Joe Biden will not endorse anyone in the California governor's race, including Xavier Becerra, the man who served as his own Health and Human Services Secretary. The former president recently told ex-White House chief of staff Ron Klain that he plans to sit out the June 2 primary entirely, the New York Post reported, citing a New York Times account of the conversation.
For a former cabinet official running on his record of service in the Biden administration, the silence speaks volumes.
Becerra entered the race touting decades in Democratic politics and his tenure atop HHS during the COVID-19 pandemic. He is locked in a tight contest with progressive billionaire Tom Steyer, while Republican Steve Hilton leads many polls. And yet the man Becerra served under, the man who appointed him to one of the most consequential positions in the federal government, will not put his name behind him.
Klain relayed Biden's thinking in terms that were polite but unmistakable. The former chief of staff told the New York Times:
"He told me that he is a big fan of Xavier, he likes Xavier, appreciates the job he did, but that there are other people in the race who he also has a relationship with."
The bottom line, Klain said: "He's just going to stay neutral."
That neutrality is hard to square with Biden's behavior in other races. The former president has already endorsed former aides in high-profile contests elsewhere, backing former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms for governor in Georgia and former White House adviser Dan Koh in Massachusetts. Both are former Biden aides. So is Becerra. The difference is that Becerra doesn't get the nod.
That pattern raises an obvious question: if Biden is willing to endorse former staffers in Georgia and Massachusetts, what about Becerra's record made California the exception?
The answer may lie in what happened, or didn't happen, at HHS. Becerra's performance as Health and Human Services Secretary has drawn sustained criticism. The New York Times cited past reporting on frustrations within the White House over Becerra's management style. Complaints also surfaced over delays in handling migrant children crossing the southern border on his watch.
Former Justice Department spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa sharpened the critique after a recent CNN debate, saying Becerra "was not effective in government." That is not an attack from a Republican rival. It came from a fellow Democrat, a former Obama and Biden-era official.
Klain pushed back, calling the attacks on Becerra "profoundly unfair." Former White House COVID response coordinator Ashish Jha offered a more measured defense, saying Becerra handled a difficult role well given that the White House itself directly managed much of the pandemic response. In other words, even the defense concedes that Becerra was not fully in charge of his own department's signature mission.
For voters trying to evaluate Becerra's candidacy, Biden's refusal to endorse him is a data point that no surrogate spin can erase. The man who hired him won't vouch for him.
The California governor's race has been marked by volatility. Becerra surged in Democratic polling after the reported collapse of Rep. Eric Swalwell's gubernatorial campaign amid rape and sexual assault allegations. That turbulence pushed Becerra toward the top of a packed Democratic field, but it did not earn him the institutional support he appears to have expected.
Neither Biden nor former Vice President Kamala Harris has endorsed Becerra. Nor has sitting Governor Gavin Newsom. Three of the most prominent Democrats in the country, all with deep California ties, have declined to put their weight behind a man who served at the highest levels of the Biden administration. That is a remarkable level of institutional distance from a candidate who built his campaign around insider credentials.
Meanwhile, the broader reassessment of the Biden era continues. Former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently admitted the Biden team should have moved faster on border security, adding to a growing list of former officials revisiting their own records. Becerra's border-related delays at HHS fit neatly into that pattern of belated accountability.
The political dynamics around Biden himself remain complicated. Jill Biden's forthcoming memoir promises to address the circumstances of his 2024 exit from the presidential race, and questions about Biden's post-presidency conduct and decision-making continue to draw attention.
Biden's decision to stay neutral is, in practice, a choice with consequences. In a tight primary where Becerra is battling Steyer for Democratic voters and Hilton leads the broader field, a Biden endorsement could have consolidated establishment support. Without it, Becerra must defend a cabinet record that even Democrats have questioned, without the one testimonial that might have settled the argument.
Klain's framing, that Biden has "relationships" with multiple candidates, is the kind of diplomatic language that usually means the principal doesn't want to spend political capital on a losing bet. Biden endorsed Bottoms and Koh without apparent hesitation. The California race, with its larger stakes and higher scrutiny, apparently called for a different calculation.
That calculation tells voters something important about how the Biden inner circle actually views Becerra's tenure. Public praise is cheap. An endorsement costs something. And Biden chose not to pay.
The broader question for California Democrats is whether a candidate whose own former boss won't back him can credibly claim to be the party's strongest option. Biden's post-presidency has been defined by selective engagement, speaking up when it suits him, staying quiet when it doesn't. His silence on Becerra fits that pattern exactly.
Becerra entered this race with a résumé designed to impress. He leaves the endorsement conversation empty-handed, not because Biden opposes him, but because Biden looked at the record and decided it wasn't worth the trouble.
When the man who gave you the job won't recommend you for the next one, voters are entitled to ask why.
