California’s Governor Race Is Previewing Democrats’ Housing Agenda

Many Democrats argue that affordability should be at the top of their party’s platform. California’s upcoming gubernatorial election may set a precedent for how the Democratic Party talks about it in the context of housing.

The Democratic stronghold consistently ranks as the most expensive state to live in in the continental U.S., making its housing crisis a top issue for the state’s voters. Democrats say that the gubernatorial candidates’ platforms on housing policy — from its affordability and availability to the state’s response to its outsized homeless population — are likely to be a deciding factor as candidates strive to differentiate themselves in a crowded field, and could also serve as a blueprint for how Democrats can speak about the issue nationwide.

“People will talk about lots of other things, but the truth is, homelessness and the lack of housing affordability across income spectrums are the biggest imprints to California’s success,” Rep. Sam Liccardo of California, who has endorsed San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan for governor, told NOTUS. “We need to be able to solve this in California, and we need to be able to demonstrate to the rest of the country how to solve it. Because it turns out, California is not the only state with a housing crisis.”

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At least nine candidates, including seven Democrats, are running for the top two spots in California’s June jungle primary. The two candidates who receive the most votes will move on to the November general election.

“When we come up with something that’s successful [in California], it’s something that’s easily emulated and imitated in other states, especially blue states, that are grappling with these challenges,” said gubernatorial candidate Ian Calderon, a former California State Assembly majority leader. “With politics, a lot of times there has to come this catalytic moment where fear rises to a certain level, where you’re willing to buck the system or do something a little more radical to get some desired result. And on housing, we really are there.”

In a poll of California residents conducted in November by the Public Policy Institute of California, voters ranked cost of living and the economy, and housing costs and availability, as their top two issues in state politics. Two in three adults, according to the poll, said that housing affordability is a “big problem in their part of California.”

It’s also been an issue that has plagued Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, during his tenure, and an issue where he’ll receive scrutiny if he looks to higher office. Even as the governor has backed dozens of housing-related policies and led numerous housing affordability-related bills, Californians are still struggling to afford their homes.

“This administration is the first to take on the challenge of housing and homelessness -- a multifaceted, complex and nationwide problem and is the result of decades of inaction, regulatory challenges and poor policy,” Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in a statement to NOTUS. “Governor Newsom has begun to turn this crisis around, requiring local communities to properly plan for all types of housing, including an adequate supply of multifamily and affordable housing.”

While California faces some of the highest costs of living across the country, the question of how to deal with rising housing costs and homelessness is one that lawmakers have been grappling with nationwide, forcing them to come up with a myriad of plans to take a stab at issues related to housing affordability. That’s left an opening for Democratic hopefuls in this gubernatorial race to take their shot at dealing with one of the country’s top concerns.

“To my mind, cost of living is at the center of the governor’s race, and the biggest cost drivers for working families in California is the cost of housing and increasingly the cost of energy,” Mahan told NOTUS.

“In San Jose, we’ve really begun to turn the corner on this issue,” he said, pointing to the implementation of expedited housing approval processes and revisiting fees. “We’ve done a couple of things, and the state actually has even more tools, which is part of the reason I’m running for governor. I know we can do better, particularly if our next governor is partnering with cities and counties to solve the housing crisis here.”

The candidates all have varying experience in working with housing policy, but they agreed on the importance of tackling costs for homeowners and renters. Democrats nationwide look to message on affordability, California candidates see the answer to effective affordability messaging in their answers on housing.

“Housing is the biggest chunk of most families’ budgets, so you’re never going to make meaningful progress on affordability in a way that drives people to stay in California and prompts them to move here if you are not tackling housing,” former Rep. Katie Porter, one of the candidates, told NOTUS. “Everything else is nibbling around the edges.”

“If we’re serious about affordability,” she added, “we’ve got to talk about housing.”

To be sure, the race is a field of Democratic candidates who share a lot of the same positions, like wanting to see more housing built to create more affordable options and outdated state regulations. In a statement to NOTUS, Johanna Warshaw, a spokesperson for the Democratic Governors Association, said that the party has a “strong bench of Democratic candidates.”

“[They] are focused on making life better for working families—including lowering housing and rental costs, building more homes everyday people can afford, and tackling homelessness,” she said of the field.

Daniel Schnur, a political analyst who has worked on past gubernatorial campaigns, said that as the primary approaches, he’s watching to see where the field shrinks as people drop out of the race. Then, he says, candidates will be able to more clearly draw distinctions between their platforms, including on housing.

“For the most part, the differences [in housing policy] are shades of gray as opposed to more stark disagreements,” he said. “Among the Democrats, there are differences, they’re just not yet well pronounced.”