This report will be updated every 30 minutes. This update was posted at 9:09pm.
Republican Steve Hilton’s early lead in the contentious California governor primary didn’t last long.
As the evening ballot counting progressed, with nearly 28% of precincts reporting, the Becerra-Hilton battle settled into a dead heat, slowly widening their gap over Tom Steyer, more than 6 points behind.
An update less than 30 minutes after initial reports showed 39% showed support for the Trump-backed candidate falling to 26.1% behind a surging Xavier Becerra at 26.6%.
The top two finishers compete in the November General Election.
Becerra had posted 22% of the first count, followed by Chad Bianco at 19% and Tom Steyer at 16%. But Bianco fell to 10% in the first update – and Steyer’s vote count grew to 20% in very early returns reported by the California Secretary of State’s Elections Division.
These top four candidates matched up and down polls of the past two weeks. The most recent polls showed support for Becerra surging past the others.
The $300 million primary campaign for governor was the most expensive in California history.
More than two-thirds of that came from Steyer’s own deep pockets. He spent more than $213 million. Independent expenditure committees pitched in nearly $80 million, spread among the top six candidates.
Today’s initial vote tally was likely to show an expected late surge in mail ballots, which could stretch out the ballot counting and a final determination of the top two finishers who will meet in November.
As of Monday, state election officials reported accepting 4.2 million votes by mail, about 18% of the state’s approximately 23.2 million registered voters. They expected the eventual turnout to top 12 million.
The last-minute voting also was a reflection of the uncertainty among voters about the governor candidates lingering in the last two months of the campaign.
Here are the total for leading candidates, as of 8:50pm, with 27.8% of the precincts reporting:
- Xavier Becerra, 793,582, 26.1%
- Steve Hilton, 795,012, 26.1.%
- Tom Steyer, 595,301, 19.6%
- Chad Bianco, 360,166 11.8%
- Katie Porter, 153,598, 5.1%
- Matt Mahan, 126,099, 4.1%
- Antonio Villaraigosa, 39,040, 1.6%
- Tony Thurmond 17,124, 0.7%
Vote totals are expected to be updated every 30 minutes until midnight, then daily at 5 pm.
The long list of 61 governor candidates facing voters included two who had dropped out after ballots were printed, Rep. Erik Swalwell and Betty Yee. The list included 36 Democrats and 12 Republican; the remainder, like a big portion of the electorate, listed no party preference or minor party.
The top-two primary system was adopted in California as the result of a 2010 ballot measure (for congressional and state offices).
