While Democrats Becerra, Porter and Steyer said they will focus their efforts on promoting denser housing near transit, Republicans Bianco and Hilton have argued for extending the growth of single-family neighborhoods.
“We do not have a land problem in California,” Bianco said in an April debate hosted by Nexstar. “We have a management problem, we have a government problem that we absolutely must take away.”
But affordability concerns in the state extend beyond the price of renting or buying a home, said Evan White, executive director of the California Policy Lab at the University of California.
“On average, Californians pay about twice as much for housing as the average American, they pay 60% more for utilities than the average American, they pay 40% more for gas than the average American, they pay 11% more for groceries than the average American,” he said. “We’re the most expensive state by far.”
Many of those cost pressures reflect California’s perilous position in the midst of a complicated transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. Californians are being hit with the costs of damaging wildfires fueled by years of climate pollution, while the state’s carbon-intensive oil and gas industry faces an uncertain future.
Gas prices in the state currently average $6.16 a gallon, per AAA — the highest in the nation. The gap between California and the national average is due in part to the cost of state fuel blend requirements, environmental regulations and what UC Berkeley professor Severin Borenstein has dubbed the “mystery gasoline surcharge.”
Bianco has proposed eliminating the state’s 61-cent-per-gallon gas tax, which funds road repair and transit. Hilton wants to reduce the gas tax and suspend the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which adds about eight to 10 cents per gallon. Steyer, by contrast, said he would seek to impose a cap on refinery profits and return any profits above the cap to residents.
Then there are electricity prices, which have increased dramatically in recent years — in large part due to investments made by investor-owned utilities to prevent future wildfires. The costs of those mitigation measures, such as undergrounding wires and trimming trees, were passed along to customers of PG&E, SoCal Edison and SDG&E.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer speaks during a town hall event on April 30, 2026, in San José. (Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)
Steyer has proposed cutting the utilities’ guaranteed rate of return for capital projects and making it easier for cities and counties to form publicly owned power providers.
“We’re going to have a different rule at the Public Utilities Commission about how they get paid,” Steyer told KQED’s Political Breakdown. “And we’re going to introduce local competition.”
Hilton is also a supporter of locally-owned utilities. He is proposing to reclassify hydropower from large dams as “renewable energy,” which he argues will reduce what utilities need to spend on wind and solar power to meet the state’s climate goals.
While the next governor has the ability to make progress on reducing these cost burdens, White cautioned that the challenges won’t be fixed overnight — or alone.
Steve Hilton speaks during the California gubernatorial candidate debate on Feb. 3, 2026, in San Francisco. (Laure Andrillon/AP Photo)
“The governor could do a lot to improve not only housing costs, but utility costs and other high costs in the state,” he said. “But they do need to be able to work with the Legislature effectively to do that.”
And even before polls close in the June 2 primary, many Californians struggling to afford life in the state have already voted with their feet.
White studied the migration trends of California households over the past decade. Forty-two states send fewer people to California than they did 10 years ago. And families who decided to leave California are improving their financial conditions and becoming more likely to own a home in the years after their relocation.
“It’s clear that when they move,” White said. “They’re moving to much, much, much more affordable places.”
