California Candidates for Governor Offer Different Visions on Housing

The midterm elections are now just hours away, and California voters prepare to head to the polls to elect their next governor, with the state's housing shortage taking center stage.

The contest is among the highest-profile of the 36 gubernatorial races taking place across the U.S. this cycle.

Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, and Fox News contributor Steve Hilton, a Republican, are the front-runners vying to replace termed-out California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The Golden State's 41st governor will inherit an acute housing affordability crisis alongside a roster of state-specific challenges: a controversial billionaire tax proposal, persistent homelessness, an insurance market undermined by wildfire risk, and escalating policy battles surrounding artificial intelligence.

Everyday Californians' purchasing power continues to be severely squeezed by scarce buildable land, restrictive zoning rules, and slow permitting pace holding back new construction, exacerbated by high inflation and mortgage rates exceeding 7%.

On this year's Realtor.com® State-by-State Housing Report Card, part of the Let America Build campaign, California was among six states to earn an F grade due to its disastrous housing affordability score.

Local voter frustration is evident: A new survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found that roughly 6 out of 10 participants say the state is headed in the wrong direction.

Xavier Becerra's housing agenda

Becerra, 68, is heavily favored to win the governor's seat in the largely Democratic state, leading his GOP opponent by 27 points in the latest UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll.

If elected governor, Becerra pledges to declare a housing-shortage state of emergency on his first day in office and appoint senior staff across state agencies to tackle the crisis. 

His agenda also includes implementing "shot clocks" to clearly communicate permit wait times to developers, overhauling and lowering impact fees statewide, standardizing and streamlining reviews for modular construction, and simplifying affordable housing financing. 

"California should be a place where the carpenter who builds a home can afford to buy one," he said in a speech this summer. 

According to a new Realtor.com analysis of the latest available housing and American Community Survey data, the typical household in California earns 49% less than the income needed to finance a median-priced home—a shortfall of $98,292—making it the second-most unaffordable state in the nation behind Montana.  

Becerra has voiced support for building "missing-middle" multifamily housing, especially near transit hubs, and expanding first-time homebuyer down payment assistance programs to put homeownership within reach of more renters. 

On the issue of homelessness and homeless encampments, which has become a lightning rod for political candidates in California this election cycle, Becerra is laser-focused on prevention.

At an event in the East Bay last week, Becerra argued that keeping at-risk people housed after a medical emergency or a sudden job loss is far less costly to the state than rehousing them from the street, reported ABC 7 News (KGO).

"We have to do everything we can to prevent them from falling into homelessness," Becerra said.

His strategy includes bolstering tenant protections, expanding funding to organizations that have proven effective in addressing the homelessness crisis, and holding accountable those that have failed to act.

Steve Hilton's housing agenda

Hilton, 57, the Donald Trump–endorsed GOP hopeful for governor, has been aggressively pushing for the clearing of homeless encampments, vowing to rid the state of every single one by Dec. 31, 2027. 

Like his Democratic rival, Hilton has highlighted the need to cut through red tape constraining residential construction. However, his approach hinges on capping fees, permits, and regulation costs at $50,000 per new home to make it cheaper for developers to build.

"We have to get rid of the regulations that make it two or three times as expensive to build the exact same home in California as in neighboring states," said Hilton during a televised debate in May.

His housing platform also includes using over a million vacant lots to build starter homes and creating 10 new municipalities across California to expand housing supply instead of trying to shoehorn multifamily developments into single-family communities. 

“We have to stop trying to force housing into suburban neighborhoods where people don't want it," he proclaimed during the debate.

Despite their contrasting platforms, Hilton and Becerra are united in their fierce opposition to the California Billionaire Tax, officially known as Proposition 40, which Newsom had unsuccessfully tried to keep off the ballot.

Championed by a coalition of labor unions, the measure would impose a one-time tax of up to 5% on the worldwide assets of more than 200 Californians with a net worth of at least $1 billion who resided in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026.

Opponents of the initiative across the political spectrum have warned that it will accelerate an exodus of high net worth residents and tech innovators from California, diminishing the state's tax base. 

Speaking on "The Steve Hilton Show" in January, Hilton criticized Proposition 40 as the epitome of what he called the "stupidity and the failure of 16 years of one-party rule" in California that, if adopted, will "drive business out of state." 

For his part, Becerra dismissed the proposal as a "sketchy policy" and instead threw his support behind an alternative measure that would extend temporary tax rate increases on the ultrawealthy to reliably fund healthcare and public schools.

Voting has been underway in California since early October, and hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots have been processed ahead of Nov. 3.