Bay Area voter says late ballot turn-in due to crowded gubernatorial candidate field

Among all of the people who cast their ballots on Monday, Santa Clara County resident Soteria Riester says it took her longer than ever to get her ballot filled out this year.

"This is the latest I've ever, ever voted – I had 5-6 pages," she said.

Enough room to include the 61 candidates running to be the next governor of California.

"You had to really do some research to get to the right person," she said.

Only two will advance to the general election in November. Numerous polls show Democrat Xavier Becerra as the front-runner. Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Tom Steyer are neck-and-neck behind him, likely duking it out for the number two spot.

"It looks like Xavier Becerra has a comfortable lead. It's likely he'll advance to November," said Caroline Heldman, a Professor of Politics at Occidental College. "The real question here is who he will be running against, a Democrat or a Republican?"

The attacks are heating up in the home stretch – not between the Democrats and Republicans, however, but between Steyer and Becerra.

"Steyer is going after Becerra because he knows he needs to get Democratic and Independent votes in order to make it into the number two spot tomorrow, so, less so about going after Steve Hilton," Heldman said. "Steyer is really going after Becerra because so many Democrats and Independents have held onto their ballots – only 15% have been returned – I think a lot of folks are waiting to see who is going to be on top and maybe swing their vote that way rather than who they actually prefer as a candidate."

Steyer, who's used his personal fortune to launch a wave of negative ads against Becerra, is now facing legal threats over an ad released this past weekend. In it, the ad claims Becerra could face an indictment in relation to a corruption case involving his former chief of staff and campaign manager.

Becerra's campaign and legal team responded to the Steyer campaign with a cease-and-desist letter and threatened a lawsuit if they didn't pull the ad.

"Let's be clear – it's a false allegation. There's no evidence that Becerra is about to be charged. In fact, there's better evidence that Becerra was a victim in all of this. So, Steyer putting this ad out and Becerra having to respond to it and all of us talking about it means that we are still thinking about this scandal in relation to Becerra," Heldman said. "It's a smart campaign move by Steyer at this last-ditch effort to try to shift the needle right before election day."

Steyer campaigned in Los Angeles on Monday. His team is suggesting a late surge of voters will pay off in his favor.

Becerra thanked supporters at a campaign event in Sacramento on Monday.

Assuming polls ring true and Becerra comes out on top, Heldman says the general election will play out very differently depending on who he is up against.

"This primary is really the big show, because California is such an overwhelmingly Democratic state, that if it's a Democrat against a Republican it's pretty much a done deal in November, barring some major scandal," Heldman said. "If we see two Democratic candidates advance to the general election, this will be a very spicy general contest."

Riester, who made up her mind about who she's supporting just before Election Day, hopes others will do the same.

"Do vote. It's very important," she said. "Every vote counts."