2026.

Because so many candidates in the race are splitting the vote, we can't afford to "waste" votes on candidates who don't have a chance of finishing in the top two. None of the top polling candidates are super exciting to me personally, but after doing research on all three, there's a clear best option.

Tom Steyer

Steyer is a billionaire former hedge fund manager, which is definitely not what I'm looking for in a candidate! But I'm convinced he's the best (or at least the least bad) option of the three. The political non-profit he's funded and run for over a decade has a long track record of doing good work, and they hire left-leaning policy folks aligned with the Warren-Bernie side of the party. Steyer is genuinely very good on climate, and has been for a long time. He takes the housing affordability crisis in California seriously and has real policy chops on actually addressing the underlying issues. I won't try to summarize the long list of stuff he's done with his non-profit here, especially since this American Prospect profile is so good — I'd just check that out for more info. Steyer has been endorsed by the Bernie-aligned organizing group Our Revolution (despite being a billionaire!), and is widely viewed as the most progressive candidate. Unlike Becerra and Porter, he also supports the proposed billionaire wealth tax ballot measure.

Xavier Becerra

Becerra (formerly a member of Congress, state AG, and Biden's HHS secretary) has been doing better since Swalwell dropped out. From what I've seen and heard, he's light on policy, isn't seen as a serious leader, and is very much a status-quo candidate. I don't find him appealing for a few more specific reasons:

• He opposes the proposed billionaire wealth tax ballot measure.
• His proposal to freeze insurance rates is incoherent and probably not legal. This reeks of "slopulism" to me — instead of a real plan to deal with cost of living, it's a slogan that sounds good if you're not paying attention but isn't a real solution.
• He provided weak HHS leadership on cancer drug pricing, COVID, and monkeypox.
• As HHS secretary, Becerra also played a key role in mismanaging unaccompanied migrant children under his agency's supervision. A Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigation (February 2023, April 2023) found that Becerra pressured HHS staff to rush children out of federal shelters and into the custody of inadequately vetted sponsors, with a leaked recording capturing him berating staff: "If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he would have never become famous and rich. This is not the way you do an assembly line." At least five staff members who raised concerns about child safety were pushed out, HHS lost contact with over 85,000 children, and thousands of unaccompanied minors ended up working illegally in slaughterhouses, construction sites, and factories. When confronted with the 85,000 figure at a congressional hearing, Becerra claimed it was "unfamiliar to me," though the data came from his own agency.
• He's pretty bad on environmental issues and has taken donations from Chevron. He said "I need Chevron" and "they're not the bad guy."
• He's also taken donations from Herbalife and then advocated for the company in Congress (this was a while back). Herbalife was investigated by the FTC for predatory and deceptive practices, and forced to pay $200 million and restructure its business.

Katie Porter

I liked Porter when I first heard about her, but her embrace of "slopulism" is a dealbreaker for me — I think Democrats should be supporting public goods instead of jumping on the tax cut bandwagon.

• Slopulist tax policy: No state income taxes on anyone earning $100k or less sounds good, but it's actually bad policy and even worse politics. This would effectively be a regressive tax cut that would probably lead to cuts to social safety net programs disproportionately benefiting lower-income folks. It's consultant-brained nonsense — the problem is that we don't get enough public goods for our taxes, not that taxes are too high. And if she's serious about tax equity, why is she against the proposed wealth tax?
• Bad management / toxic workplace: These critiques are disproportionately aimed at women and often amplified by conservative outlets, but the evidence is credible. A former staffer has gone on the record, there's leaked video of her swearing at a staffer during a meeting with Energy Secretary Granholm, and she has objectively very high staff turnover (99th percentile in the House in 2020). This isn't just a "personality" thing, and it matters even more for an executive (like a governor) than a legislator. Poor leadership and high turnover mean lower staffing capacity, which makes an administration more reliant on lobbyists and more vulnerable to corporate influence.
• Delegitimizing elections: Porter's reaction to losing the Senate election in 2024 (saying it was "rigged" etc.) was genuinely irresponsible. Schiff's tactics were worthy of criticism, but this kind of rhetoric makes it harder to criticize Republicans for delegitimizing election results.

Lieutenant Governor

There's no public polling on this race and not much news coverage — in part because the position is mostly ceremonial. There could be a similar concern here that the top three Democrats could split the vote and risk handing both of the top spots to Republicans because of jungle primary dynamics. CalMatters has a good summary of the candidates.

I'd go with Fryday, but Tubbs seems fine too.

Josh Fryday

Endorsed by the California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers.

Michael Tubbs

Former Stockton mayor, proponent of UBI, endorsed by SEIU. He endorsed Bloomberg for President in the 2020 Democratic Primary, which isn't a great look. He was also arrested for a DUI in 2014 (he pleaded no contest).

Fiona Ma

Current California Treasurer, former Assembly Member, more establishment / moderate. Ma was also accused of sexual harassment and the state settled for $350k.

Secretary of State

Shirley N. Weber (only Democrat running).

Attorney General

Rob Bonta (only Democrat running).

Controller

Malia Cohen (only Democrat running).

Treasurer

Eleni Kounalakis (the current lieutenant governor) is definitely the favorite with the biggest institutional endorsements (Pelosi, Newsom, Schiff, and Padilla) and the most fundraising. Anna Caballero (currently a state senator) also has a number of endorsements (mostly state legislators). They both seem fine to me. For more information, see the Sacramento Bee / AOL.

Commissioner of Insurance

There are a number of options, but the most serious progressive candidates are Allen and Kim. This is a difficult, important, and thankless job. We need someone who's serious about addressing the issues with our state insurance system. I'd go with Allen.

Benjamin Allen

Allen is a state legislator and is endorsed by a large number of CA Democrats.

Allen seems like a serious and competent reform-minded candidate. For example, this is an important (though difficult) point, especially as climate change makes development in high-risk areas (e.g. fire or flood zones) increasingly untenable:

As part of reducing risk, he wants to restrict new construction in high-risk zones, saying developers who are building in such areas are "basically freeloading off the rest of us." He also wants to "carefully and sensitively" find a way to incentivize those already living in risky areas to move elsewhere.

Jane Kim

Kim is aligned with the Working Families Party and endorsed by Bernie. Overall, her approach of state-provided natural disaster insurance for all sounds good — and might be a good long-term goal — but my concerns are:

1. It's probably not achievable in the intermediate term, and pursuing it suggests she's not as focused on addressing real issues with the current system.
2. It could introduce lots of problems, including increased state subsidies for unsustainable development practices (i.e. building homes in disaster-prone areas). Fundamentally, I believe that we need to incentivize sustainable development patterns and that it's wrong for the state (i.e. taxpayers) to heavily subsidize development in disaster-prone areas rather than encourage infill housing in much safer areas.

One other thing that's a dealbreaker for me:

She would establish a public option for auto insurance by expanding eligibility for an existing program that provides low-cost insurance to drivers who make less than $38,000 a year.

I just fundamentally don't think the state should be subsidizing car insurance or favoring driving over other forms of transportation more than it already does. This type of lopsided and car-oriented policy encourages more driving and hides the inherently high social costs of driving (crashes, deaths and injuries, environmental damage, traffic, pollution, etc.). Instead, we should be using state resources to improve public transit, increase housing affordability in less car-dependent areas, and provide a broader social safety net for low-income folks. In other words, social programs should be broadly targeted based on need, not based on whether you drive. It doesn't seem fair to provide increased subsidies for someone who drives to work compared to someone with the same income who takes public transit or simply drives less (which can make insurance significantly cheaper).

Superintendent of Public Instruction

This is a pretty wide-open race without a lot of coverage. I'd go with Barrera (endorsed by the California Teachers Association), but Muratsuchi (endorsed by the California Federation of Teachers) would also be fine.

Profiles of the Democratic-aligned candidates from EdSource:

• Richard Barrera
• Al Muratsuchi
• Anthony Rendon
• Nichelle Henderson
• Josh Newman

And you can also see the candidate statements for more information.