As California’s voters receive their primary election ballots and began returning them in to be counted, the seven leading candidates for governor on Tuesday night engaged in an occasionally slashing, two-hour debate that reflected a race that’s too close to call.

The event, staged by CNN in Monterey Park, differed from past forums with a looser format that allowed the five Democrats and two Republicans to chime in on a series of contentious issues and hurl personal zingers at each other.

In other words, it was more like a real debate rather than a glorified panel discussion, and allowed watchers throughout the nation, as well as Californians, to gauge how they handled themselves under stress.

The pecking order was obvious, with Xavier Becerra, the former attorney general and Biden cabinet member, a frequent target of candidates of both parties. He saw a sudden rise in the polls after former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s campaign imploded amid accusations of sexual harassment and assault.

Before Swalwell exited, Becerra was mired in the second tier of the field, with low, single-digit support in the polls. He has since jumped into the upper tier, and in the latest Democratic Party poll released this week, was tied with Republican Steve Hilton for first place.

Becerra’s leap over billionaire Tom Steyer, has sparked a series of anti-Becerra media spots and news releases from Steyer. They cite a scandal in which campaign aides to Becerra have been accused of diverting money from one of his accounts and raise allegations that he lost track of millions of migrant children when serving as health and welfare secretary.

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Known for a quiet demeanor, Becerra displayed a more animated side of his persona in response to the critical comments, saying at one point that ”everyone is evoking my name” as he insisted that he was a victim in the campaign fund case and that the “lost kids” critique was untrue.

Some of the sharpest shots at Becerra came from former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who stands at just 2% in the latest party poll, reflecting a long-time rivalry dating from Villaraigosa’s mayoralty and Becerra’s time as a Los Angeles congressman.

Nothing that happened Tuesday night, as the candidates talked about living costs, gasoline prices, homelessness, immigration and other issues, appeared to be a game-changer.

The differences among Democrats on the points posed by the two CNN moderators were not especially wide. All of the candidates boasted of their disdain for President Donald Trump and vowed to protect California from his wrath, which is standard Democratic rhetoric these days.

There was a little dustup over single-payer health care — reflecting the primacy of that issue among progressive activists. Steyer, who portrays himself as the most progressive candidate and boasts of support from the California Nurses Association, the major promoter of a single-payer system, chided Becerra for allegedly declaring opposition to single-payer to gain an endorsement from the California Medical Association, saying the CMA “maxed out for Becerra.”

Becerra refused to endorse single-payer, while saying he backs “Medicare for all” as an answer to disparities in health care. Porter was the only other Democrat to unreservedly endorse a single-payer system.

The two Republicans, Hilton and Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, pretty much stuck to the standard GOP line that California’s long list of issues — such as high poverty, unemployment, housing shortages and high living costs — should be blamed on Democratic control of the state’s government and can be fixed only by electing one of them as governor.

That’s virtually impossible unless they finish 1-2 in the June 2 primary and thus both appear on the November ballot. Democratic leaders were worried about that possibility, but as the field has sorted itself lately, one Republican might get into the run-off. Given California’s voter demographics, the Democrat who survives will almost certainly be the next governor.

Dan Walters is one of most decorated and widely syndicated columnists in California history, authoring a column four times a week that offers his view and analysis of the state’s political, economic,...