The California Governor’s Debate on Wednesday night focused on multiple California issues that were divisive for both political parties, including gas prices, homelessness, housing affordability and social media bans for teenagers under 16.

Two candidates for the Democratic Party, Tom Steyer and Xavier Becerra, stated they would support a ban on social media for teenagers under the age of 16.

“Kids have died as a result of their use of social media…It is time for us to act. I will tell you as a former attorney general, I will enforce that law to make sure we are able to manage our children’s development over the lifespan,” Becerra said.

Democrats Matt Mahan and Katie Porter disagreed, believing the choice should be up to parents.

“There’s an opportunity for families to make choices and have conversations about technology that these kids will see their whole lives,” said Porter.

There was also disagreement when discussing affordable housing and homelessness.

“The only housing Tom Steyer’s built has been private prisons and ICE detention centers,” Mahan said while discussing his personal experience building temporary housing in San Jose.

As the youngest candidate in the race, Mahan repeatedly pointed to San Jose as a model in order to validate his political experience.

Mahan was not the only Democrat to target Steyer’s status as a billionaire.

“Mr. Steyer likes to talk about his giving pledge, but what he’s done with his own money is more ‘give me’ an opportunity to be the governor,” said Porter.

Steyer was consistent about returning to his platform of taxing corporations and billionaires like himself.

“I’m the only billionaire on the ballot. But I’m not the only billionaire in this race,” Steyer said. “I’m the billionaire who wants to tax other billionaires.”

Republican candidate Chad Bianco advocated for removing environmental regulations from the building industry as a solution.

“We do not have a land problem in California. We have a management problem. We have a government problem that we absolutely must take away,” said Bianco.

Liam Reilly, President of the Democracy Club at Redwood, saw more policy focus from Becerra, Mahan and Steyer, while the Republican candidates leaned more on personality politics.

“I think that just because California is obviously a much more democratically leaning state, the Republican candidates need to have much bigger personalities just to get the attention,” said Reilly.

Reilly didn’t believe there was a chance of a Republican winning the primaries, but reflected on the division between the Democrats running.

“Realistically it’s going to be between Becerra on the Newsom liberal end of the party, Mahan on the more moderate and Steyer on the much more progressive end,” Reilly said.

“We don’t need a billionaire who made his money in private prisons and oil and gas that he’s now supposedly against, or Trump’s hand-picked candidate, or a D.C. insider who the Sacramento establishment is now rallying around,” Mahan said about his fellow candidates.

Republican candidates pointed to Democrat policies as the cause of most issues discussed.

“We have the highest cost of living in the country because we have had one party, Democrat progressive rule for decades that is destroying the state,” said Bianco.

Democrats condemned President Donald Trump as the cause of multiple issues.

“Donald Trump is raising our gas prices. Donald Trump is kicking one to three million people off Medi-Cal. Donald Trump is trying to punish California every way he can,” Steyer said.

Mahan was the only Democratic candidate to emphasize possible collaboration with the current administration.
“When the Trump administration threatens California’s people, our funding, our values, I’ll fight back… We’ve sued this administration over a dozen times,” said Mahan. “But I will also find ways to invite federal agencies to help us rebuild LA, reduce fire risk. We need a partnership and we need to find common ground with this administration on certain issues.”

Republican Steve Hilton emphasized a partnership as well.
“The thing that’s gonna help every Californian, when I’m governor, is that we will have a constructive relationship and partnership with the federal government,” said Hilton.

All candidates except Chad Bianco reported that they would endorse their party’s nominee in the case that they lost in the June Primary.
“I’m not going to support my opponent because it’s going to be he and I going to November,” Bianco said.

Reilly added it isn’t guaranteed that this debate has an effect on the polls.
“It really depends on just how many viral clips this gets,” Reilly said. “[The debate] was more of a reflection of the momentum that the candidates are having rather than this snapshot moment of where they’re at in the polls right now.”