CA Gubernatorial Debate - Apr 22 2026
May 05 2026
I watched the first debate on Apr 22 2026 which had six candidates. I did not know them previously -- maybe heard Katie Porter and Xavier Becerra from previous elections. The candidates and my thoughts after watching the debate.
Steve Hilton (R) - political commentator. Kind of (just a bit) reminds me of Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy (because I just read a book about the Ukraine's presidents) who was a tv entertainer tending towards political humor and was initially a fairly bad president because of his political inexperience and it took an invasion to rally his government.
Chad Bianco (R) - sheriff of Riverside. Comes off as the typical rural Californian. I particularly dislike the argument that you can magically make more money appear by cutting fraud and abuse in government. Politicians say it, it's never done, and it becomes a code word for "cut government programs I don't like".
Tom Steyer (D) - billionaire. Surprisingly came in second and he had a lot of good answers. But the dude is 68 years old and after Biden and Trump I'm not sure I'm up for having an aged head of state government.
Katie Porter (D) - US Representative. Rather vague answering questions. Other candidates would say one or two plans of action and she didn't have any.
Xavier Becerra (D) - former US Secretary of Health and Human Services. I guess the most politically experienced of the group as he kept saying it over and over. For state governor I'd rather have someone with too much experience than no experience.
Matt Mahan (D) - Mayor of San Jose. Well spoken and had a lot of good replies though maybe too much "this is how we fixed it in San Jose" which might work for the 12th biggest city in the US but might not work at the state level.
I took notes and scored based on best = 3 points, 2nd best = 1 (or if two best then both = 2), 3 to 5 = 0, 6th = -1 (or 0 if it's about the same as 3-5).
My notes in PDF: 2026-04-22 CA gubernatorial debate
Final rankings
That was a lot of work and there are two more debates to do. Not sure I'll do them.
Steve Hilton (R) - political commentator. Kind of (just a bit) reminds me of Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy (because I just read a book about the Ukraine's presidents) who was a tv entertainer tending towards political humor and was initially a fairly bad president because of his political inexperience and it took an invasion to rally his government.
Chad Bianco (R) - sheriff of Riverside. Comes off as the typical rural Californian. I particularly dislike the argument that you can magically make more money appear by cutting fraud and abuse in government. Politicians say it, it's never done, and it becomes a code word for "cut government programs I don't like".
Tom Steyer (D) - billionaire. Surprisingly came in second and he had a lot of good answers. But the dude is 68 years old and after Biden and Trump I'm not sure I'm up for having an aged head of state government.
Katie Porter (D) - US Representative. Rather vague answering questions. Other candidates would say one or two plans of action and she didn't have any.
Xavier Becerra (D) - former US Secretary of Health and Human Services. I guess the most politically experienced of the group as he kept saying it over and over. For state governor I'd rather have someone with too much experience than no experience.
Matt Mahan (D) - Mayor of San Jose. Well spoken and had a lot of good replies though maybe too much "this is how we fixed it in San Jose" which might work for the 12th biggest city in the US but might not work at the state level.
I took notes and scored based on best = 3 points, 2nd best = 1 (or if two best then both = 2), 3 to 5 = 0, 6th = -1 (or 0 if it's about the same as 3-5).
My notes in PDF: 2026-04-22 CA gubernatorial debate
Final rankings
- Matt Mahan (12 points)
- Tom Steyer (11)
- Xavier Becerra (5)
- Katie Porter (4)
- Steve Hilton (1)
- Chad Bianco (0)
That was a lot of work and there are two more debates to do. Not sure I'll do them.