Democratic rivals for governor continued to hammer new frontrunner Xavier Becerra in a final televised debate in San Francisco ahead of the June 2 primary.

Becerra’s sharp rise in the polls — and record spanning more than three decades in office — made him a top target, continuing a theme from four other debates over the last month. Becerra was the top choice for 19% of voters in an Emerson College poll released Wednesday, compared to 17% for Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Tom Steyer.

The debate hosted by CBS California and The San Francisco Examiner came on the heels of a court hearing Thursday morning in which Becerra’s former aide, Dana Williamson, pleaded guilty to charges that included helping to steal $225,000 from a dormant campaign account. While prosecutors have said they view Becerra as a victim in the case, that hasn’t stopped rivals from questioning his judgment – or implying there’s more to the story.

“It pains me to say it, because I like you personally, but you shouldn’t be in this race,” said Hilton, a former Fox News host. “You should be preparing your criminal defense.”

In response, Becerra said he “did nothing wrong” and repeatedly quoted a U.S. Department of Justice spokesperson who said “no candidate running for governor has been implicated” in the scheme.

Former Rep. Katie Porter parsed the fuller quote: that “no candidate running for governor has been implicated in any charging document.”

“You know that doesn’t preclude an indictment from being issued against you,” Porter said.

The indictment said Becerra was aware of a plan to pay Williamson $10,000 a month to manage a dormant campaign account. But Williamson and longtime Becerra aide Sean McCluskie didn’t tell the then-U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary that the money would actually be used to pad McCluskie’s salary.

Becerra said his rivals were making baseless claims because of his frontrunner status.

“Accept the facts,” he said.

Candidates also pressed Becerra on policy proposals they said lacked specifics or substance: at one point, Porter held up a notebook asking him how he’d generate revenue to pay for his plans, in a riff on the whiteboards that helped give her viral moments in Congress. Meanwhile, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan noted Becerra did not present a comprehensive housing plan until a week ago.

Becerra pointed to Newsom’s revised May budget released Thursday as a model for how he would handle revenue generation and said he had a track record of leadership, often turning the conversation back to his legal fights with President Donald Trump’s first administration as attorney general.

“We fought and we won,” he said. “We’re going to do the same thing again.”

Here’s what else came up at the debate:

On abortion and AI, Steve Hilton got defensive.

Hilton was the first to attack Becerra over his connections to Williamson. But he found himself in a lonelier perch on two other issues during a lightning round in which candidates were asked to give yes or no answers to questions.

When moderators asked whether candidates would extradite a California doctor charged in Louisiana for mailing abortion pills —something Newsom refused to do — Hilton and fellow Republican Chad Bianco were the only ones who said yes. But Hilton only gave that answer when pressed by moderators, and described it as a constitutional issue rather than one surrounding reproductive rights.

“This is not about abortion,” he said. “This about one state trying to undermine another state’s laws.”

He was the only candidate to hedge when moderators asked whether there should be more safeguards surrounding teens’ use of chatbots.

“I’m afraid it’s not as simple as a yes or no,” he said. “This is why we get into a problem in this country. We go for these simplistic solutions and it causes problems that are unintended.”

Hilton started a tech company focused on political fundraising before becoming a cable news host. His wife, Rachel Whetstone, is a communications executive who has worked for top tech companies like Netflix, Facebook and Uber.

Environmental concerns got more airtime.

The Republicans were also outliers in discussion surrounding climate change, which has not featured as prominently as other issues in previous debates. Both candidates were the only ones to say California should resume offshore drilling.

Bianco rejected decades of scientific evidence and dismissed the idea that humans were affecting climate, saying that he had been warned since he was a child about the prospect of a new ice age or California being inundated by oceans. Hilton described himself as an environmentalist who believed in climate change but said the state needed a “common sense” approach to the issue that didn’t hurt small businesses. He pointed to California’s oil exports to Asia amidst high gas prices as proof the state’s policies didn’t always make sense.

“In the name of climate, we are increasing carbon emissions,” Hilton said.

Mahan criticized Hilton for saying the state needed to build “outwards, not just upwards.”

“That’s going to be great for the climate, for fire risk, for our daily commutes,” Mahan said.

Mahan proposed incentivizing electric vehicle owners to charge midday, when solar energy is abundant, and plug into the grid at night, a move Hilton dismissed as impractical.

Asked if California should set up climate standards for AI and cloud computing infrastructure, Porter said there should be “climate standards for everything we’re building” but that should not prevent development entirely.

Industries that use resources like energy and water or pollute “should be prepared to pay for it,” Porter said.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa panned climate deniers as well as candidates pitching 100% renewable energy, saying the state needed an “all-of-the-above energy policy.”

Steyer, whose 2020 presidential run centered on fighting climate change, was bullish on renewables he said are now cheaper than fossil fuels.

“The big risk for California is that falling behind the rest of the world who are moving to clean energy, renewable energy and electric vehicles as fast as they possibly can,” Steyer said.

Steyer also took a swipe at Becerra for accepting a maximum contribution from Chevron, claiming his opponent is “doing their bidding.”

Becerra countered that as attorney general, he’d beaten oil companies and the Trump administration in court defending the state’s environmental laws.

“I won’t have to talk about inflated promises because I can show people what I’ve done as AG and what I will do as governor,” Becerra said.

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