Where Do Gubernatorial Candidates Stand on Solving California's Affordable Housing Crisis?

Where Solutions Do the Gubernatorial Candidates Propose to Address the Housing Crisis

Making Housing and Community Happen maintains a nonpartisan position regarding the gubernatorial election.  The following information has been gathered to help voters decide which candidates they prefer based on candidates’ positions regarding how to address California’s housing crisis. The following candidates gave in-depth responses to Housing California’s questionnaire:

·       Derek Grasty

·       Katie Porter

·       Betty Yee

https://candidate-answers.housingca.org/candidate-responses/

Here’s Chat GPT’s overview of what the major 2026 California gubernatorial candidates are saying about affordable housing and the housing crisis. The short version: they mostly agree housing is the state’s top problem—but differ on how aggressive, how fast, and how government-driven the solutions should be.

🏠 Big picture: broad agreement, different strategies

Across parties, candidates consistently frame housing as:

• A top cost-of-living issue 

• Closely tied to homelessness and inequality 

• Driven by a shortage of homes and high costs 

Many proposals overlap—especially increasing supply—but they diverge on regulation, subsidies, and the role of government vs. markets.

🔵 Democratic candidates (general direction: build more + more government role)

Katie Porter

• Focus: consumer protection + affordability 

• Emphasizes cracking down on corporate practices driving up housing costs 

• Supports policies to expand supply while protecting renters

👉 Positioning: housing as part of broader “cost-of-living fairness”

Xavier Becerra

• Focus: cost relief + stability 

• Has proposed freezing or limiting utility and insurance costs tied to housing

• Emphasizes protecting households from rising monthly expenses 

👉 Positioning: make housing more affordable in the short term, not just long-term supply

Tom Steyer

• Focus: large-scale construction + progressive policy 

• Advocates an aggressive homebuilding push 

• Supports statewide rent controls 

👉 Positioning: build a lot + regulate prices

Tony Thurmond

• Focus: massive expansion of affordable housing 

• Proposal: 2 million new affordable units 

• Also backs down payment assistance for buyers

👉 Positioning: ambitious government-led expansion + homeownership access

Matt Mahan

• Focus: efficiency and local delivery 

• Emphasizes making government programs work faster and more effectively 

• Ties housing to broader government performance reforms 

👉 Positioning: less ideological, more implementation-focused

Other Democrats (e.g., Antonio Villaraigosa, Betty Yee)

• Generally emphasize:

  • Increasing supply 

  • Addressing homelessness 

  • Targeted affordability programs 

👉 Overall Democratic pattern:

• Build more housing (especially affordable units)

• Use state policy + funding + regulation 

• Combine long-term supply + short-term relief 

• 
  

🔴 Republican candidates (general direction: reduce regulation + costs)

Steve Hilton

• Focus: systemic reform of state governance 

• Argues California’s housing crisis is caused by overregulation and one-party rule 

• Advocates:

  • Reducing regulations 

  • Lowering costs broadly (taxes, fees)

👉 Positioning: fix housing by making it easier and cheaper to build

Chad Bianco

• Focus: critique of Democratic leadership 

• Links housing crisis to:

  • Government mismanagement

  • Broader issues like crime and homelessness

• Supports major policy changes rather than incremental fixes 

👉 Positioning: housing crisis as a symptom of larger governance failures

⚖️ Where they actually differ

1. How to increase supply

• Democrats: build more, often with public funding + mandates 

• Republicans: build more by cutting regulations and bureaucracy 

2. Role of government

• Democrats: active role (subsidies, mandates, rent rules)

• Republicans: smaller role, rely more on market incentives 

3. Short-term vs long-term

• Some (Becerra): immediate cost relief (insurance, utilities)

• Others (Thurmond, Steyer): long-term mass construction goals 

🧭 Key takeaway

• There’s unusual consensus that California must dramatically increase housing supply.

• The real debate is:

“Should government lead the solution—or get out of the way?”

If you’re looking specifically for “YIMBY” (pro-housing / build-more) candidates in the 2026 California governor’s race, the best way to identify them is to look at:

• How strongly they support increasing housing supply 

• Whether they back state preemption over local zoning 

• Whether pro-housing groups (like California YIMBY / YIMBY Action) view them favorably

Here’s how the major candidates stack up based on available forums, scorecards, and public positions.

🟢 Most clearly “YIMBY” / pro-housing

Xavier Becerra

• Seen as one of the strongest pro-housing voices 

• Explicitly supports:

  • Infill development (building in existing urban areas)

  • A stronger state role overriding local resistance 

• At a YIMBY forum, he argued housing policy is too locally controlled and needs state enforcement to ensure building happens 

👉 Why YIMBYs like him: He embraces the core YIMBY idea that local governments block housing—and the state should step in.

Matt Mahan

• Considered a pragmatic, supply-focused candidate 

• Emphasizes:

  • Faster approvals

  • Making housing programs actually deliver units

• As mayor, associated with pro-building, tech-aligned “abundance” thinking 

👉 Why YIMBYs lean favorable:Less ideological, but strongly aligned with “build more, faster, and make systems work.”

🟡 Moderately YIMBY-leaning (mixed approaches)

Katie Porter

• Supports increasing supply but focuses heavily on:

  • Corporate accountability

  • Cost pressures on renters

• Less centered on zoning reform than top YIMBY candidates

👉 Assessment:Pro-housing, but not as structurally focused on deregulation or state preemption

Antonio Villaraigosa

• Longtime supporter of transit-oriented development and density

• Generally aligned with building more housing, especially near jobs and transit

👉 Assessment:Often viewed as YIMBY-adjacent, though not leading the movement rhetorically

Tony Thurmond

• Strong on building affordable housing at scale 

• Focuses more on public investment and subsidies 

👉 Assessment:Pro-building, but more “government-led housing expansion” than classic YIMBY deregulation

Tom Steyer

• Supports large-scale construction

• Also backs rent control 

👉 Assessment:Mixed from a YIMBY perspective (pro-supply, but more regulatory overall)

🔴 Less aligned with YIMBY framework

Steve Hilton

• Strongly supports deregulation and more building

• BUT frames it as part of a broader anti-government agenda

👉 Assessment:Overlap with YIMBY on deregulation, but not part of the YIMBY coalition and less focused on housing policy details

Chad Bianco

• Focuses more on governance critique than detailed housing policy

👉 Assessment:Not considered part of the pro-housing/YIMBY camp

🧭 Bottom line

🟢 Closest to true YIMBY:

• Xavier Becerra → strongest on state intervention + zoning override 

• Matt Mahan → strongest on execution + supply expansion 

• 
  

🟡 YIMBY-adjacent:

• Katie Porter

• Antonio Villaraigosa

• Tony Thurmond

• Tom Steyer

• 
  

🔴 Outside the YIMBY lane:

• Steve Hilton (overlaps on deregulation but different philosophy)

• Chad Bianco

  
  

⚠️ Important nuance

The 2026 race is unusual because:

• Almost all candidates say they want more housing 

• The real divide is how aggressively to override local control and how much regulation to use 

So the key YIMBY test isn’t “Do they support more housing?”It’s:

“Are they willing to force cities to allow it—and remove barriers to building?”