California continues counting in nail-biter governor's race. What to know – USA Today

California will have to wait before knowing the final outcome of the June 2 gubernatorial primary election as the country’s most populous state continues counting ballots.
That’s because the Golden State’s deluge of mail-in ballots − coupled with a last-minute surge among liberal-leaning voters − will take time to count, officials say, which could stretch the results out for weeks as Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra are currently atop the heap.
State election officials notoriously begin processing ballots postmarked by Election Day after in-person voting ends. It might take weeks to know the final results, they warn.
“California elections officials prioritize the right to vote and election security over rushing the vote count,” said Secretary of State Shirley Weber in a June 2 news release. “We have a process that by law ensures both voting rights and the integrity of elections, so I would call on all Californians to be patient.”
At the moment, about 56% of the total votes have been counted, and the tally has Hilton, a former Fox News commentator, leading Becerra, a former Biden administration cabinet secretary, by one percentage point, according to the Associated Press.
Hilton holds 27.6% of the vote while Becerra, who surged in the campaign’s final stretch, sits at 25.6%. But nipping at their heels is Democrat Tom Steyer, a billionaire climate activist, who currently sits in third place with 19.6%.
“There’s about 3.5 million to 4 million votes still out there yet to be counted,” Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., a Sacramento-based bipartisan voter data firm, told USA TODAY. Mitchell estimates around 9 million voters, roughly fewer than 40% of California’s 23 million registered voters, participated in the primary. 
“We should definitely know more at least by Friday,” Mitchell said, adding that the 9 million voter participation is two million higher than the 2022 primary in which current Gov. Gavin Newsom easily sought reelection.
Here are the things to know as the country awaits California’s final primary results.
Presently, Steyer is out of the top two by almost 300,000 votes and would have to make up significant ground to catch up, considering he’s trailing Becerra in most counties, Mitchell said.
In a June 3 letter provided to USA TODAY, Steyer’s campaign reiterated the importance of counting each vote while urging supporters to make sure their ballot was accepted.
They have more than enough incentive. Steyer’s campaign alone spent more than $200 million, accounting for 64% of every dollar that was spent in the primary, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. 
“There’s still a lot that remains to be seen, and we’re going to give democracy time to work,” Steyer campaign manager Heather Hargreaves wrote in the letter.
“The most important thing you can do while we wait is to visit the state’s ballot tracker and verify that your ballot has been accepted,” Hargreaves added.
Because many uncertain Democratic voters waited to cast their ballots until Election Day rather than mail in their vote early, some Steyer supporters are holding out that Hilton’s current lead is a “red mirage,” where a GOP candidate takes an early lead that subsides as later ballots arrive.
But it just doesn’t seem likely to help Steyer’s chances, said Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at Menlo College in Silicon Valley. She said there’s typically pushback when it looks like “big money” well-funded folks like Steyer, or “big tech,” tries to influence the outcome of a campaign.
“I mean, it’s a long shot; it might be mathematically possible,” Michelson said about Steyer. “He surged early as a way to buy name recognition, but as Californians finally started tuning in and learning more about the candidates, he couldn’t close the deal.”
Mitchell said Steyer is facing tall odds of reaching the top two to surpass his primary challengers, who are likely to get more votes as well.
“He needs to make up about 14 to 15 percentage points, but we’re already more than 50% of all the ballots being counted,” Mitchell said. “Steyer not only needs to get about 30% of the remaining votes out there, but he needs for Becerra or Hilton to get about 6% less of those remaining votes.”
Michelson offers a very blunt assessment: “As I see it, the voters just don’t want him.” 
President Donald Trump, who endorsed Hilton, has long been a critic of mail-in voting and has on numerous occasions suggested, without evidence, that it’s used by Democrats to cheat in U.S. elections.
While some political observers are brushing off speculation that a deluge of ballots could allow Steyer to crawl into the top two, conservative activists are keeping a close watch.
“Let’s say they are planning on stealing this from you. Will you sue? What will be your action if there are suddenly ballot dumps that go 100% for Xavier or for Tom?” conservative podcast host Benny Johnson asked Hilton in a June 3 interview.
Hilton criticized how long the voting process takes in California, but he downplayed suggestions by the MAGA-coded media figure that any corruption was taking place.
“So far, we’re not seeing any signs of that,” he said.
Leading up to Election Day, the Democratic share of those later ballots, which often determine the outcome in California, was steadily increasing as liberal-leaning voters began to make their choice.
A month before the election, about 40% of the mail-in ballots were from registered Democrats, according to L2 Data, a nationwide voter data firm. That share grew to roughly 53% a week before the election.
But Hilton said his campaign remains “very confident” that there aren’t enough uncounted votes for his Democratic rivals to lock out the GOP this fall.
“Even if you do get that kind of effect, it’s not going to be enough to kick us out of the top two slots,” Hilton said.

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