Four takeaways from first debate in 2026 California governor’s race

SAN FRANCISCO —  Four of the top Democrats running for California governor met Sunday morning for the first major candidate forum of the 2026 election, a cordial discussion with few fireworks and almost no jabs at the politician they hope to succeed, Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The forum in downtown San Francisco, sponsored by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, featured gubernatorial candidates Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, state Sen. Toni Atkins of San Diego and former state Controller Betty Yee.

The event, livestreamed on the Los Angeles Times website, was held very early in the 2026 gubernatorial campaign, just over a month before the high-stakes 2024 presidential election. Even more candidates for California’s highest office are expected to jump into the race in the months ahead.

The forum was also missing one of the best-known Democrats in the race, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The union said Villaraigosa was invited but declined to attend.

Do you agree with Newsom?

The four candidates were repeatedly pressed over Newsom’s track record and how they may govern differently. They mostly sided with Newsom — and with each other — including on the death penalty (they all oppose it) and California’s policy to phase out the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035 (they all support it).

All four also said they would sign legislation granting striking workers access to state unemployment benefits, a top priority for California’s powerful organized labor movement. Newsom vetoed a similar bill last year, saying that expanding benefits would make the unemployment trust fund “vulnerable to insolvency.”

The candidates were divided on whether California should have allowed school districts to determine when they reopened during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to public schools in some urban areas remaining closed for months longer than private schools and schools in more rural areas.

Kounalakis, Thurmond and Yee said they would have handled the situation differently than Newsom. Atkins said she wasn’t sure, saying: “It’s easy to Monday morning quarterback now. ... We know more today than we did then.”

Single-payer healthcare

The moderators pressed the candidates on their positions on healthcare policy, of particular interest to the audience of a union that represents about 19,000 California healthcare workers, including nurses and pharmacists.

All four candidates said, to varying degrees, that they would pursue a single-payer healthcare system, which would cover all Californians and dramatically reshape the state’s medical coverage.

All said they were awaiting a January 2025 report required by Senate Bill 770, a measure Newsom signed into law last fall that requires the state’s health secretary to begin talking to the federal government about a waiver to allocate federal Medicaid and Medicare funds toward a state-run health system.

Legislative analysts estimated earlier this year that a single-payer system could cost $392 billion per year.

Thurmond said California does not have a single-payer system because “people don’t have the political will to bring it forward.” Atkins, who authored a 2017 bill that would have created a single-payer system, said she is waiting to see the waiver options presented through SB 770, and that “you can’t make that system happen overnight.”

After the panel, Yee said in an interview that her support for a single-payer system will depend in part on the findings from SB 770.

“I think a unified financing system makes sense,” Yee said. “Whether it’s single-payer — that’s the question.”

The last time California had a competitive governor’s race, the same question made sparks fly: At the NUHW’s 2017 candidate forum, Villaraigosa and Newsom clashed over state-sponsored, single-payer healthcare.

Villaraigosa said he supported the concept of single-payer healthcare but cautioned that politicians who pushed the concept were “selling snake oil.” He said politicians like Newsom underestimated the complexities of creating the new system and didn’t know how to pay for it.

Newsom dismissed Villaraigosa’s concerns, saying fighting for single-payer healthcare was a “question of leadership” and that he wouldn’t wait for Congress to act. Newsom won the union’s endorsement, and the governor’s race in 2018, but has not implemented a single-payer healthcare system.

Housing, homelessness and the California exodus

All four candidates said their top priority to address California’s soaring cost of living would be building more housing.

Kounalakis pointed to her two decades of experience in real estate development before she entered politics, saying she helped build planned communities for 200,000 people. With local governments, she said, the “pushback against us being able to build housing was enormous.”

“It’s time to have someone in the governor’s office who’s actually built things,” Kounalakis said.

Yee called for an expansion of local zoning to add more housing capacity, and said she would push for a “permanent, steady source of financing for affordable housing.”

Forum panelist Laurel Rosenhall, The Times’ California politics editor, asked the candidates what homelessness policy they would support that Newsom has not already tried. She said that Newsom spent more than $20 billion on the crisis but has seen the number of homeless Californians rise.

Yee said she would like to see more spending to prevent people from sliding into homelessness. She cited a poll from UC San Francisco which found that 83% of older homeless adults believed a one-time payment of $5,000 to $10,000 would have staved off homelessness, which is “certainly a lot less than what we’ve been putting forth in our budgets.”

Thurmond said California has 240,000 homeless students, 10,000 of whom are unaccompanied minors. He said he would like to see subsidized housing with wraparound support to help students go to class and find work.

Crime in California

Three of the four candidates avoided trying to take a position on Proposition 36, an initiative on the November ballot that would impose stricter sentences for repetitive theft and offenses involving the deadly drug fentanyl.

The measure has been the focus of intense debate this year as Republicans and law enforcement advocates have called to unwind some parts of Proposition 47. The criminal justice reform measure, which voters approved a decade ago, downgraded some felonies to misdemeanors and has been blamed for an increase in organized retail theft and “smash and grab” robberies.

Thurmond said his vote is “still to be determined.” Kounalakis said she has made up her mind, but wanted to keep her vote private.

Atkins said she will “likely” vote no. She said she worried that ballot measures craft laws that are “in stone, and the only way you can undo it is to go back to the people,” and said she supported a package of retail theft bills that passed the Legislature in August.

Yee said Proposition 36 is “wrongheaded,” and she planned to vote no, adding: “It is setting up false promises about how we want to deal with the issue of public safety in general.”

Will they or won’t they?

In a state where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by nearly a 2-to-1 margin, Democrats are expected to dominate the 2026 statewide contest to replace Newsom, who is finishing his second term and cannot run again. No Republican has won a statewide election in California since 2006.

Other Democrats potentially could enter the race, including California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta; Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine), who lost her bid for the U.S. Senate in March; and developer Rick Caruso, who ran for Los Angeles mayor in 2022, losing to Karen Bass.

Several Republicans are also said to be weighing campaigns , including Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton.