Politics
What Remains of U.S.A.I.D. After DOGE’s Budget Cuts?
As the United States Agency for International Development was being dismantled in early February, aid workers and officials in Washington and around the world set out to salvage what they could.
In the months since, there has been a widespread and under-the-radar effort to retain and restore some of the agency’s most critical work — including some projects favored by those who had the administration’s ear, a New York Times investigation shows.
Former President George W. Bush, who created the H.I.V./AIDS prevention program known as PEPFAR, called Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Leadership at the World Food Program called senators and ambassadors, and they said that millions of hungry people would die. Aid workers and foreign officials found programs that could be said to align with Mr. Trump’s America First agenda and flagged them for Republicans to pass on to the White House with a request to reinstate them.
The shell of U.S.A.I.D that is left today is the result of this chorus of pleas and negotiations, and of hasty decisions made by political leaders, many of whom had little experience in foreign aid.
Remaining U.S.A.I.D programs by sector
The overhaul was a far cry from the comprehensive review to evaluate aid programs and realign them with U.S. foreign policy that Mr. Trump promised on his first day in office.
Aid workers said different departments frantically drafted their own lists of awards to keep or restore, but no one seemed to be looking at the big picture. Sometimes Mr. Rubio would sign off on a decision, only for staffers from Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency or other political appointees to determine the opposite. The piecemeal approach, aid workers said, ignored the reality that some programs relied on others to function.
U.S.A.I.D. employees and officials — including members of Congress who are supposed to provide oversight of the agency’s work — have said they are still struggling to decipher the administration’s goals for foreign aid.
This account is based on 70 interviews and dozens of internal documents and correspondence, and an analysis of both public and internal award databases.
As a share of each country’s funding before cuts
Where U.S.A.I.D. funding remains
The remaining awards are designed to address acute disease, hunger and other emergencies, and not areas like education, governance or jobs that are supposed to help countries avoid crises in the first place. Aid workers and experts said this is a short-sighted way to handle foreign aid that reflects a deep misunderstanding of the agency’s work and will have long-term consequences for Americans.
“You know what is not efficient? Putting out fires,” said Laura Meissner, a former U.S.A.I.D. contractor, whose work to manage humanitarian aid in multiple countries was terminated. “It’s way cheaper to stabilize people so they can weather the storm than to wait until they are destitute and their kids are malnourished.”
No rhyme or reason
In February, Elon Musk appeared in an X Spaces event in part to discuss DOGE’s work at U.S.A.I.D. “You have just got to get rid of the whole thing,” he said.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who helped create DOGE, was also on the call and offered a solution: “Let’s say something is cut that the people of this country just demand needs to exist again. It can always be voted back into existence.”
Mr. Musk agreed. “Well said, Vivek.”
Demands to return funding to certain U.S.A.I.D. programs were already underway.
The day after Mr. Musk’s talk, Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas, publicly urged Mr. Rubio to move American-grown food aid that was stuck in U.S. ports with no funding for shipment. In the weeks to follow, U.S. shippers and farmers met with members of Congress to explain the value of their lifesaving programs.
Many U.S.A.I.D.-supported organizations, including Catholic Relief Services and Mercy Corps, spoke with members of Congress. Several award recipients, including faith-based groups, had private meetings with Pete Marocco, who was managing the agency for Mr. Rubio. Other aid organizations sued the administration.
These efforts were far more frantic than standard lobbying on Capitol Hill. At the same time, U.S.A.I.D. staff members were pushing Trump-appointed officials inside the agency to restore dozens of terminated awards that provided lifesaving food or medicine or kept employees safe overseas.
Political leaders, who had told employees that they knew little about the agency’s programs, acknowledged in late February that some of these awards might have been cut in error, according to internal emails reviewed by The Times.
Then on March 2, a former U.S.A.I.D. official who oversaw global health programs leaked memos that estimated millions would suffer or die from disease if programs did not resume. Over the next day, more than 300 awards were restored, according to internal documents reviewed by The Times. More than 100 more would be “unterminated” in the days to follow.
A timeline of restored U.S.A.I.D. programs
Over several weeks, officials reinstated programs in reaction to external pressure, global events and specific interest groups.
The newly restored awards included U.S.-grown emergency food aid, disaster preparedness, programs to combat H.I.V./AIDS and malaria, and several awards in Jordan and Cuba.
A senior State Department official who was not authorized to speak publicly said that agency leaders had conducted a faster review than originally planned, after a federal judge ordered officials to reverse the president’s freeze on foreign aid programs.
The official added that recalibrations should be an expected part of any major overhaul and noted that a vast majority of the termination decisions remained in place. The agency declined to make officials available for an on-the-record interview.
U.S.A.I.D. staff members said they felt there was no rhyme or reason to any of it.
The idea was to destroy everything, said a global health security expert at U.S.A.I.D., who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, as did most aid workers and other officials interviewed for this article. If someone complained, they would bring it back.
Smaller, local organizations were largely absent from the restorations. Without people in Washington to speak up for them, many were left behind.
“Many were wholly dependent on U.S.A.I.D.,” said Tom Hart, the president of InterAction, an alliance of global nongovernmental organizations. “Suddenly pulling the rug from beneath them hurts the idea of helping countries reach self-reliance, a goal the first Trump administration rightly sought.”
Not about fraud, inefficiency or cost
Despite its claims that “waste and abuse run deep” at U.S.A.I.D., the administration did not prioritize keeping programs that work to reduce fraud.
Instead, officials canceled contracts designed to prevent abuse, including awards for inspectors to watch over aid delivery in high-risk locations in more than a dozen countries.
Cost savings was not a significant factor in the administration’s decision making, either. In March, Mr. Rubio announced that officials had cut about 83 percent of the programs at U.S.A.I.D., but, in dollar terms, they cut programs that were worth less than half of the agency’s obligations.
Officials kept some of U.S.A.I.D.’s largest commitments and cut thousands of less expensive ones, an analysis of multiyear grants and contracts shows. The median kept award was worth $6 million, and 40 percent of these awards were worth $10 million or more.
Some were worth billions. For example, the Washington-based private development firm Chemonics retained two awards for global health supply chains focused on H.I.V. and malaria, worth over $6 billion and $2 billion, respectively.
The median cut award, by contrast, was worth just over $1 million. About a third of the cut awards were worth $100,000 or less.
In March, Mr. Marocco told officials privately that he planned to save $125 billion by cutting programs at both U.S.A.I.D. and the State Department. All together, the canceled awards at U.S.A.I.D. were worth an estimated $76 billion over several years, and $47 billion had already been committed to them.
It remains unclear what will happen to that money. An analysis of spending data shows the canceled awards had about $17 billion left unspent when DOGE took its ax to the agency.
If the overhaul wasn’t focused on fraud, efficiency or costs, there was one north star: a post on X from Mr. Rubio on March 10, which explained the government was keeping “approximately 1,000” U.S.A.I.D. programs. Agency staff members said they were told that they could recommend programs to restore — or even seek new funds for existing awards — but that they could never let the total count surpass 1,000.
Aid workers saw the post as Mr. Rubio retaking some control of the U.S.A.I.D. overhaul after DOGE had taken it too far.
Divisions between the secretary and Mr. Musk’s team became clear in April, when Jeremy Lewin, a DOGE staff member who became a top U.S.A.I.D. official, canceled dozens of the most critical emergency food awards that officials had already promised to keep. Mr. Rubio had just signed off on more funds for at least one of the awards, a rare step and a clear sign of its priority.
Within days of the cuts, Mr. Lewin asked agency employees to restore at least six of the awards, according to an email reviewed by The Times. He apologized for the back and forth, saying it was his fault.
“You have Secretary Rubio getting kind of made a fool of by DOGE because he has repeatedly said that they are going to protect these kinds of lifesaving programs. And then you have DOGE go out and basically countermand him,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and a former U.S.A.I.D. adviser to the Biden and Obama administrations. “It’s really unclear who is steering the bus.”
The senior State Department official said that all decisions had been made by U.S.A.I.D. and State Department officials in close consultation with Mr. Rubio, and that they made adjustments as priorities evolved.
Picking up after DOGE
Conservatives have long wanted to reform foreign aid and the layers of bureaucracy that stand between Washington and the people who benefit. But the enormous scope of the U.S.A.I.D. reduction, and the rushed and opaque way it was done, has privately concerned many Republicans.
Andrew Natsios, a former U.S.A.I.D. administrator under President George W. Bush, said that DOGE made a mess that has left gaps for China and Russia to fill.
“Our economy, our security and our way of life is dependent on our connection to the developing world and not just the rich world,” he said “And we have just lost our influence in the developing world.”
As Mr. Musk has stepped back from the spotlight, the remaining steps of the overhaul have been relatively calm and more strategic, according to internal correspondence reviewed by The Times and interviews with people familiar with the decision making. Officials are bringing the remaining U.S.A.I.D. awards under the umbrella of the State Department this summer, where plans for these programs could change again.
The bureaus that will absorb the awards are facing significant cuts too, and employees have expressed concern that they simply do not have the staff, resources or expertise to run them. They plan to terminate more awards and to let others expire.
After months of uncertainty, even the chosen projects are struggling to plan for the future.
One is a World Food Program contract in Kenya that helps feed 700,000 refugees from nearby conflicts. The program is nearly out of food, and while it remains on the list of active U.S.A.I.D. awards, it has not received any funding this year.
As a result, the program’s organizers have had to reduce the rations they provide.
“Do I feed more people for a shorter period of time, or do I feed fewer people who are more critical?” said Lauren Landis, the program’s country director in Kenya. “We haven’t made that decision yet.”
Methodology
A complete list of U.S.A.I.D. awards operating after the president’s decision to review the agency’s work has not been made public. To assess which programs were kept or cut, The Times obtained internal data on individual award status from U.S.A.I.D. and the State Department in April and May and compared that data to similar information on award status that was shared with Congress in March and obtained by The Times. A small number of awards were missing from each of these data sets.
Reporters drew on data from ForeignAssistance.gov and USASpending.gov to determine information about the sectors, recipients and spending for each award.
Award status data is as of May 7; a few dozen awards have been cut since then, internal data shows.
Except where noted, the dollar value of awards is based on the amount that had been obligated over the lifetime of the award, as of May 7 for active awards and as of March 25 for terminated awards.
Spending, sector, and recipient data was not available for 45 terminated awards. Spending data was not available for 18 active awards.
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.”
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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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