![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2092157a2b288338b8cf5b80238be69eb9-Steve-Hilton.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
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\n Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton should probably stop calling his GOP rival \u201cBLM Bianco.\u201d
\n Photo: Kayla Bartkowsk\/Los Angeles Times\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
The election to name the next governor of California feels very strange. For one thing, it\u2019s only the second election since 1998 in which the Democratic nominee will not be a sitting governor (Gray Davis<\/a> in 2002, Jerry Brown<\/a> in 2014, Gavin Newsom<\/a> in 2022) or lieutenant governor (Newsom in 2018), or a former governor (Brown in 2010). So it\u2019s not surprising that there\u2019s a bumper crop of Democratic candidates in the field and no clear-cut front-runner. At the recent California Democratic Party convention that hands out official endorsements for primary candidates, none of the nine would-be governors got more than 24 percent of the delegate votes<\/a>; 60 percent was required for the party nod.<\/p>\n But California\u2019s top-two election system<\/a> adds a complication to the mix. The top two performers in the June 2 nonpartisan primary will receive ballot lines in the November general election. They could be a Democrat and a Republican, two Democrats, or two Republicans. According to the latest polling, from the generally reliable Public Policy Institute of California<\/a>, five gubernatorial candidates \u2014 three Democrats (Katie Porter<\/a>, Eric Swalwell<\/a> and Tom Steyer<\/a>) and two Republicans (Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco) \u2014 are bunched together in the low teens in voter support. From the beginning of this race, Democrats have been warning that their vast and starless field could produce a strange all-Republican general election for California governor. In the PPIC survey, Hilton is currently running first and Bianco third. And the two Republicans are running first and second in the RealClearPolitics polling averages<\/a>.<\/p>\n Understandably, Democratic candidates want some of their rivals to quit so they can consolidate their votes and avoid the awful specter of two very Trumpy Republican guys fighting over the governorship in November. But nobody\u2019s eager to be the one to quit; it\u2019s like a game of musical chairs but without a process for forcing anyone to leave the game.<\/p>\n There\u2019s less talk, however, about where this leaves the Republicans. Hilton and Bianco may both claim the MAGA mantle, but they\u2019re hardly peas in a pod. Hilton is British-born and was actually a top aide to former Tory prime minister David Cameron<\/a> before moving to the U.S. and, after a start-up whirl in Silicon Valley, becoming a star gabber on Fox News<\/a>. He still has quite the British accent and lives in the upper-crust Silicon Valley town of Atherton. Born on an Air Force base in Utah, Bianco is the elected sheriff of Riverside County, a solidly conservative jurisdiction east of Los Angeles, and has worked for that sheriff\u2019s department since 1993. He\u2019s a former Oath Keeper<\/a> and was a conspicuous opponent of COVID-vaccine mandates during the pandemic. But in an interesting twist, Bianco also participated in an event marking the death of George Floyd and \u201ctook a knee\u201d<\/a> next to Black Lives Matters protesters in Riverside.<\/p>\n Suffice it to say both Republicans have intraparty vulnerabilities, aside from the fact that they are competing for donors and votes. And as the race has gotten serious, they\u2019ve begun whaling away at each other, as Politico recently reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n Hilton, a former Fox News host, has repeatedly jabbed Bianco on cable news and social media \u2014 and says Bianco rebuffed his suggestion that the two candidates decide who should step aside, presumably Bianco, to avoid splitting the GOP vote. \u2026<\/p>\n Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff, said Hilton never reached out to negotiate such a deal. \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s an absolute liar,\u201d Bianco said, before lobbing what amounts to a stinging insult within the California GOP. \u201cHe\u2019s like the\u00a0Gavin Newsom\u00a0of the Republican Party. \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n The tension between Hilton and Bianco erupted last week during the first televised candidate debate, when Hilton called his rival \u201cBLM Bianco,\u201d a reference to a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest where the sheriff was filmed kneeling with protesters. Hilton even launched a website to promote the moniker.<\/p>\n This may seem normal to anyone accustomed to the routinely nasty tone of contemporary politics. But here\u2019s the thing: These two candidates absolutely need each other. If either begins taking a lot of votes from the other, then the best the \u201cwinner\u201d of the intra-GOP competition can do is earn a place in the general election opposite a Democrat and then go down to a resounding defeat in November. How do I know that? Well, because no Republican has won any kind of statewide race in California since 2010. They have regularly been beaten by a fairly consistent three-to-two margin (or worse), reflecting the strongly pro-Democratic voter-registration advantage. Democrats have a supermajority in the state legislature. Their proposal to conduct a highly partisan congressional gerrymander<\/a> to counter what Republicans in Texas had done<\/a> was approved by 64 percent of voters<\/a> just last November. According to the aforementioned PPIC poll, Donald Trump\u2019s job-approval rating in California right now is 25 percent<\/a>. On top of everything else, 2026 is shaping up as a Democratic wave election, at least to some degree.<\/p>\n So the only way Steve Hilton or Chad Bianco is going to get elected governor is for both of them to win as many votes as possible and make very real the Democratic nightmare of a Republican \u201clockout\u201d in the general election. Perhaps they should put down the claw hammers and figure out a way to help, not harm, each other. If they\u2019re just fighting to see who gets obliterated in November, neither wins.<\/p>\n