Politics
Crisis in the Northwest: Drugs leave rural areas to rot in the shadows, ‘like playing Whac-A-Mole’
This story is part of a series examining the drug and homeless crises plaguing Oregon. Read part one and part two.
McMinnville, Ore. — Ramshackle RVs, nondescript sedans, shopping carts, bicycles, tents and tarps line a street on the edge of the city, bordered by an open field and, beyond that, the Yamhill River. A lonely dumpster, lid thrown open, sits amid piles of trash.
Deputies recently responded to three overdoses at the camp in one day. Another overdose call sent them racing to a logging road in the Coast Range, a 35-minute drive from the sheriff’s office. Much too long for them to reach the person in time.
“There’s nothing out there,” Yamhill County Sheriff Sam Elliott said. “They weren’t camping. They weren’t living up there. They just were up there specifically to smoke pills.”
Many Yamhill county encampments cluster near McMinnville. At about 35,000 residents, it’s one of the few cities in the area with services for homeless people or drug users seeking addiction treatment. (Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News Digital)
CRISIS IN THE NORTHWEST: ARE VOTERS ‘BEYOND A TURNING POINT’ AFTER DECADES OF PROGRESSIVE POLITICS?
Homelessness and the fentanyl crisis have impacted every corner of Oregon, but many people living outside the Portland metropolitan area feel neglected by state policymakers.
“It’s like playing Whac-A-Mole … with the number of challenges that counties are facing,” Association of Oregon Counties President Danielle Bethell said. From homelessness and addiction to affordability and a struggling workforce, she said rural communities have been “left out” of the conversation.
Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat who took office in January 2023, has made revitalizing downtown Portland one of her top priorities. Her task force recently released 10 recommendations for cleaning up and restoring economic vitality to the city. They included declaring a fentanyl emergency, bolstering police, expanding homeless shelter capacity, clearing trash and graffiti and putting a three-year pause on new taxes in Portland, which Kotek said was the second-highest taxed city in the country, behind only New York City.
The success of Portland is good for the entire economy of the state.
Rose City leaders welcome the governor’s ideas.
“Gov. Kotek knows what every governor has known before her — Portland is the economic center of our state,” Portland City Commissioner Dan Ryan said. “How Portland goes, goes the rest of the state.”
And things have not been going well in either Portland or the state as a whole.
“We have a crisis on our hands, and that’s easy to see,” Republican Rep. Lucetta Elmer said, whether you’re driving past the graffiti and tents in Portland and on I-5 or the zombie RVs in Yamhill County.
Most counties vote conservatively, but are consistently outnumbered by urban liberals. Voters in 30 of the state’s 36 counties opposed an ultimately successful gun control measure deemed America’s “most extreme” by the NRA — and currently held up by constitutional challenges. A slimmer majority of counties opposed Measure 110 in 2020, the state’s landmark drug decriminalization law now on the verge of being undone.
Only 29% of Oregonians polled by DHM Research last year said the state is headed in the right direction, a figure that dropped to 9% among Republicans.
PORTLAND LEADERS FRUSTRATED, SAY CITY ALLOWED TO SET HARSHER RULES FOR CIGARETTES THAN FENTANYL: ‘IT’S INSANE’
“We have drugs that are just rampant, and we’re seeing public drug use daily,” Elmer said. “Extreme homelessness and garbage everywhere. It’s unsafe and it’s unsightly, but it’s also heartbreaking because literally, our fellow citizens are dying.”
Kotek vowed to soften the urban rural divide in her inaugural address. In September, she signed a bill dedicating more than $26 million to expand shelter capacity in 26 rural counties. She also visited every Oregon county during her first year in office and said in an August press conference that “everyone cares about what’s happening in Portland.”
“They know that the success of Portland is good for the entire economy of the state. It is our entry point for tourists,” she said. “So we believe that this focus allows us to make progress, and it’s going to benefit the entire metro area, the entire city, as well as the entire state.”
Kotek’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
President Biden introduces then-gubernatorial candidate Tina Kotek during an event at SEIU Local 49 in Portland, Oregon, Oct. 14, 2022. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Her critics have not been swayed.
Elmer hosted a roundtable in December to hear from leaders in her district, which includes most of Yamhill County. Overwhelmingly, she said they told her they wanted to see Kotek’s 10-point plan go beyond Portland.
“They want to see it get to all of Oregon,” she said. “They’re crying for that. We need to see that things are going to change.”
And what works in Portland might not work in counties where cows outnumber people.
“Commissioners are frustrated,” Bethell said. “We’re eagerly awaiting our turn to be at the table.”
RURAL OREGON STRUGGLES TO CONTAIN FENTANYL CRISIS:
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Sheriff Elliott grew up in Yamhill County and has worked in law enforcement there for more than two decades. Though hardly the most rural area in the state — some counties have less than one resident per square mile — it’s the kind of place where the nearest deputy could be one minute or one hour away from an emergency. A place with sprawling vineyards and vegetable fields, where the acronym BLM usually refers to land owned by the federal government and not a social justice movement.
Dormant winter farmland flashed by as Elliott drove along Highway 18, broken up by the occasional lumber mill with logs stacked high and finished boards strapped to flatbeds.
Yamhill County is home to densely forested hills and sprawling vineyards. Its two biggest cities, McMinnville and Newberg, are at the epicenter of Oregon’s wine production. (George Rose/Getty Images)
Drugs, mostly methamphetamine, have always been a problem, he said. Then deputies started to find people cutting up fentanyl pain patches and chewing them. Elliott recalled arresting a man who had a fentanyl pain patch stuck to his chest for driving under the influence.
But that was nothing compared to what happened once the “blues” — counterfeit pills — showed up. The number of fentanyl pills seized by Oregon and Idaho police soared from about 100,000 in 2019, to more than 3.6 million last year, according to preliminary data from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA). Police who participate in the HIDTA reported finding more than 180 kg (nearly 400 lbs) of fentanyl powder in 2023.
“Fentanyl has a nexus to a lot of what we do day in and day out,” Elliott said. “Whether it’s responding to burglaries and thefts, finding that it’s people supporting habits, or people that are suffering overdoses.”
All deputies carry overdose-reversing naloxone and use it regularly, like on a man who was smoking off a piece of foil while driving and crashed. He took off running after a deputy revived him, was ultimately caught, but then started overdosing again in the back of the police car. Jail staff gave three doses of Narcan to a man who started overdosing just after being booked.
Someone burned suspected fentanyl in a bathroom at Willamina High School last year. At least one student, as well as the deputy who went to investigate the smell, felt sick and went to the hospital. Elmer said the incident “sent alarm bells ringing” in the small, tight-knit community.
The drugs don’t distinguish between a user in downtown Portland and a user up in the rural part of the county.
Support for drug decriminalization has crumbled. While 58% of voters approved Measure 110 in 2020, polls show up to 74% of respondents now favor recriminalizing possession of fentanyl, heroin and meth and making treatment required, not voluntary, as an alternative to jail.
While it’s difficult to determine how much Measure 110 contributed to the state’s addiction crisis, Elliott said decriminalization has taken away one of law enforcement’s best tools to coerce people into treatment: drug courts.
Numerous surveys show Oregonians support re-criminalizing hard drugs and making treatment mandatory, not voluntary, in order to avoid jail time. (Ramiro Vargas/Fox News Digital)
VOTERS’ REMORSE: BLUE STATE SURVEY SHOWS MAJORITY WANT TO RE-CRIMINALIZE DRUGS: ‘WE MADE AN ENORMOUS MISTAKE’
“Even when simple possession of methamphetamine was a felony, those people did not wind up with felony convictions,” he said, “because they went through drug court, because they followed through with the stipulations of their supervision.”
Measure 110 also diverted hundreds of millions of dollars in marijuana tax revenue to pay for addiction services. But decriminalization took effect in February 2021, before any of those dollars could be put to use. Three years later, even urban hubs like Portland still lack adequate detox and treatment facilities. Resources are spread thinner yet in rural communities.
“One of the biggest frustrations that I hear … is that there’s nothing out here for individuals that are drug affected,” Elliott said. “It’s just too great of a distance for people in the rural parts of the county most of the time to be able to access those services … when it’s raining and it’s cold outside and they don’t have reliable transportation.”
Yamhill County Sheriff Sam Elliott serves a rural area in Oregon where fentanyl has taken hold. He says it serves as a “nexus” for many of the crimes and emergency calls his deputies respond to. (Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News Digital)
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are attempting to re-criminalize drug possession, though they disagree on how severely they’re willing to punish drug users who refuse treatment. Many local leaders hope they’ll also pass legislation allowing cities to ban public drug use, much in the same way they treat alcohol and marijuana.
Elliott hopes those policies will be “good for the entire state, not just for the Portland metropolitan area.”
“The drugs don’t distinguish between a user in downtown Portland and a user up in the rural part of the county,” Elliott said. “We deal with the same problems that they do … it just looks a little bit different when you’re spread out over a large area.”
Tucker Carlson, who was often at Donald J. Trump’s side during the 2024 presidential campaign, is now expressing remorse for that support, saying he will long be “tormented” by his role helping Mr. Trump return to the White House.
Mr. Carlson, a titan of conservative media who has broken sharply with Mr. Trump over the war with Iran, acknowledged that he was part of the “reason this is happening right now,” referring to the conflict.
“It’s not enough to say, well, I changed my mind — or like, oh, this is bad, I’m out,” Mr. Carlson said in an episode of his podcast released Monday.
“It’s a moment to wrestle with our own consciences,” Mr. Carlson said on the podcast, speaking with his brother, Buckley, a former speechwriter for Mr. Trump. “We’ll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be. And I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people.”
Mr. Carlson, a former Fox News host and a longtime opponent of American foreign interventions, has feuded with Mr. Trump and his allies for weeks over the war, which most Americans oppose, according to opinion polls.
He appeared particularly appalled by a threat Mr. Trump made to Iran on social media on Easter Sunday that the country would be “living in hell” if it did not open the Strait of Hormuz, the vital shipping route that has been clogged during the war. After the post, Mr. Carlson urged White House officials to stand up to the president, saying that Mr. Trump’s behavior was “evil.”
Mr. Trump fired back at Mr. Carlson and other conservative critics of the war in a lengthy Truth Social post two weeks ago, describing them as “Fools” and suggesting that Mr. Carlson should “see a good psychiatrist.” In the post, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Carlson, who was dismissed by Fox News in 2023, had “never been the same” after he left the network.
Asked for comment on Mr. Carlson’s remarks, the White House pointed to Mr. Trump’s social media commentary.
On Friday, Mr. Trump continued to lob insults at Mr. Carlson on social media, writing that “Tucker is a Low IQ person — Always easy to beat, and highly overrated.”
One of the president’s allies, the far-right activist Laura Loomer, wrote on social media on Monday that Mr. Carlson was “trying to hand our country over to the Democrats.”
Mr. Carlson, a right-wing brawler prone to spreading conspiratorial views, was once Fox News’s most popular prime-time host, and his TV program was all but mandatory for many conservatives during Mr. Trump’s first term.
But he was ousted by Fox News after it agreed to pay $787.5 million to resolve a lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s promotion of 2020 election misinformation. The case exposed instances in which Mr. Carlson denigrated colleagues and privately attacked Mr. Trump. In a text from Jan. 4, 2021, that the case surfaced, Mr. Carlson wrote of Mr. Trump, “I hate him passionately.”
By 2024, Mr. Carlson had re-emerged as a popular podcaster and smoothed out tensions with Mr. Trump. Mr. Carlson was among those who lobbied Mr. Trump to choose JD Vance as his running mate.
When Mr. Trump made a dramatic appearance at the Republican National Convention in July 2024, days after he was shot in the ear at a rally in Butler, Pa., Mr. Carlson was the first person to greet him.
Cameras later captured the two chuckling together in Mr. Trump’s box at the convention in Milwaukee. From the stage of the convention, Mr. Carlson described Mr. Trump as “the funniest person I have ever met in my life.”
“He’s a wonderful person,” Mr. Carlson said. “I know him well.”
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Democrats scored a major victory Tuesday when Virginia voters passed a congressional redistricting referendum that could give the party a significant boost in the battle for the U.S. House of Representatives majority in this year’s midterm elections, The Associated Press reported at 8:49 p.m. ET Tuesday.
The ballot measure gives the Democrat-controlled Virginia legislature — rather than the state’s current nonpartisan commission — temporary redistricting power through the 2030 election. It could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge.
That would give the Democrats four additional left-leaning U.S. House seats ahead of the midterms as the party tries to win back control of the chamber from the GOP, which currently holds a razor-thin majority.
The standalone spring referendum capped months of political crossfire and court battles, sky-high early voting turnout and tons of national attention and money poured into the ballot box showdown.
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Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger speaks during a Virginians For Fair Elections canvassing event in Woodbridge, Va., on April 18, 2026. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Even though a majority of voters gave the ballot initiative a thumbs-up, it still faces legal challenges.
The Supreme Court of Virginia allowed the referendum to move forward after a lower court struck it down. But legal challenges to the referendum remain unresolved and are still before Virginia’s highest court.
Republicans had railed against the Democrat-backed referendum.
“It’s the most partisan map in America,” former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin told supporters at his final campaign stop in northern Virginia on the eve of the election.
Pointing to the Democrats pushing new maps, Youngkin charged, “What they are doing is immoral.”
Teaming up with Youngkin to crisscross the state in leading the GOP opposition to the ballot initiative was former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, who told the crowd the Democrats’ map is one that “you draw when you’re drunk with power.”
BATTLE FOR THE HOUSE RUNS THROUGH VIRGINIA AS COURT OKS HIGH-STAKES REDISTRICTING VOTE
Former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, right, and former state Attorney General Jason Miyares lead a chant of “no” as they lead Republican efforts to defeat a Democrat-backed congressional redistricting referendum April 20, 2026, in Leesburg, Va. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)
Speaking with Fox News Digital ahead of their final election eve rally, Miyares charged that “Democrats want to take away the voices of millions of Virginians and gerrymander the state.”
Youngkin, pointing to the duo’s relentless campaigning in recent weeks, said, “What we’re hearing over and over and over again is Virginians want fair maps. And what the yes vote represents are unfair maps.”
And the two Republicans reiterated their charge that the referendum was an “unconstitutional power grab” by Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger and the Democrats who control the state legislature.
As Youngkin and Miyares spoke in Leesburg, President Donald Trump took to the airwaves on a popular Virginia-based conservative talk show and later teamed up with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to urge voters to defeat the referendum.
Pointing to congressional Democrats, Trump warned that “if they get these additional seats, they’re going to be making changes at the federal level.”
SPANBERGER FACES ‘BAIT AND SWITCH’ BACKLASH AHEAD OF CRUCIAL ELECTION
President Donald Trump headlined a tele town hall on the eve of Virginia’s congressional redistricting referendum urging voters to cast a ballot against the initiative. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Democrats countered that the redrawing of the maps was a necessary step to balance partisan gerrymandering already implemented by Republicans in other states at Trump’s urging.
“By voting yes, you have the chance to do something important — not just for the commonwealth, but for our entire country,” former President Barack Obama said in a video released Friday on the eve of the final day of early voting. “By voting yes, you can push back against the Republicans trying to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms.
“By voting yes, you can take a temporary step to level the playing field. And we’re counting on you.”
The video by Obama was the former president’s latest effort for the referendum. He had previously appeared in ads released by Virginians for Fair Elections, the Democrat-aligned group working to pass the ballot initiative.
OBAMA GOES ALL IN ON HIGH-STAKES REFERENDUM THAT MAY IMPACT MIDTERM ELECTIONS
But Virginians for Fair Maps, the leading Republican-aligned group opposing redistricting, used past comments by Obama against political gerrymandering in its ads opposing the referendum.
“Because of things like political gerrymandering, our parties have moved further and further apart, and it’s harder and harder to find common ground,” the former president said in an old clip showcased in the spot.
Republicans pointed to comments from Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, a former Virginia governor and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, who acknowledged over the weekend in a “Fox News Sunday” interview that the new maps don’t represent Virginia’s partisan breakdown.
“Ninety percent of Virginians are not Democrats, that’s true,” Kaine said.
But Kaine added that “about 100% of Virginians want election results to be respected.”
SOROS-BACKED GROUP AMONG LIBERAL ORGS PUMPING EYE-POPPING CASH INTO VIRGINIA GERRYMANDERING EFFORT
And Republicans took aim at Spanberger, who won November’s gubernatorial election by over 15 points as Democrats also captured the lieutenant governor and attorney general offices.
“Abigail Spanberger told everybody last summer that she had no interest in redistricting, and then the first bill she signs is a bill to enable the gerrymandering of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginians don’t like this and that’s why independents and a lot of Democrats are voting no too,” Youngkin told Fox News Digital.
Minutes later, Youngkin told the crowd that Spanberger is “trying to disenfranchise millions, millions of Virginians.”
Republicans trained their redistricting firepower on Spanberger since a poll two weeks ago by The Washington Post indicated that the new governor’s approval rating was barely above water, with the highest unfavorable rating for a new Virginia governor in two decades.
“She’s an unpopular governor with an unpopular agenda, and she lied to the voters,” Miyares charged.
Former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, left, and former state Attorney General Jason Miyares, speak with Fox News Digital on the eve of Virginia’s congressional redistricting referendum in Leesburg, Va., April 20, 2026 (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)
And Miyares and other top Republicans accused Spanberger of pulling a “bait and switch.”
Spanberger, in an ad in support of the referendum, said she was backing the measure because “it’s directly in response to what other states decide to do and a president who says he’s quote entitled to more Republican seats before this year’s midterms. Our approach is different. It’s temporary. It preserves Virginia’s fair redistricting process into the future.”
Supporters of redistricting dramatically outraised and outspent groups opposed to the referendum, with Virginians for Fair Elections outraising Virginians for Fair Maps by a roughly three-to-one margin. Much of the funding raised by both sides came from so-called “dark money” from nonprofit public policy groups known as 501(c)(4) organizations that are not required to disclose their donors.
Despite the Democrats’ funding advantage, recent polling suggested support for the ballot initiative was only slightly ahead of opposition amid a surge in early voting, which ended on Saturday.
“They have outspent us three to one. They’ve raised over $70 million. And yet this is a close vote,” Youngkin said.
Pointing to the ads in support of the referendum, Youngkin said Virginians “aren’t believing the mistruths. They aren’t believing the lies on TV. They’re actually doing the work themselves and understanding that a no vote is for fair maps and a yes vote is for the most gerrymandered maps in America.”
And Miyares emphasized that Democrats “outspent us, but we have the truth.”
Virginia is the latest battleground in the high-stakes fight between Trump and the GOP and Democrats over congressional redistricting.
Aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterms, Trump last spring first floated the idea of rare, but not unheard of, mid-decade congressional redistricting.
The mission was simple: redraw congressional district maps in red states to pad the GOP’s fragile House majority to keep control of the chamber in the midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.
When asked by reporters last summer about his plan to add Republican-leaning House seats across the country, the president said, “Texas will be the biggest one. And that’ll be five.”
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas called a special session of the GOP-dominated state legislature to pass the new map.
But Democratic state lawmakers, who broke quorum for two weeks as they fled Texas in a bid to delay the passage of the redistricting bill, energized Democrats across the country.
Among those leading the fight against Trump’s redistricting was Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during an election night news conference at a California Democratic Party office in Sacramento Nov. 4, 2025. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo)
California voters in November overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative that temporarily sidetracked the left-leaning state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and returned the power to draw the congressional maps to the Democratic-dominated legislature.
That is expected to result in five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California, which aimed to counter the move by Texas to redraw their maps.
The fight quickly spread beyond Texas and California.
Republican-controlled Missouri and Ohio and swing state North Carolina, where the GOP dominates the legislature, have drawn new maps as part of the president’s push.
In blows to Republicans, a Utah district judge late last year rejected a congressional district map drawn by the state’s GOP-dominated legislature and instead approved an alternate that will create a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the midterms.
Republicans in Indiana’s Senate in December defied Trump, shooting down a redistricting bill that had passed the state House. The showdown in the Indiana statehouse grabbed plenty of national attention.
Florida is next up.
Two-term Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and state lawmakers in the GOP-dominated legislature are hoping to pick up an additional three to five right-leaning seats through a redistricting push during a special legislative session that kicks off April 28.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a news conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., July 22, 2025. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service)
Hovering over the redistricting wars is the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule in Louisiana v. Callais, a crucial case that may lead to the overturning of a key provision in the Voting Rights Act.
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If the ruling goes the way of the conservatives on the high court, it could lead to the redrawing of a slew of majority-minority districts across the county, which would greatly favor Republicans.
But it is very much up in the air when the court will rule and what it will actually decide.
Xavier Becerra, a former Cabinet secretary in President Biden’s administration, appears to be surging in the wildly unsettled California governor’s race.
Until recently, the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary had been mired in the single digits in polling to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom and lead the nation’s most populous state.
But after former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) dropped out of the race earlier this month amid accusations of sexual assault and other misconduct, Becerra has seen a boost in polls, fundraising and endorsements.
On Tuesday, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas endorsed Becerra alongside 14 Democratic members of the legislative body.
Arguing that Californians are under constant threat from President Trump’s policies, Rivas cited Becerra’s decades-long record in public office, including defending Obamacare and young immigrants, or “Dreamers,” to argue that Becerra is best positioned to lead the state.
“There’s no time to learn on the job — we need a governor who’s ready to fight back on day one,” Rivas said in a statement, noting that Becerra sued the Trump administration 122 times while he was California’s attorney general. “We have a strong Democratic field for governor. But right now, we need someone ready on day one. Xavier Becerra is that leader.”
Becerra said he was honored to receive the legislators’ backing.
“I look forward to working with the Speaker and legislators on Day One to tackle the problems Californians care about most — from the skyrocketing cost of groceries and housing to our unyielding fight against the Trump Administration’s disastrous policies,” he said in a prepared statement. “Californians need an experienced and trusted leader who doesn’t need on-the-job training.”
The endorsements come at a critical moment in the governor’s race — just two weeks before ballots begin arriving in Californians’ mailboxes. In addition to Swalwell dropping out, former state Controller Betty Yee ended her bid on Monday because of a lack of resources. On Tuesday, Yee endorsed hedge fund founder turned environmental warrior Tom Steyer.
She said in a video that she was backing Steyer because of his “standing up our democracy and getting young people involved, certainly with respect to our climate and the climate crisis we’re facing.”
Becerra and Steyer are now the Democratic front-runners in the race.
Despite Becerra’s long tenure in state and federal office, the unflashy politician is not well-known among California voters. He was among the underdogs in the 2026 gubernatorial race. Swalwell, by contrast, was among the leading Democratic candidates.
Amy Thoma, a former Republican strategist who is no longer affiliated with a political party, noted that Becerra’s surge comes at a critical moment in the election, shortly before ballots land in Californians’ mailboxes.
“Voters are starting to tune into the race. Yes, they want someone who will stand up to Trump, but it also seems they want someone with experience who can address the very real issues facing the state,” Thoma said.
She added that Becerra’s life story is “incredibly compelling.”
“The word authentic is overused, but every time he talks about his love for this state, for his family and wanting to make California work for everyone, it comes across incredibly sincere,” Thoma said. “Voters can see through candidates who fake it.”
Becerra was respected by colleagues across the aisle, including former GOP legislative leader and state Republican party chairman Jim Brulte. Both men were elected to the state Assembly in 1990 and though their politics often sharply differed. However, they had a warm relationship.
“He was progressive and I am a conservative,” Brulte said. “We never agreed much on policy, but he is a good man with a great heart.”
The 2026 governor’s race has been unlike any in recent memory, with no clear front-runner in a crowded field of candidates and voters just beginning to pay attention to the contest shortly before the June 2 primary.
There were two prominent Republicans and eight prominent Democrats in the race, leading to fears among Democratic leaders in the state that their party’s candidates could be shut out in the general election because of California’s unique primary system. The two candidates who win the most votes in the June 2 primary will move on to the November general election, regardless of party affiliation.
Democratic leaders remain concerned that despite California’s sapphire-blue tilt, the number of their party’s candidates in the race could lead to a splintering of Democratic voters that results in two Republicans advancing to the November ballot.
Six prominent Democrats remain in the race, after Swalwell and Yee dropped out.
The race — lacking a global superstar such as Arnold Schwarzenegger or the scion of a storied political family and former governor like Jerry Brown — is ephemeral. Anything can happen before the June 2 primary.
But Becerra is having a moment. In addition to the new endorsements, he has seen notable movement in polls, most recently in a survey released Monday by the state Democratic Party. Becerra jumped nine points from the party’s last poll, tying Steyer at 13%.
While Becerra will never be able to match Steyer’s deep pockets, he raised more than $1 million on ActBlue, the top Democratic fundraising platform, in the week ending Saturday, making him the biggest fundraiser on the site in the nation.
“Ninety-seven percent were first-time donors,” Becerra’s campaign said in a statement. “This is not a donor base being recycled. It is a movement being born.”
Times staff writer Nicole Nixon contributed to this report from Sacramento.
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