Riverside County Sheriff and California gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco is quick to recite the list of those responsible for what he calls the state’s destruction.
There are the politicians — and, more specifically, the Democrats — who hold control of the state Assembly, Senate, and governor’s office. There are the media, which have failed to hold state leaders accountable. And there are the environmentalists, who have stymied California’s development on the backs of taxpayers.
And there are those who aren’t to blame — law enforcement, businesses and California residents.
Bianco’s opponents are quick to recite the list of their criticisms. He admitted to briefly paying dues, more than a decade ago, to the far-right Oath Keepers organization. Under his watch, Riverside County Jails saw a rise in inmate deaths that prompted a state investigation into his office.
And last month, Bianco’s department seized more than 600,000 balllots from the Nov. 2025 election for an investigation into potential fraud that state Attorney General Rob Bonta called “unprecedented in state history.” The Supreme Court of California on Wednesday ordered Bianco to pause his investigation pending review of a legal challenge brought by Bonta’s office.
But Bianco — whose only other Republican opponent, Steve Hilton, was endorsed Sunday by President Donald Trump — said he believes that California voters are ready to dispense with a Democratic Party that has failed them.
If they elect him governor, he said, he promises to dispense with the state income tax and replace that revenue through increased oil drilling. He has pledged to work to repeal the sanctuary-state law that limits law enforcement agencies’ ability to collaborate with federal immigration authorities.
The following conversation is part of a series in which The Examiner plans to speak with each of the major candidates in the California gubernatorial race. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What experience [do] you have in state politics and policy — outside of the public-safety realm — that qualifies you for this job? I am the absolute only [candidate] that has actually been dedicated to public service for 32 years, that has a proven track record, an irrefutable, proven track record.
Politicians just tell us what they think we want to hear, and California is broken because our politicians have absolutely failed us.
California is not broken because of law enforcement. It’s not broken because of businesses or residents or our weather. It’s broken because of an absolute failed political environment by all of the people that are running for governor right now, and I am the only person on this ballot that has dedicated my life to making their lives better.
I now have 4,400 employees that manage 2.5 million people. This is public safety for 2.5 million people, 16 courthouses, 13 patrol facilities. I have 17 contracts — I’m the chief of police of 17 cities in addition to [being] the sheriff of Riverside County.
So I truly am the only person that is involved in all aspects of government in this election. My budget is just shy of $1.3 billion, that I finish in the black every year because I do not believe government should spend more money than what they have, and there is no one else on this ballot, not one single person on this ballot that can say that they have … the proven government experience of making other people’s lives better through government other than me.
You’ve pushed to cut taxes on working families and businesses. Can you elaborate on how you would do that? Everyone in this state has to stop being so pessimistic and believe something can’t be done because failed politicians have failed to do it. That’s the only reason why we are suffering is because the people that we have put in Sacramento are incapable or have no desire to make our lives better.
There are 10 other states in the country that don’t tax their residents, and they are thriving. [Editor’s note: There are nine states that do not impose an income tax.]
I am going to ensure that we are oil independent in this state, just like Texas, just like the Dakotas, just like Alaska, just like states that have oil that use their oil. We are going to do it here, and that is what’s going to fund government.
How would we actually actualize that transition to being oil independent? It’s called common sense. Government is not hard.
Our current agenda in Sacramento is a supermajority. It’s all Democrats, and it’s a Democrat governor. If they wanted to make your life better, they could have done it yesterday.
We have to get over this, this, this whole feeling that government is looking out for us and government is doing everything they should.
Republican gubernatorial candidates Chad Bianco, left, and Steve Hilton participate in a forum at Fresno State University on April 1.
Larry Valenzuela/CalMatters
I am going to remove the environmental restrictions. This environmental activism — and I’ll say it: It’s terrorism. It is California terrorism being conducted by environmental activists that are absolutely destroying our state by impeding, restricting and preventing growth and prosperity.
My signature on paper is going to remove those restrictions, and we are going to allow the oil companies to drill oil. We are going to benefit [from] that because the oil companies pay the state for oil, just like every other state.
This is not something Chad Bianco is making up. This is out there.
We haven’t even started talking about the absolute waste, fraud, and abuse of California government.
Every single day, that should be all that the media is talking about, because our own government came out and said that we are the most corrupt government in the country because of the waste, fraud and abuse that runs rampant. [Editor’s note: The California State Auditor released a report in 2025 that documented more than $5 million in government “waste, improper payments, misuse of state resources, and other improper governmental activities.”]
Do you think voters are prepared to vote for a Republican candidate? I am going to do the exact same thing for California that I did in Riverside.
Riverside County is majority Democrat. Why do I not have these problems here? Because I have ensured that those disingenuous politicians aren’t doing bad things for California in the name of politics or Riverside County in the name of politics.
I work with them to make sure that we are doing everything possible to get the best service, not just public-safety service, the best service for money, for taxpayers, all of those things for our county residents, and I do it with a Democrat majority.
When is a news article going to finally come out and say it’s Democrats that have destroyed the state? You can’t sit here and honestly tell me that a Republican has done one thing in California to harm California. Tell me one thing that a Democrat has done to help California. You can’t tell me, it’s not there.
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That’s why I’m leading in these polls, because people are so over the dishonest politicians. They’re over the media that just keeps repeating these things over and over, even though we live it and we know it’s not true. When is the media going to start talking about what Californians really live?
One of the things that Californians really live is, obviously, the presence and importance of immigration, in our economy and in our culture in California. You have pushed to abolish sanctuary-state policies. Why do you want to abolish those policies? Obviously their advocates and experts say that they help make communities safer. Every advocate is a liar. Every advocate is a liar.
Let’s start being honest. [California sanctuary law] did absolutely nothing for Californians, and it did absolutely nothing for people who are here in this country illegally. The only reason that law was written is to prevent criminals who are in jail from being deported.
It makes every community in California unsafe. It makes every sheriff and prison warden in this state release criminals back into the community to victimize us over and over and over again. [Editor’s Note: California sanctuary law limits police participation in immigration enforcement, but explicitly allows for state and local law enforcement to coordinate with federal immigration authorities to deport people convicted of serious or violent crimes.]
SB 54 has to absolutely go away. The people who are victimizing us and they’re in this country illegally, they have to be deported, no questions asked, and the immigrant community wants that more than anybody.
There is absolutely nothing, nothing has changed in our immigration system from 1950 to 2026. So why is it a big deal today? Why did it all of a sudden become a big deal in 2025? Because if the same thing happened in 2024, the same thing happened in 2016, the same thing happened in 2012, the same thing happened in 2010, 2000, 1996. It’s always happened, every single thing, but the media now and the lying politicians on the left side are trying to make this a big thing like it’s something that’s brand new and it’s a lie.
This has happened every single year for our entire lives, and nothing has changed — other than we’ve made it illegal for cops to protect communities.
I don’t think two things can be true at the same time — Donald Trump has taken on a posture far more anti-illegal immigration, shut down the border, carried out a mass deportation campaign as he’s promised and touted — and also this is just ’business as usual.’ He would say it’s not business as usual. Well, I mean we’ve seen all of the — I mean, the internet doesn’t lie. We’ve seen all of the comparisons almost word for word.
Did Obama say anything different than what President Trump’s saying today? Did Hillary Clinton, did Bill Clinton, did George Bush?
They all said the exact same thing. So nothing has changed.
The only thing that has changed is what the politicians are saying today, and the politicians are acting like this has never happened.
Do you have any concern that if you were to impose restrictions on sanctuary-state policies or or walk back sanctuary-state policies, individual cities like San Francisco would continue on unabated with their own? I mean, let them. That’s why people are leaving there. That’s why all their businesses are gone. That’s why no one can do business there. That’s why they’re not safe.
If you believe that eliminating sanctuary-city policies is a just thing to do, and San Francisco would resist that, and you just kind of say, “well, let them.” Aren’t you sort of writing off a city of nearly a million people that you’d be governor of? Actually, it’s in the constitution that they don’t even have the authority. The sheriff does. The sheriff has the authority. [Editor’s note: Bianco joined a lawsuit in 2025 aiming to overturn the state sanctuary law that argues federal law supersedes local and state law, requiring authorities to coordinate with federal immigration officials.]
Some far-left politician that’s trying to destroy his city and trying to release pedophiles and murderers and rapists and all of those things back into the community because they have a love affair for criminals instead of law-abiding residents — do you think that person’s going to get elected again?
I don’t think any of these people would have been elected again if the media would have been doing their job and exposing what they were doing.
I find it difficult to reconcile the hellish image you’re painting with the reality that is exposed through crime numbers that [show] we are enjoying a historically low number of violent crimes in San Francisco. Do you know that we don’t even report those crimes anymore?
You don’t report homicides? Well, of course homicides.
Well, we have very low violent-crime numbers. That’s going to be our metrics? Murder? I’ll tell you something from a law-enforcement perspective: We don’t have any difference in murders. Well, technically, we do have the difference in murders — because people didn’t die. It’s not because they, it’s not because they weren’t shot, stabbed or injured. It’s because medical saved them.
I mean that’s an anomaly that nobody talks about. It’s like, why aren’t we blaming the doctors? Why isn’t there a zero murder rate? Why don’t the doctors save everybody? I mean, it’s such a silly argument when you get into statistics, because you can make statistics say whatever they want.
You can’t walk through California and find me one person that says, yeah, crime’s down. No one believes that. The cops that are working don’t believe it. The people who are reporting the crime don’t believe it. The business owners don’t believe it. The residents don’t believe it.
But we’re supposed to believe the politicians who tout these fake numbers. They’re real numbers, but they’re fake because the data is bad.
Is there a specific area you point to as an example of wasteful [government] spending? There can’t be a specific area because it’s everywhere.
It’s homelessness. It’s [the] school system.
We right now have an investigation going on in Riverside County because of all the, who knows how many hundreds of thousands, if not maybe a million, dollars have been embezzled from the school system, or taxpayers’ money, over this system now of providing Chinese students with diplomas.
It’s a crime and they’ve known about it for a long time, but they hide it. They hide it amongst themselves. They make laws that say they can investigate themselves instead of law enforcement doing it.
I can’t say one thing is better than the other because the waste is everywhere, everywhere. It’s our bullet train. It’s the absolute ridiculous boondoggle of a bullet train. You’re not telling me that that’s waste? We can all see it, and we’re all tired of being lied to about it.
You’re not telling me that the billions of dollars that were supposed to go to dam construction that have been absolutely spent and wasted — and no dams were built — that’s not fraud? You’re not telling me that the $25 billion that they absolutely know have disappeared from the money that they’ve given to the homeless situation, that Gov. [Gavin] Newsom absolutely blocked an audit from happening — you don’t think that we all know that’s fraud? [Editor’s Note: Newsom allocated $24 billion in state funds to homelessness programs over the last five years, and an audit found its effectiveness could largely not be tracked. In 2024, Newsom vetoed a bill that would have required California homelessness programs to report on their spending and outcomes. The governor argued it was duplicative of existing law.]
California Democrat policy is indefensible.
Every single person that I’m running against on the Democrat side is running against MAGA. They’re running against Trump. Not one of them is defending Democrat policies in California, because Democrat policies in California are indefensible.