{"id":182913,"date":"2026-02-18T12:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T12:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/182913\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T12:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T12:24:11","slug":"republican-steve-hilton-outlines-california-governor-plans-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/182913\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican Steve Hilton outlines California governor plans | Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hilton_web\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that Californians are unhappy with their state government. Steve Hilton\u2019s big bet is that they\u2019re so dissatisfied<\/a>, so angry, that this heavily Democratic state will be willing to vote for a former Fox News host<\/a> and supporter of President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Hilton is one of two Republican candidates \u2014 the other being Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco \u2014 who have consistently polled well against a splintered field of Democratic candidates in the race to become the next governor of California.<\/p>\n

His opponents will inevitably paint him as a fervent Trump loyalist \u2014 Hilton has stated that he has \u201cgood personal relationships<\/a>\u201d with many White House officials. But his campaign isn\u2019t focused on the issues dominating national headlines \u2014 such as immigration enforcement \u2014 that a vast majority of Californians detest, and that Democratic candidates often bring up on the debate stage.<\/p>\n

Hilton, who himself immigrated from the United Kingdom to the United States in 2012, said he instead hopes to tap into the rage that has resulted from California\u2019s high cost of living and scarcity of housing. And while Democratic candidates often raise the same issues, Hilton argues that the Democratic Party has spent years in power in California and failed to address them.<\/p>\n

How does a Republican win a governor\u2019s race in a state that overwhelmingly voted against President Trump and continues to give him poor approval ratings? Well, the short answer is that the governor\u2019s race this year isn\u2019t about President Trump. It\u2019s about the lives of people right here in California, which are mainly affected by our government here in California.<\/p>\n

And if you look at the verdict of the people of California on that performance, it\u2019s incredibly negative. So my starting point would be to say \u2014 just as a matter of fact \u2014 there is a majority of Californians who want a change of direction politically.<\/p>\n

There are enough Republican votes. The question is, can you get Republican voters who voted for President Trump to turn out in large enough numbers in a midterm election for governor to win the race? I think the answer to that is yes, you can, partly through a strong, clear campaign argument \u2014 which is what I\u2019m putting out there \u2014 focused on very practical things that will affect everybody\u2019s daily life, particularly working-class Californians.<\/p>\n

From the beginning of the campaign it\u2019s been very clear and consistent for me. Get $3 gas, cut your electric bills in half, your first $100,000 free of state income tax, a home you can afford to buy.<\/p>\n

\"Election<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Steve Hilton and Matt Mahan participate in the California gubernatorial candidate debate Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Laure Andrillon\/Associated Press<\/p>\n

A Democrat will probably argue that reducing or eliminating income tax on people earning less than $100,000 is not feasible, the state budget would be a disaster and the sorts of social support and services that people in California have come to rely on will disappear. Well, \u201cWhy isn\u2019t it feasible?\u201d would be my question. They\u2019ve doubled the budget, nearly, in the last five years \u2014 doubled, and yet everything\u2019s got worse, and we have the worst outcomes on everything that matters. [Editor\u2019s note: California\u2019s budget grew from around $201 billion in the 2020-21 fiscal year to $321 billion in 2025-26, an increase of almost 60%.]<\/p>\n

Secondly, when you actually look at the costings of my tax plan, the one that will affect most people directly and most meaningfully is the elimination of income tax for those under $100,000. But there\u2019s a second part to it, which is above $100,000, a flat tax of 7.5%. And the way I frame that is you\u2019ve got a pro-worker component and a pro-growth component.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to be a big incentive for investment. I was previously a fellow at the Hoover Institution [at Stanford University]. I went back to some colleagues there and we did the costings [and predicted] a revenue reduction to the state of California of about 18.5%, which is certainly aggressive in terms of a spending cut \u2014 but it is not at all unachievable given that the budget\u2019s increased by 100%, nearly, in the last five years.<\/p>\n

This is not some outlandish proposal. I think it\u2019s actually a proposal that I would be shocked if Democrats opposed.<\/p>\n

Do you want to delve into [business regulation]? I\u2019ve started companies here and back in England before we moved here in 2012, including restaurants, which is a really tough business at the best of times. I talk to small-business owners the whole time … the layers of hassle and bureaucracy that they have to deal with are just unimaginable for someone who doesn\u2019t run a business, and it\u2019s no wonder that they\u2019re leaving or closing down, including much-beloved local restaurants and bars and places like that. It\u2019s just so difficult.<\/p>\n

Someone who ran a local restaurant was telling me they expanded their patio from 30 to 50 guests, and it took six years and $1 million by the time you added up the legal fees, environmental inspections, and all this nonsense you have to deal with. It\u2019s all got totally out of hand. I don\u2019t think this is something that any of my Democrat colleagues in the governor\u2019s race actually disagree with. I\u2019ve heard them say it many times on the debate stage and elsewhere. The question is, are they actually going to do anything about it?<\/p>\n

I know that you\u2019ve declared war on the \u201cwar against single-family homes.\u201d Can we do that while also building enough homes to mitigate the housing crisis? One hundred percent. I believe in housing choice, as it were. I want everyone to be able to afford to buy the home that makes sense for them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n \"Steyer
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Known for his 2020 presidential bid, the billionaire-turned-environmentalist is eyeing the governor\u2019s mansion<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n \"Local
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Advocates warn Department of Public Health reductions will be felt in programs serving vulnerable<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n \"From
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sarah Lacy recently opened her second location of The Best Bookstore in Union Square and is aiming to open another dozen in coming years<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re just starting out and you\u2019re younger, you may want an apartment in the city. There\u2019s lots of interesting options there. But if you\u2019re in California, most people \u2014 especially when the time comes for them to start a family \u2014 want a single-family home.<\/p>\n

And the truth is we have plenty of land. Five percent or so of our land is developed in California. It\u2019s one of the lowest, I think it\u2019s the lowest in the country. You could expand, you could grow that to 6% … you\u2019d have space for 10 million single-family homes on quarter-acre lots.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just to illustrate the scale of what could be achieved if we free ourselves from the constraint of saying that everything has to be infill development. The problem by insisting on that is, first of all, you limit the choice of housing that\u2019s available to people \u2014 it all has to be apartments. Secondly, if it\u2019s all about infill, inevitably that restricts the amount of land that\u2019s available for development. That increases the cost of the land.<\/p>\n

And then thirdly, it just makes it more time-consuming because you end up in all these battles about where to build, and there will be people filing lawsuits and all this kind of stuff.<\/p>\n

It costs three or four times as much to build anything \u2014 housing, industrial, retail, whatever \u2014 in California, specifically because of building codes, labor regulations, environmental regulations on the construction itself. And then you add into that the litigation risk. That\u2019s a huge reason everything\u2019s so expensive and time-consuming.<\/p>\n

\"Election<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks during an event to announce the candidacy of Michael Gates as California attorney general Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Huntington Beach.<\/p>\n

Damian Dovarganes\/Associated Press<\/p>\n

I\u2019m curious what your thoughts are on the billionaire tax that\u2019s been proposed. The premise of it is completely flawed, because the union is arguing that we need it to fund health care to mitigate health-care cuts from the federal government. The actual amount of the budget from the federal government for California for health care is going up.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve massively increased spending; we don\u2019t have good outcomes. So I don\u2019t accept even the premise for this proposal, let alone the proposal itself.<\/p>\n

Now you get to the actual proposal. It\u2019s an asset seizure. It\u2019s totally unworkable. They have no clue about how it would work. What are you going to do, just on a particular given day \u2014 randomly, arbitrarily pick a day \u2014 and value everyone\u2019s stock portfolios on that one day?<\/p>\n

Then you\u2019ve got the impact we\u2019ve already seen, just the threat of it driving wealth out of the state, so it\u2019s totally self-defeating. We\u2019ve already lost billions of dollars in tax revenue because people have left the state just at the threat of it because of the retrospective nature of it.<\/p>\n

The mechanics of it and the philosophy of it are two different issues. Do you philosophically believe that billionaires \u2014 or at least the ultrawealthy \u2014 need to pay more taxes in California? They already pay more taxes. It\u2019s a famous statistic \u2014 the top 1% pay about 50% of the income tax<\/a>. So this idea that the rich should pay their fair share is a cliche. They already do by far. It\u2019s ridiculous. We\u2019ve got to be a place that attracts wealth creators.<\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s a lot of complacency around the fact that we\u2019ve got \u2014 you hear [Gov. Gavin Newsom], all the time, talking about how we\u2019re the fourth-biggest economy. That\u2019s true statistically \u2014 and great, I\u2019m proud of that. Of course I want California to do well, and I believe that with the right policies in place that I\u2019m putting forward, we could become the third-biggest economy in the world.<\/p>\n

That statistic is really skewed by a small number of very large companies making huge amounts of money, enormous revenue, but not employing very many people. And in fact, even to the extent that they\u2019re creating the kind of blue-collar jobs that we need, they\u2019re all being done in other states.<\/p>\n

Nvidia, for example \u2014 a fantastic Bay Area success story \u2014 announced a huge investment program in the middle of last year. Half a trillion dollars of investment they said they were making in America, none of it in California. None of it.<\/p>\n

How do you distinguish yourself, if at all, from the policies that are widely disliked by Californians at the federal level right now? I have a very strong point of view about this. I\u2019m a legal immigrant, and I absolutely understand and cherish the role of immigration as being the lifeblood of any country.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m an immigrant twice over. My parents fled communism in Hungary and left the country, and I was born in England. I deeply understand, growing up in a working-class family in England as the son of Hungarian refugees, that sort of basic story of immigrant aspiration.<\/p>\n

But on the other hand, I would point out that we moved here in 2012. I became a citizen in 2021. In the nine years \u2014 through visa and green card and citizenship application and so on \u2014 if at any point in that process something had gone wrong, I\u2019d been denied a green card or citizenship or whatever it may be, it honestly would not have entered my head to just stay here.<\/p>\n

And I think we have to just really just say the truth, which is we cannot have law-breaking and a norm of rule-breaking on the scale that we\u2019ve seen for the last 50 years. At some point we have to say that the law is the law, and we have to uphold the law and enforce the law, and I think that\u2019s really important and I\u2019ve said very clearly that. When I\u2019m governor, I will make sure that all laws are peacefully enforced.<\/p>\n

In particular, I\u2019ve noticed there\u2019s strong support in immigrant communities and a real resentment at the way that illegal immigration has created a sense of unfairness. And you hear it all the time. I\u2019m in East [Los Angeles] often with Latino communities, and whether their parents or their grandparents came, they all say these very similar stories you hear, which is that \u201cWe did it the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s no secret that Californians are unhappy with their state government. Steve Hilton\u2019s big bet is that they\u2019re…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[84963,7,9,8,400,457,17382],"class_list":{"0":"post-182913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-2026-california-gubernatorial-election","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-california-politics","13":"tag-gavin-newsom","14":"tag-steve-hilton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}