Steyer is chasing second in the governor’s race. The math isn’t on his side
As ballot returns continue to trickle in after Tuesday’s primary for governor, Democrat Tom Steyer faces daunting math to reach the general election.
As of 1 p.m. Thursday, Steyer is in third place with 19.8% of the vote, behind Republican Steve Hilton (27.5%) and Democrat Xavier Becerra (25.6%). The Associated Press estimates 56% of votes have been counted, though totals will shift as late-arriving mail ballots are processed.
Because only the top two finishers advance to November, Steyer must pass either Hilton or Becerra.
Why catching Becerra is so difficult
Steyer trails Becerra by about 6 percentage points. To erase that gap, it’s not enough for Steyer to gain 6 percentage points in the remaining ballots. The reason: The remaining ballots are only a slice of the total vote, so any shift in that slice moves the overall totals by less than the same amount.
Even in a Steyer-friendly scenario — the AP estimate is wrong and only half the vote has been counted — Steyer would still need to outperform Becerra by roughly 12 points in the remaining ballots just to catch up. If the AP estimate is closer to reality and more than half is already counted, the required margin becomes even larger.
It’s hard to see where that kind of late advantage would come from. Becerra has led the Democratic field across major population centers, including Los Angeles County, Sacramento County, and much of the Bay Area. Steyer has run strongest in San Francisco and Marin County, but those pockets alone aren’t large enough to drive a statewide surge.
“There’s no place where there’s like a bunch of secret Steyer votes,” said Matt Barreto, a Democratic pollster and UCLA political science professor.
Passing Hilton is possible — but still a long shot
Steyer’s campaign argues its best path is overtaking Hilton. But that scenario requires two things to happen at once: The remaining ballots would need to break heavily Democratic and Hilton would need to lose substantial share to Republican Chad Bianco, far more than he has so far.
Paul Mitchell, a voting data expert who helped Democrats redraw California’s political maps, called that outcome “inconceivable,” noting Republicans appeared to rally behind Hilton late to avoid being shut out of the general election.
“There’s not a dynamic in the race that changed at the end that would cause Chad Bianco to be getting more votes,” Mitchell said.
What Steyer’s team says to watch
Anthony York, a spokesperson for Steyer, said the next couple of days should give the campaign a better read on its chances of advancing.
“The late canvass is overwhelmingly Dem(ocrat) and Tom closed strong, so we think we’ll do much better either way the remaining votes than we did on Election Day,” he said in an email. “The question is whether there are enough ballots, and whether that late vote was sufficiently Democratic, for Tom to make the top 2.”
Mitchell said Friday evening, when a number of counties will drop new totals to their tallies, should give a clearer picture of the race.
This story was originally published June 4, 2026 at 3:04 PM with the headline "Steyer is chasing second in the governor’s race. The math isn’t on his side."
