Bass Survives. Pratt Forces a Runoff. Hilton Leads Becerra in the Race That Shook California.
- ~35% Karen Bass (D) — LA Mayor primary night vote, insufficient to avoid a runoff under LA's majority-required system — LA County Registrar, June 3, 2026
- ~30.4% Spencer Pratt — forces a November general-election runoff, leading the field for second slot by roughly 8 points over Raman — LA County Registrar, June 3, 2026
- ~27.8% Steve Hilton (R) — leads Xavier Becerra by ~2.4 points in the California governor primary; race not yet called — California Secretary of State, June 3, 2026
- First time since 2006 that a Republican has led a California statewide primary at the end of election night — Schwarzenegger era comparison already being made — Fox News analysis; CA SOS historical data
California held its consolidated primary on June 3, 2026, and the results surprised almost everyone who had been watching the forecasting models. In Los Angeles, incumbent Mayor Karen Bass (D) led the field with approximately 35 percent of the vote — a result that, under the city’s majority-required system, sends her directly into a November runoff against Spencer Pratt, who finished second at approximately 30.4 percent. Los Angeles will not have a decision on its next mayor until November.
More stunning was the California governor’s race. Former Fox News host and UK government advisor Steve Hilton (R) led former Biden HHS Secretary and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) by approximately 2.4 points — 27.8% to 25.4% — at the end of primary night. The race was uncalled as of Wednesday morning, with mail-in ballots still being tabulated, but Hilton’s lead persisted through all count updates.
Under California’s nonpartisan jungle primary system, the top two finishers advance to the November general election regardless of party. If the margins hold, the November California governor’s race will be Hilton (R) vs. Becerra (D) — a matchup no serious forecaster predicted twelve months ago.
For the LA mayor’s race, the math is clear: Bass needed 50 percent plus one vote to avoid a runoff. She got 35. Pratt is 8 points clear of third-place Nithya Raman, who ran as the progressive candidate aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America. As of final primary night tabulations, Pratt’s hold on second place is not in question. Bass and Pratt will face each other in November.
For the governor’s race, the California Secretary of State has not called the race — mail-in ballots counted after election night historically shift toward Democrats in California, and a 2.4-point margin is within the range of that adjustment. But Hilton’s lead has held through multiple count updates, and Republican strategists watching California noted that the same mail-ballot effect that benefited Democrats in prior cycles may be smaller in 2026 given Republican gains in mail voting registration in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
Karen Bass entered the 2026 primary cycle with the lowest approval rating of any Los Angeles mayor since the post-Rodney King era — according to internal campaign polling leaked to the Los Angeles Times. The driver was not ideology but competence: the January 2025 wildfires.
Bass departed for Ghana on January 4, 2025 — one day after the National Weather Service issued a Fire Weather Watch for the LA basin. The Palisades and Eaton fires erupted January 7. By the time she returned, the fires had killed 29 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures. LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley later accused Bass of denying $17 million in LAFD funding requests nine weeks before the fires. Bass fired Crowley on February 21, 2025. Crowley sued Bass in February 2026.
LA Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong — who had endorsed Bass in 2022 — publicly called the endorsement “a mistake” due to her “incompetence.” The LAPD remains approximately 1,400 officers below full staffing. The city’s homelessness encampment count remains above 42,000 despite multiple declared emergency programs. And in the days before the primary, Bass sat silent on a campaign livestream while celebrity supporter Kathy Griffin accused LAPD officers of white nationalism.
Pratt’s campaign was built entirely on these failures. His advertising did not attack Bass on ideology — it ran clips of the empty reservoirs before the fire, the departing plane to Ghana, the LAFD budget denials. The 35 percent she received on primary night is not a victory; it is a measure of how much of LA’s Democratic base has already decided she is not fit for a second term.
Steve Hilton — a British-born American citizen who served as strategy director for Prime Minister David Cameron’s government before becoming a Fox News host and moving to the Bay Area — has spent the past two years making a specific argument about California: that the state’s Democratic leadership has run it into a dysfunction that cuts across traditional partisan lines. Cost of living. Housing. Business flight. The fentanyl crisis. Homelessness.
His primary campaign drew serious resources from national Republican donors and from California-based technology figures who had previously stayed out of electoral politics. His support in Silicon Valley — not historically Republican territory — was notable and reflected a broader realignment among tech workers and founders who view California’s regulatory and tax environment as hostile.
At his primary night event in Palo Alto, Hilton was direct about what his result means: “For the first time in twenty years, Republicans are competitive for governor of California. Not because California has changed its values — but because the people California’s Democratic machine has appointed to manage the state have failed.”
Becerra, who served as California’s Attorney General from 2017 to 2021 before joining the Biden administration as HHS Secretary, is a credentialed establishment Democrat who has had difficulty generating enthusiasm in a 2026 environment where voters in California’s Democratic-leaning suburbs increasingly cite crime and cost of living as primary concerns. His primary night speech blamed “out-of-state Republican money” for Hilton’s performance. He did not mention the housing costs.
Spencer Pratt is in the runoff in Los Angeles. Steve Hilton is leading in California. This is what happens when you actually make the case to voters that the other side has failed them. California is in play. Let's finish the job in November.
The national political reaction to the California results arrived within hours of the polls closing. Vice President JD Vance posted on X that “California is in play,” a claim that would have seemed absurd twelve months ago. Trump posted on Truth Social in all-capital letters about “MAKING CALIFORNIA GREAT AGAIN.”
On Fox News, Greg Gutfeld led his Wednesday night show with the California primary results. His verdict on Pratt’s Los Angeles performance: “He mopped the floor with the incumbent mayor. She got 35 percent. If she were a CEO, the board would have fired her already. Pratt just held the board meeting.” The segment became one of the most-shared clips on X by Thursday morning.
Democrats in California moved quickly to frame the Hilton lead as a temporary artifact of mail-ballot counting patterns. They are probably correct that the final margin will narrow — California mail ballots have historically shifted 3–5 points toward Democrats as counted. But a 2.4-point lead that narrows to within a point is still a lead, and a competitive California governor’s race is itself an unprecedented spending target that will drain national Democratic resources away from Senate battlegrounds.
“I have not heard a single California Democrat today who is comfortable with those numbers. Not one.”
Senior Democratic strategist quoted on background — Fox News, primary night coverage, June 3, 2026
For Los Angeles, the November runoff between Bass and Pratt will be the most-watched mayoral race in the country. Bass will have the advantages of incumbency, the Democratic Party machine, and significantly more campaign infrastructure. Pratt will have the record: the fires, the empty reservoirs, the fired fire chief, the LAPD staffing shortfalls, the wildfire response, the airport hotel deal, and the $23.5 billion budget that produced none of the outcomes voters can see.
For California’s governor’s race, the count will continue for several weeks as mail ballots are verified and tabulated. A final result is unlikely before late June or early July. If Hilton survives the mail-ballot count, the November matchup will test whether the California realignment that these primary results suggest is real — or whether it disappears when every Democratic voter in the state, not just the enthusiastic primary electorate, shows up in November.
LA Mayor Runoff → November: Karen Bass (D, incumb.) ~35% · Spencer Pratt ~30.4% · Nithya Raman (D-DSA) ~22.4% · Top 2 advance.
CA Governor Primary → Race Uncalled: Steve Hilton (R) ~27.8% · Xavier Becerra (D) ~25.4% · Top 2 advance regardless of party. Mail-ballot count ongoing — result expected mid-to-late June.
Historical note: Last time a Republican led a California statewide primary on election night was 2006 (Schwarzenegger re-election). California has not elected a Republican governor since Schwarzenegger left office in 2011.
Steve Hilton leading in California for Governor, Spencer Pratt forcing a runoff for LA Mayor. The People of California are DONE with Democrat failure! MAKE CALIFORNIA GREAT AGAIN. We are going to WIN in November!
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
- LA County Registrar: Los Angeles Mayor primary results, June 3, 2026 (ongoing)
- California Secretary of State: Governor primary results, June 3, 2026 (ongoing)
- Fox News: Gutfeld on California primary results — 'mopped the floor'
- Fox News: Steve Hilton primary night speech, Palo Alto, June 3, 2026
- Fox News: California primary coverage — results analysis
- Civic Intelligence: Karen Bass silent as Kathy Griffin accused LAPD of white nationalism, June 3, 2026
- Civic Intelligence: Spencer Pratt's LA mayor campaign — primary build-up