Governor candidates hold first debate

They discuss crime, homelessness and tax moves as fundraising figures also emerge.

- SEEMA MEHTA AND NICOLE NIXON

Photographs by LAURE ANDRILLON Associated Press CANDIDATES Xavier Becerra, Steve Hilton and Matt Mahan among the seven onstage at Tuesday's debate.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, barred from running for reelection, still took heat Tuesday during the first debate in California’s race for governor.

Six Democrats and one Republican on the stage in Newsom's hometown of San Francisco took direct aim at the governor’s record on homelessness, efforts to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars and opposition to an anti-crime ballot measure that Californians overwhelmingly passed two years ago.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who unsuccessfully ran against Newsom for governor in 2018, pointed to state spending on homelessness as an example of ineptitude.

“We spent $24 billion at the state, along with billions more from the counties and the cities throughout the state, and homelessness went on,” he said. “We cannot be afraid to look in the mirror.”

The televised debate revealed the schism between the moderate and progressive Democrats hoping to replace the termed-out Newsom, as well as efforts by Steve Hilton, the sole Republican who took part, to coalesce the conservative vote. Hilton, a former Fox News commentator and British political strategist, called on his top GOP rival, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, to drop out of the race.

“My Republican colleague Chad Bianco is not here tonight to face these Democrats or his record in 2020, during the Black Lives Matter riots,” Hilton said at the event, which was cosponsored by the nonprofit Black Action Alliance, which was founded to give Black voters a greater voice in the Bay Area.

Bianco “took a knee when told to by BLM, now he says he was praying,” Hilton said. “Chad Bianco has got more baggage than LAX.”