What to know about the California governor’s race
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2026
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and KQED correspondent Guy Marzorati.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And KQED's Guy Marzorati is here with us. Hey, Guy. Hey, great to be with you both. |
| 0:16.6 | So glad to have you on the pod because today on the show, we are talking about California's primary, which is one week from today. |
| 0:25.1 | There's a crowded race for governor and a race for L.A. mayor that's getting national attention. |
| 0:30.8 | Guy, let's start with the governor's race. |
| 0:33.5 | And I think we also just have to start by explaining that California has a top two primary system. |
| 0:39.3 | Yeah, unique primary system. All the candidates, regardless of party, all 62 of them in the case of the governor's race, are on the ballot together. |
| 0:48.2 | 62? It's California. |
| 0:51.0 | It's a long, I've got the ballot in the mail. It's many, many pages. |
| 0:56.0 | But regardless of party, the top two finishers in that primary advance of the general election, |
| 1:02.0 | it's looking more and more like kind of three candidates competing for two spots, |
| 1:07.0 | Republican, Steve Hilton, and then two Democrats, Javier Bicera and Tom Steyer. And really, |
| 1:12.2 | it's those two Democrats kind of closely divided in the polls competing for a spot in November. |
| 1:18.5 | Tell us a little bit about these candidates. What should we know about them? What is their pitch? |
| 1:24.5 | Yeah, so Steve Hilton, the leading Republican, he's actually a former |
| 1:28.0 | advisor to David Cameron, the former UK prime minister. He then moved to the U.S. and became a |
| 1:34.3 | Fox News host and a commentator. Javier Bicera, you know, he was the state's former attorney |
| 1:40.8 | general. There's a long history of AGs here becoming governor. They call it |
| 1:45.2 | the position AG aspiring governor. Earl Warren, Pat Brown, George Duke Magee, and Jerry Brown, |
| 1:51.4 | they all served as attorney general and then went on to win the governorship in California. |
| 1:55.7 | But Sarah also has a tenure as Health and Human Services Secretary in the Biden administration. |
| 2:01.6 | And then Tom Steyer, who is an investor, a Democrat who made billions of dollars as a hedge fund manager. |
| 2:08.6 | He's running on a platform of really progressive policies and also has an incredible amount of money behind him. |
... |
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