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Follow a primary's odds to election day

Daily prices from mid-April through June show the lead moving from Steyer to Becerra before the votes settle the market.

Kalshi kalshi.search_eventskalshi.get_event_detailskalshi.get_market_history

Captured June 2026

The price history

Kalshi returns daily history for each candidate. Putting them on one chart shows when Steyer lost the lead, when Becerra passed him, and what happened as votes came in.

The prompt

According to my Kalshi data, who's favored to finish first in the 2026 California governor primary, and how did the odds move as election day approached?

The response

According to my Kalshi data, who’s favored to finish first in the 2026 California governor primary, and how did the odds move as election day approached?

Executing kalshi.search_events Executing kalshi.get_event_details Executing kalshi.get_market_history Executing kalshi.get_market_history Executing kalshi.get_market_history

Here’s how the odds to finish first moved from mid-April through the June 2 primary:

California governor primary: odds to finish 1st, April to June 2026Line chart showing Xavier Becerra rising to 94 percent, Tom Steyer falling from the early April lead to under 1 percent, and Steve Hilton fading to about 5 percent.California governor primary: odds to finish 1stKalshi daily odds, Apr 12-Jun 3 2026Becerra odds today94%Early April front-runnerSteyerSteyer on primary dayunder 1%0%25%50%75%100%Apr 12Apr 21Apr 30May 9May 18May 27Jun 3Becerra (D) 94%Hilton (R) 5%Steyer (D) 0.5%
Daily Kalshi closing prices, downsampled to three-day anchors from April 12 through June 3, 2026.

The market’s verdict the day after the June 2 top-two primary: Xavier Becerra finishes first, at 94%. But that conviction is only a few weeks old.

In mid-April, Tom Steyer was the front-runner to top the field, trading near 60% while Becerra sat in the teens. Steyer’s lead eroded into a genuine three-way scramble, with Steyer, Becerra, and Republican Steve Hilton all bunched in the 25-40% band for about two weeks. Becerra broke away in the second week of May and never gave the lead back, then surged from the 50s into the 90s as votes were counted on June 2 and 3. Steyer collapsed to under 1%, and Hilton faded to about 5%.

Two things are worth flagging. Hilton’s steady ~30% through May reflects the structural quirk of California’s jungle primary: if the Democratic vote splinters, a single Republican can top the field, and the market priced that tail the whole way. And finishing first is not the same as winning the governorship, which is decided in November as a separate market.

Two caveats

Hilton’s roughly 30% price reflects a top-two jungle primary with a split Democratic field. The contract settles on first place in June, not the November governorship. Neither point was in the prompt.