California 2026 GOVERNOR FORECAST

2026 California Governor Forecast:

The Pollsmax 2026 California Governor forecast currently gives Democrat Xavier Becerra a 99.5% chance of defeating Republican Steve Hilton. Pollsmax projects Becerra to receive 62.4% of the vote compared with 37.7% for Hilton, a projected Democratic margin of 24.7 percentage points. The model currently rates the race as Solid Democratic. The forecast is updated using 100,000 simulations incorporating polling and race fundamentals. See the Pollsmax forecast methodology.

The 2026 California governor election features Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton. The governorship is open and is currently controlled by Democrats. In 2024, Kamala Harris won California by 20.1%, and Democrats are expected to easily retain the state's governorship in 2026. The race will test whether Becerra can keep California firmly in the Democratic column after Gavin Newsom's tenure or whether Hilton can make the open-seat race more competitive than the state's partisanship suggests. California is expected to remain safely Democratic, but the race will still be one of the highest-profile governor contests of the cycle.