California gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra is riding a polling bump after the implosion of former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s campaign, but fresh scrutiny is now zeroing in on his record as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden.
The Democrat jumped to 10% support in new polling released Thursday, up from the low single digits of around 4 to 5 percent, after Swalwell’s exit from the race amid sexual misconduct allegations.
Becerra, 67, a former California attorney general and Biden’s HHS chief, has leaned heavily on his federal experience, telling supporters in a recent campaign text that “more than ever, Californians need a governor who they can trust to lead on day one.”
“I’ve run one of the largest federal agencies in the U.S.,” he said, adding he had “balanced a budget larger than the budget of the state of California,” while touting the department’s COVID-19 response and vaccine rollout.
Throughout his campaign, Becerra has run as the experienced candidate, but critics say his tenure at HHS was marked by major missteps.
In his first year, Becerra was notably absent from White House COVID briefings and kept a low public profile, a stance that drew criticism again during the 2022 monkeypox outbreak.
“Certainly from a public profile point of view he’s been a major disappointment,” Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University public health law professor, told STAT News at the time.
“He was very silent during those crises and when he did speak, he didn’t seem to have a good, enormous grasp of the medical and scientific and public health issues.”
Michael Bustamante, an advisor to the Becerra campaign, told the Post that the candidate delivered on free vaccines and had results.
“There are two kinds of people in this world, show horses and work horses. Secretary Becerra is a workhorse that delivered to the people of the United States while he was health secretary, and we’ll deliver the same kind of results,” he said.
During the monkeypox response, Becerra said the federal government had done its job and suggested local officials needed to step up, remarks that sparked backlash from public health experts, with Politico reporting at the time on speculation he could be pushed out.
Bustamante refuted the criticism.
“Similar to his quick and decisive action around covid 19 vaccines, that same kind of response was delivered to all 50 states around monkeypox. There were no one, no state was left wanting in terms of the vaccine,” he said.
Becerra’s most heavily criticized episode came in 2023, when HHS lost contact with more than 85,000 unaccompanied migrant children, prompting reports that Biden “lashed out” at Becerra over the handling of the crisis.
The issue has since become a flashpoint in the governor’s race, with rival Antonio Villaraigosa launching attack ads branding Becerra “not fit to be governor.”
The ads highlight the missing children report and include lawmakers’ reactions describing the situation as “horrendous,” “disturbing” and “exploited,” with one telling Becerra: “The buck stops with you.”
His campaign previously told The Sacramento Bee that such attacks rely on “discredited MAGA talking points.”
“There’s no one in this race, no one that can say that he didn’t succeed in his administration at the Department of Health,” Bustamante told the Post.
