{"id":241990,"date":"2026-03-29T11:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T11:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/241990\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T11:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T11:09:09","slug":"will-or-wont-he-a-lot-rides-on-a-trump-endorsement-in-california-governors-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/241990\/","title":{"rendered":"Will or won’t he? A lot rides on a Trump endorsement in California governor’s race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chad Bianco couldn\u2019t fly to Mar-a-Lago, wreathe President Trump in honeyed words<\/a>, bestow the Riverside County Peace Prize<\/a> upon him and hand-feed him his favorite dish \u2014 a Big Mac?<\/a> \u2014 from a platter of 24-karat gold<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Security, logistics and all of that.<\/p>\n

So the Republican candidate for California governor <\/a>did the next best thing: He confiscated hundreds of thousands of ballots<\/a> from last November\u2019s special election in a trumped-up investigation of supposed voting irregularities. Never mind the complete lack of evidence or the fact Proposition 50<\/a>, the subject of Bianco\u2019s investigation, was approved by a clear-cut majority<\/a> of voters.<\/p>\n

The intent of Riverside County\u2019s grasping sheriff<\/a> was as transparent as a pane of glass. It\u2019s all about trying to win the endorsement of Trump \u2014 he of phantasmagorical election-fraud claims<\/a> \u2014 in California\u2019s neck-and-neck-and-neck<\/a> gubernatorial contest.<\/p>\n

Bianco, fellow Republican Steve Hilton<\/a> and a passel of Democratic hopefuls<\/a> are bunched together in a contest that remains utterly wide open<\/a> just weeks before voters start receiving their ballots in the mail.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s endorsement would be huge,\u201d said Jon Fleischman<\/a>, a conservative strategist and former executive director of the state GOP.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually,\u201d he went on, \u2018I think it would be determinative\u201d \u2014 virtually guaranteeing either Hilton or Bianco finished in the top two in the June 2 primary, ushering them past the rope line into November\u2019s runoff.<\/p>\n

Read more: Barabak: It’s been decades since California had a governor’s race like this one. That was a shocker<\/a><\/p>\n

If there\u2019s an inside edge in the Trump Endorsement Sweepstakes, it would seemingly go to Hilton.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s familiar to the president as a former Fox News host. He\u2019s interviewed Trump several times and the two occasionally text and talk on the phone. Bianco has no such personal connection, which might explain his ballot-seizing stunt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Gubernatorial<\/p>\n

Steve Hilton could have the inside track on a Trump endorsement, given their personal relationship. (Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

(The Democrats’ nightmare scenario<\/a> is both Republicans making the runoff, icing the party out of the governor’s office for the first time since Arnold Schwarzenegger left in January 2011<\/a>. More on that in a moment.)<\/p>\n

A Trump endorsement comes in all sorts of flavors.<\/p>\n

As The Downballot<\/a> recently noted, \u201cHis bag of tricks includes dual endorsements, triple endorsements, pre-endorsements, Election Day endorsements, yanking endorsements \u2026 belated endorsement of a candidate after initially endorsing just one candidate [and] non-endorsements after promising to endorse.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was also the time Trump endorsed \u201cERIC\u201d when Republicans Eric Schmitt and Eric Greitens faced each other in Missouri’s Senate primary. (Schmitt won and is now the state\u2019s junior U.S. senator.)<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s backing still counts a good deal, even as his approval ratings sink to sub-basement levels<\/a>. The president remains popular with Republicans and, critically, the kind of GOP loyalists who vote in primary contests, which is why both Hilton and Bianco would welcome a presidential laying on of hands.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s good reason, however, to think Trump might pass on endorsing in the governor\u2019s race, or opt to deliver one of his dual he-and-him endorsements.<\/p>\n

The GOP\u2019s best \u2014 and perhaps only \u2014 hope of winning the governorship is the Democratic-freeze-out scenario<\/a>. So, tactically, Trump’s wisest move may be to bless neither Hilton nor Bianco. Or support both. That would avoid elevating one over the other, which could make it easier for a Democrat to finish among the top two and advance past the June primary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Trump’s people are smart enough to know that there’s a reason why he may not be served by endorsing a candidate,\u201d Fleischman said. \u201cI wouldn’t be surprised if the prevailing wisdom there is we better not endorse anybody, because we don’t want to tilt this one way or the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Trump were to back Hilton or Bianco, it\u2019s not hard to imagine Democratic interests seizing upon the president\u2019s benediction and putting significant money behind an ad blitz promoting the president\u2019s favorite in hopes of boosting him \u2014 and him alone \u2014 into the top two.<\/p>\n

The move comes from a well-thumbed political playbook, seeking to elevate a preferred opponent, that was used most recently in California<\/a> by Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff. He helped lift Republican Steve Garvey<\/a> into the November 2024 runoff to keep from having to face a tougher opponent<\/a>, fellow Democrat Katie Porter. Schiff easily defeated Garvey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this case, Democrats would aim to tee up one of the two Republicans who would almost certainly go on to lose in the fall.<\/p>\n

Which is what happened the first time Gavin Newsom ran<\/a> for governor.<\/p>\n

In 2018<\/a>, his main rival was fellow Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa<\/a>. Two major Republicans were also in the race, John Cox and Travis Allen<\/a>. There was no real concern about those two nabbing both spots in the June primary. Rather, Newsom and Cox<\/a> had a shared interest in boxing out Villaraigosa.<\/p>\n

So the Newsom and Cox campaigns opened a private back-channel, trading gossip, swapping insights on the race and even sharing some empirical data. One poll, showing Cox getting a bigger boost from a Trump endorsement than Allen, passed from Democratic hands in hopes it would reach the White House and nudge the president into supporting Cox.<\/p>\n

Read more: Letters to the Editor: California can achieve faster, easier elections with a few straightforward changes<\/a><\/p>\n

Though there\u2019s no proof the survey ever reached Trump, the president eventually threw his support<\/a> behind the San Diego County businessman, lifting him past Allen in the primary. Cox went on to lose handily to Newsom<\/a> in November.<\/p>\n

This time, with more than a half dozen plausible candidates<\/a> and no obvious path to victory for any one, it’s every man and woman for themselves.<\/p>\n

The same goes for Trump, who may do himself the most good in California, politically, by doing nothing at all.<\/p>\n

If he can only resist.<\/p>\n

Get the latest from Mark Z. Barabak
Focusing on politics out West, from the Golden Gate to the U.S. Capitol.
Sign me up.<\/a><\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chad Bianco couldn\u2019t fly to Mar-a-Lago, wreathe President Trump in honeyed words, bestow the Riverside County Peace Prize…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,2926,9,8,28687,26686,457,63,3020,106351,612,17382],"class_list":{"0":"post-241990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-governor","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-chad-bianco","13":"tag-endorsement","14":"tag-gavin-newsom","15":"tag-los-angeles-times","16":"tag-president-trump","17":"tag-republican-candidate","18":"tag-riverside-county","19":"tag-steve-hilton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241990","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=241990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}