Xavier Becerra is now helping lead California Democrats’ all-out war against the state’s Republican-backed voter ID measure.
On the heels of the June 2 primary, Becerra, 68, has emerged as the party’s governor nominee and, in the fight over voting rules, the blue corner’s newest heavyweight against Donald Trump and his allies.
California Democrats are already talking about a multimillion-dollar push to beat the measure, which would require government-issued ID for in-person voting and add new identity checks for mail ballots.
“California Democrats are proud to endorse Xavier Becerra because we know how high the stakes are for our state and for the country in this next election,” Rusty Hicks said.
Becerra used his election-night message to pitch himself as the candidate built for a bigger fight.
“The underdog stayed in the fight,” he said.
The former state attorney general has also cast the contest as a clash with Trump, who has continued pressing national voter-ID demands and election-security rhetoric.
“November, here we come.”
The ballot measure was put forward by San Diego Republican Carl DeMaio and other proponents as a way to tighten elections.
DeMaio said the measure would “hold government officials accountable.”
He has argued that California’s election system has become too loose, while Democrats say the effort is a solution in search of a problem.
Becerra has been among the loudest Democrats in the state telling voters he will oppose it.
“without doubt,” he said, describing his stance at a democracy and voting-rights event in Sacramento.
At that event, he called the initiative “a solution seeking a problem.”
In the governor’s race, Becerra has leaned on his long resume in Congress, as California attorney general and as U.S. health secretary.
He has also hammered Trump repeatedly as the state’s best-known institutional counterpuncher.
“Donald Trump is doubling down on decline and counting on people being too fearful, distracted or gullible to fight back,” he said on primary night.
That posture fits the role Gavin Newsom often occupied for California Democrats when Trump was president.
Now Becerra is trying to inherit it at the same time he is asking voters to send him to Sacramento.
The Republican measure itself qualified for the November ballot after supporters submitted enough signatures, and state officials confirmed it would go before voters this fall.
The proposal would require photo ID to cast a ballot in person, and it would also require ID information on mail ballots, raising alarms among voting-rights groups.
“make voting harder for eligible Californians, compromise their privacy and force taxpayers to spend money to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.”
That was Jenny Farrell, the executive director of the League of Women Voters of California, in one of the sharpest anti-measure attacks.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California has also lined up against the measure, warning that it would hit students, older voters and disabled Californians especially hard.
“disproportionately don’t have current IDs.”
In the viral moment that helped set up this broader fight, Becerra was counting votes after a crowded primary and telling supporters he had survived the early skepticism.
“Guess what? The underdog stayed in the fight,” he said, as the crowd in Los Angeles cheered.
The same night, he framed the race as a test of whether California wanted a seasoned hand or a break from politics.
“I ran for the job because I know how important California is as a shining light to the world,” he said.
For Democrats, the voter ID campaign is now being folded into that larger message: opposition to Trump, defense of mail voting and a promise to keep California in the party’s blue lane.
The next big date in the race is the November general election in Sacramento.