What to watch in CNN’s California governor race debate

A majority of California’s likely voters say they think the state is heading in the wrong direction. The question the race for governor there will decide is whether those voters lay blame at the feet of the Democrats who run the state, or a Republican Party led by President Donald Trump.

Viewers in the state and beyond will get a chance to hear both sides of that argument on Wednesday night, when Democrat Xavier Becerra debates Republican Steve Hilton on CNN.

Polls show Becerra, a former secretary of Health and Human Services, with a significant lead over Hilton, an ex-Fox News host and British political operative, in the race to replace term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom. A Public Policy Institute of California survey conducted in early September found Becerra ahead, 60% to 38%, among likely voters. That same poll found that 52% of likely voters say the state is headed in the wrong direction — while an even larger share, 77%, say the nation is headed in the wrong direction.

The winner of the gubernatorial race will set the agenda for the nation’s most populous state — home to about 12% of all Americans — and one on the frontlines of a number of major issues confronting the country, including the cost of living and housing prices, rampant homelessness, natural disasters and the rise of artificial intelligence being developed largely in California’s Silicon Valley.

Here’s what to watch when Becerra and Hilton debate Wednesday night at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT) in CNN’s Burbank studio:

The top concern on voters’ minds is the cost of living — and both campaigns have largely oriented their policy platforms around addressing it.

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Hilton is promising to unwind a bevy of progressive policies — and in doing so, claims he can get gas prices below $3 per gallon, cut utility bills in half and dramatically accelerate construction of starter homes for young families.

He is also pledging to eliminate state income taxes on the first $150,000 Californians earn. Hilton says he would pay for that proposal by slashing funding for high-speed rail and homelessness nonprofits and by cutting state government departments’ budgets by 5%.

Those proposals would be all but certain to encounter a wall of resistance from the Democratic-dominated California legislature.

Becerra, meanwhile, is proposing a “Power Hour” — up to two hours of free electricity for low-income households, achieved using excess solar electricity produced in California.

He has also said he would declare a state of emergency to freeze rates for utilities and insurance, effectively pausing further cost hikes.

He has sought to make health care a focus of his campaign but has largely avoided detailed policy proposals — instead broadly vowing to work toward universal coverage while emphasizing primary care.

For years, Newsom has been at the center of California’s political universe — and even though he’s months away from leaving office, a potential 2028 presidential run would keep him, and the problems and policies of the state he leads, in the spotlight.

But if he wins in November, the much lower-key Becerra will be stepping out of Newsom’s shadow and into the spotlight himself — entering one of the nation’s highest-profile political offices as the state is brawling with the Trump administration over climate regulations, voting rules, immigration enforcement and more.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Becerra’s campaign has been risk-averse . He has largely avoided interviews and unscripted moments and been noncommittal on policy matters, speaking in broad strokes about liberal principles rather than making specific pledges and committing to precise targets and timelines that could eventually be held against him.

Still, he has a long record in Democratic politics, including stints in House Democratic leadership in Washington, as California attorney general and as former President Joe Biden’s health and human services secretary. And he is leaning into that record on the campaign trail.

During the primary and the general election, Becerra has stuck to a common refrain, saying some version of: “I am not running on inflated promises. I am running on my record.”

That’s a stark difference from Hilton, who recently told the Orange County Register’s editorial board that Becerra is “behaving very arrogantly in this election.”

Hilton is everywhere — from cutting social media videos in a t-shirt at gas stations to appearing on the liberal “Pod Save America” podcast. It’s the approach of an underdog with less to lose than Becerra, and increasingly, little time to close the polling gap.

“It’s an uphill battle, but we think we’ve closed the gap,” Hilton told the Register.

To win in California, Hilton — who was endorsed by Trump in California’s top-two primary, which helped him consolidate Republican votes as Democrats fractured among several candidates — will have to win over huge numbers of Democratic and independent voters, many of whom don’t like the president (and don’t like Fox News, where Hilton once hosted a weekly show).

He is doing so by arguing that blame for the struggles California faces lie not with the president, but with Democrats who have full control over the state government.

“He only messages Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump all the time,” Hilton told the Register. “My message is, look, you can be anti-Trump and still vote for me.”

One topic on which the candidates have not yet staked out particularly clear positions is the rise of artificial intelligence, and the potential risks it poses.

As California-based tech firms race to roll out new, more advanced AI models, some California policymakers have urged the state to enact new safeguards. Newsom this month ordered state agencies to develop AI safety recommendations and convened experts to work toward a series of policy recommendations. Among the potential policies under consideration is an emergency shutoff — a “kill switch” for AI companies’ frontier models if they go rogue.

Becerra has laid out a broad 11-point plan in which he says he would deploy AI within state government “to cut permitting delays, improve benefits delivery, and find efficiencies that have long eluded us.” Becerra’s plan also calls for a “national framework” of safety regulations.

“Strong standards and a thriving AI sector don’t have to be in conflict, and California is fully capable of setting the gold standard,” his plan says.

Hilton, in a Politico interview in August, said AI companies have stoked fear of their product, and said the government so far is “under regulating some of the harms, for example, in relation to children and in relation to the creative community and their output, but we’re in danger of over regulating some of the potential benefits.”

The candidates could also face questions about how California can keep television and film production in Hollywood, with other states and countries luring tens of thousands of jobs out of the state in recent years with tax incentives and cheaper production costs.

California recently doubled a tax credit program for television and film production to $750 million annually. But Hilton said in a Spectrum News interview that is “totally inadequate.”

Hilton is campaigning on a “Bring Hollywood home” proposal that would include “stronger” tax credits that cover more production costs, much faster approvals for those credits, reserved funding for smaller productions, and staff in the governor’s office focused on eliminating bureaucratic delays.

Becerra, meanwhile, says he will expand California’s tax credit to cover more production costs, and fast-track local and state permitting for film and television production. He also says he will convene a “California Entertainment Summit” to create a public plan for the industry and would require streaming content platforms to share more data with workers about how the products they worked on performed to give “workers what they need to bargain fairly.”

加州大多数潜在选民认为该州正朝着错误的方向发展。此次州长选举将决定，这些选民究竟会将责任归咎于执政的民主党，还是归咎于唐纳德·特朗普总统领导的共和党。

周三晚上，民主党人泽维尔·贝塞拉将在 CNN 上与共和党人史蒂夫·希尔顿进行辩论，届时，该州及其他地区的观众将有机会听到双方的观点。

民调显示，前卫生与公众服务部部长贝塞拉在竞选加州州长一职中大幅领先于前福克斯新闻主持人、英国政治活动家希尔顿，后者因任期届满而面临下台。加州公共政策研究所9月初进行的一项调查发现，在可能投票的选民中，贝塞拉的支持率为60%，希尔顿为38%。同一项民调还发现，52%的可能投票选民认为加州正朝着错误的方向发展，而认为美国正朝着错误方向发展的选民比例更高，高达77%。

州长竞选的获胜者将为美国人口最多的州——约占美国总人口 12% 的州——制定议程，该州处于美国面临的许多重大问题的前沿，包括生活成本和房价、猖獗的无家可归现象、自然灾害以及主要在加州硅谷开发的人工智能的兴起。

以下是贝塞拉和希尔顿周三晚9点（美国东部时间）/下午6点（美国太平洋时间）在CNN伯班克演播室进行辩论时需要关注的要点：

选民最关心的问题是生活成本——两党竞选活动都主要围绕解决这个问题制定政策纲领。

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

希尔顿承诺将取消一系列进步政策——他声称，这样做可以将汽油价格降至每加仑 3 美元以下，将公用事业账单减半，并大幅加快为年轻家庭建造首套住房的速度。

他还承诺取消加州居民年收入前15万美元的州所得税。希尔顿表示，他将通过大幅削减高铁和无家可归者救助非营利组织的资金，以及削减州政府各部门5%的预算来为这项提议筹集资金。

这些提议几乎肯定会遭到民主党占多数的加州立法机构的强烈反对。

与此同时，贝塞拉提议推行“电力一小时”活动——利用加州生产的过剩太阳能电力，为低收入家庭提供长达两小时的免费电力。

他还表示，他将宣布进入紧急状态，冻结水电费和保险费，从而有效地阻止进一步的成本上涨。

他一直试图将医疗保健作为竞选的重点，但基本上避免提出详细的政策建议，而是笼统地承诺努力实现全民医保，同时强调初级保健。

多年来，纽森一直是加州政治的中心人物——尽管距离他卸任还有几个月的时间，但如果他参加 2028 年总统大选，他以及他领导的加州的各种问题和政策仍将持续受到关注。

但如果他能在 11 月胜选，低调得多的贝塞拉将走出纽森的阴影，走到聚光灯下——进入全国最受瞩目的政治职位之一，而此时加州正与特朗普政府就气候法规、投票规则、移民执法等问题展开激烈争论。

贾斯汀·沙利文/盖蒂图片社

贝塞拉的竞选策略一直很保守。他基本上避免接受采访和参与即兴演讲，在政策问题上也态度暧昧，只是泛泛地谈论自由主义原则，而不是做出具体承诺，设定可能最终对他不利的具体目标和时间表。

尽管如此，他在民主党政坛有着丰富的经验，曾担任华盛顿众议院民主党领导层成员、加州总检察长以及前总统乔·拜登的卫生与公众服务部部长。在竞选活动中，他正着重强调这些过往经历。

在初选和普选中，贝塞拉一直坚持一个常见的说法，大致是：“我不是靠夸大的承诺竞选，我是靠我的政绩竞选。”

这与希尔顿的说法截然不同，希尔顿最近告诉《橙县纪事报》的编辑委员会，贝塞拉“在这次选举中表现得非常傲慢”。

希尔顿的身影无处不在——从在加油站穿着T恤拍摄社交媒体视频，到出现在自由派播客节目“拯救美国”（Pod Save America）上。这是一种弱者姿态，他比贝塞拉更有底气，也更没有多少时间来缩小民调差距。

“这是一场艰苦的战斗，但我们认为我们已经缩小了差距，”希尔顿告诉《注册报》。

要想在加利福尼亚州获胜，希尔顿——他在加利福尼亚州的两强初选中获得了特朗普的支持，这帮助他巩固了共和党的选票，因为民主党的选票分散在几个候选人之间——将不得不赢得大量民主党人和独立选民的支持，其中许多人不喜欢总统（也不喜欢福克斯新闻，希尔顿曾经在那里主持过一档每周播出的节目）。

他这样认为，加州面临的困境的责任不在于总统，而在于完全控制州政府的民主党人。

希尔顿告诉《注册报》：“他发信息全是特朗普、特朗普、特朗普、特朗普。我想说的是，即使你反对特朗普，你仍然可以投票给我。”

候选人尚未明确表明立场的一个议题是人工智能的兴起及其可能带来的风险。

随着加州科技公司竞相推出更新、更先进的人工智能模型，一些加州政策制定者敦促该州出台新的安全保障措施。本月，纽森州长下令州政府各部门制定人工智能安全建议，并召集专家共同制定一系列政策建议。正在考虑的潜在政策之一是紧急关闭机制——如果人工智能公司的前沿模型出现故障，就相当于设置了一个“终止开关”。

贝塞拉提出了一项包含11项要点的全面计划，他表示将在州政府内部部署人工智能，“以减少审批延误、改善福利发放，并找到我们长期以来一直未能实现的效率提升途径”。贝塞拉的计划还呼吁建立一个“国家安全法规框架”。

他的计划中写道：“高标准和蓬勃发展的AI行业并不冲突，加州完全有能力制定黄金标准。”

希尔顿在 8 月份接受 Politico 采访时表示，人工智能公司加剧了人们对其产品的恐惧，并表示政府迄今为止“对某些危害的监管不足，例如对儿童和创意社区及其作品的危害，但我们却有可能对某些潜在的益处过度监管。”

候选人还可能面临这样的问题：近年来，其他州和国家通过税收优惠和更低的制作成本，将数万个工作岗位从加州吸引到好莱坞，加州该如何才能留住电视和电影制作？

加州最近将一项针对电视和电影制作的税收抵免计划的金额翻了一番，达到每年7.5亿美元。但希尔顿在接受Spectrum News采访时表示，这“完全不够”。

希尔顿正在推行一项名为“把好莱坞带回家”的提案，该提案包括“更有力”的税收抵免，以覆盖更多制作成本；加快这些抵免的审批速度；为小型制作预留资金；以及州长办公室工作人员专注于消除官僚主义的延误。

与此同时，贝塞拉表示，他将扩大加州的税收抵免范围，以涵盖更多制作成本，并加快电影和电视制作的地方和州级许可审批流程。他还表示，他将召开“加州娱乐峰会”，制定一项面向行业的公共计划，并要求流媒体内容平台与从业人员分享更多关于他们参与制作的产品表现的数据，以便“让从业人员拥有公平谈判所需的信息”。