Xavier Becerra is leading in the governor’s race — but still has questions to answer

Gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra has skyrocketed in polling and is on track to be the only Democrat to make it past next month’s primary election if surveys are correct. But his front-runner status has made him suddenly the target of attacks from nearly every side of this year’s chaotic race. 

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Becerra was hovering in the single digits in the polls up until last month when then-Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race after multiple sexual assault allegations surfaced. Since then, Becerra has become the only Democrat to rank first in polls in recent months, hitting over 20% polling in the latest surveys, with billionaire Tom Steyer trailing as the next-closest Democrat. 

Even with his favorable footing, or perhaps because of it, Becerra has been excoriated recently amid federal charges against his former staffer, for his reluctance to answer journalists’ hard questions and for his tenure as health secretary. 

Becerra came under fire last week for his link to a recent fraud scandal after his former staffer Dana Williamson pleaded guilty to three felonies: conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, lying to the FBI, and filing a false tax return. Becerra has not been implicated, but his opponents pounced on him at a Thursday debate, saying he is personally at risk of charges. Republican Steve Hilton told him, “You shouldn’t be in this race. You should be preparing your criminal defense.” Democrat Katie Porter said earlier in the week that Becerra is still at risk of getting charged; she said it would be disastrous if it happens after he gets through to the general election.

“Secretary Becerra cannot and has not guaranteed or promised the people of California that he will not be named as a co-conspirator and indicted. And if he is, and the top two include him and Steve Hilton, we would wind up with a Republican governor,” Porter said on CNN last week.

Becerra has repeatedly denied that he broke the law or is at risk of being indicted. 

“The U.S. attorney has said no candidate, including me, running for governor has been implicated in this case, and they looked at all the facts and decided that there was no involvement on my part,” Becerra said at Thursday’s debate. 

Becerra’s own candor has also come into question after KTLA-TV published a clip showing him awkwardly pressuring a TV journalist during an interview when he asked, “By the way, this is a profile piece, this is not a ‘gotcha’ piece, right?” Democratic leaders like former President Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod and former U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice attacked him for the quip, with Rice sharing a social media post calling Becerra “pathetic” for the remark. 

Jonathan Underland, Becerra’s spokesperson, emailed a statement on Tuesday to SFGATE, saying that he didn’t leave the interview and “unlike other candidates in the race, Becerra sticks around even when the questions get tough.” That remark was likely in reference to an October interview when Porter threatened to walk out of an interview. 

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Becerra has increasingly come under fire for being cheap on time with reporters, and the former attorney general didn’t stay very long to take questions from the media after Thursday night’s debate, which ended promptly at 7 p.m. The rest of the candidates stuck around for almost 45 minutes to take questions. 

Underland told SFGATE in a separate phone call on Friday that Becerra spoke to at least one TV journalist afterward and offered interviews to a few others. There were some organizational hiccups, where journalists were briefly taken to another room, which Underland said led Becerra and his team to leave after seeing no other journalists around. He “wasn’t able to spend 30 minutes” with journalists, Underland said. “He loves answering questions and talking to reporters,” but he was headed to another fundraising event immediately afterward.

Becerra’s time as secretary of health and human services during the Biden administration has also become the focal point of an ad campaign attacking him for the agency’s handling of migrant children traveling across the Mexican border alone. A 2023 New York Times investigation found that his department lost track of a third of them. That report has resurfaced in the past two weeks amid a $6 million spend on TV ads saying that “more than 85,000 migrant children went missing” under Becerra’s supervision and alleging that “kids suffered from forced labor, trafficking and abuse.” 

Becerra has called the accusations “Trump lies” and a “MAGA talking point.” Candidates at the debate pressed him on his revenue plan — Porter held up a white sheet of paper inquiring about this and asked people to raise their hands if they also wanted an answer. Both Steyer and Chad Bianco, a Republican sheriff from Riverside County, raised their hands. Becerra was also criticized for struggling to explain his housing policies during a panel hosted by the New York Times’ Ezra Klein earlier this month. 

Despite the constant attacks, Becerra displayed an even temper and appeared relatively unbothered during Thursday’s debate.

“This is what happens when you take the lead in the polls and you’re ahead of everyone else. … So I get it, I get it,” he said while being grilled by his fellow candidates. “They have to try to beat you down. This is a great Trump tactic that’s used. I didn’t expect it to come from fellow Democrats.”