Few would name Monterey as a major stop on the gubernatorial campaign trail. That didn’t stop six Democratic candidates from pitching their platforms to a room of about 200 at the Hilton Garden Inn Thursday night.
The debate was hosted by the Democratic Women of Monterey County in conjunction with San Benito County Democrats and the Democratic Women’s Club of Santa Cruz County. It served as an opportunity for residents of all three left-leaning counties to hear directly from candidates vying to succeed Gavin Newsom as California governor. In attendance were Tony Thurmond, Xavier Becerra, Matt Mahan, Betty Yee, Antonio Villaigrosa and Tom Steyer. Democratic frontrunners Eric Swalwell and Katie Porter did not attend, nor did Republicans Chad Bianco or Steve Hilton.
“It is a historic night. I mentioned…how important this is for those of us who get to call this beautiful place home,” said debate moderator Erica Padilla-Chavez. Padilla-Chavez is the co-chair of Women in Leadership for Diverse Representation (WILDR), a Santa-Cruz based political action group that encourages women to pursue public office and leadership positions. “This is not something you see every gubernatorial election cycle.”
The debate was also an opportunity for candidates to separate themselves from the pack within a race where about a quarter of voters are still undecided, according to recent polls. Each shared plans for how to tackle complex issues like housing affordability and health care funding, although at times some noticeably struggled to differentiate their answers from each other.
Candidates used opening statements to highlight their diverse backgrounds. Becerra and Yee spoke about their immigrant parents and the responsibilities they carry as first-generation Americans. Steyer said he comes “from a family that believes in service” and described himself as “the weird one” for having started a business.
Both Thurmond and Mahan possess strong personal ties to Monterey Bay, and were quick to emphasize those ties in their opening statements. “It’s an honor to be here. This is truly a homecoming for me,” said Thurmond. “My mom raised four kids here, until she could not.” Thurmond was born at Fort Ord – now Cal State Monterey Bay (CSUMB) – in 1968; he moved to Philadelphia at age 6 after his mother died from cervical cancer.
Mahan was born in 1982 and raised in Watsonville. “I had the opportunity to spend some time this afternoon with my mom, who’s here this evening, and I just couldn’t help but remember how hard the people of our predominantly rural counties work,” he said. “My mom, who was a teacher in Salinas, really encouraged me to branch out and find a path.”
The sharpest rebuttals at the debate were between Steyer and Mahan, both former businessmen and graduates of Stanford and Harvard, respectively. When questioned on California’s ballooning health care costs, Mahan said, “the way to control costs in health care is to have more competition…to force insurance companies to compete and drive down those margins.”
“The idea that competition is going to control [costs],” said Steyer, “I used to believe that, when I went to Stanford business school. But unfortunately, it’s been a couple of years since then, and I’ve watched what happened, and I’ve seen that actually it has been controlled…private businesses taking over everything is actually what’s happening.”
And in a jab at Steyer’s progressive proposals, Mahan said, “they sound great, but they’re really just higher taxes and more cost. And they’re very unlikely to actually yield the outcomes you want,” later adding that “it’s not as simple as just taxing the billionaires.”
Steyer, who described the election as “an epic battle between the oligarchs who want to control our democracy and working people,” has so far polled significantly higher than his Thursday debate opponents, joining Porter and Swalwell in the Democratic vanguard. The primary election is scheduled for June 2.
“I would say it’s really important,” said Natalie Navarro, a third-year senior, psychology major and the Associated Students (AS) president at CSUMB. Navarro attended the debate as part of a delegation of AS members, and says that she hasn’t yet decided who she’ll be voting for in June. “I would urge more students to do their homework on the candidates and kind of see what they’re about and where their policies lie.”
Photos by Elliot Rowe