They pledged to take on President Trump, make the state more affordable, safeguard immigrants and provide them with Medi-Cal healthcare benefits, and keep the state's over-budget bullet train project intact. There is not yet any clear front-runner in the race to run the nation's most populous state, though former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter has had a small edge in recent polling. Aside from a opaque dig from former state Controller Betty Yee, Porter was not attacked during the debate.
The Whittier Democrat is framing his candidacy as one from a "new generation of leadership." He was 27 when he became the first millennial to be elected to the state Assembly in 2012. But he was no newcomer even then - Calderon comes from a line of politicians from southeast Los Angeles County. His father, Charles Calderon, started the dynasty when he was elected to the Assembly in 1982.
Comptroller Brad Lander leads incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman by 19% in a new progressive poll of a potential Democratic primary matchup in the deep-blue NY-10 district spanning lower Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn. Lander, who is enthusiastically backing Zohran Mamdani's mayoral candidacy, leads Goldman by 52%-to-33% in the poll of a hypothetical one-on-one 2026 primary matchup. Goldman, a two-term pro-Israel moderate who hasn't endorsed Mamdani yet, says he and Lander are allies in the fight against President Trump and he welcomes competition in a potential primary face-off.
"They are going to be vicious," one senior House Democrat told Axios, speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer candid thoughts on a sensitive internal battle. The lawmaker predicted it will be Democrats' most brutal member vs. member primary since California Reps. Brad Sherman and Howard Berman faced off in 2012, or when Michigan Reps. John Dingell and Lynn Rivers fought over a seat in 2002.