shut out Democratic general election candidates<\/a>, an extraordinary event that pollsters and strategists of both parties agree is the only viable chance for a Republican to become governor. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2-to-1 in California and the GOP hasn\u2019t won a statewide race in two decades.<\/p>\nBoth Republicans can only advance to November if they split the Republican vote essentially evenly, giving each enough to surpass their Democratic opponents. That\u2019s thanks to California\u2019s top-two primary system, in which the two candidates with the most votes advance to the general election regardless of their party.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Democrats insist it won\u2019t happen, though they face mounting pressure over the risk in a year when the party is hoping to turn out liberal voters for U.S. House races in November.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And neither Republican is strategizing to shut the Democrats out. Instead of trying to keep the other alive through the primary, Hilton and Bianco are running campaigns like any other candidate: seeking to defeat one another. Hilton has spent the past few months attempting to consolidate Republican support by attacking Bianco, who has been happy to return the ire.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an amazing irony there, that they need to beat each other but they both need to succeed at the same time,\u201d GOP strategist Rob Stutzman said. \u201cIt cuts against human nature and cuts against the way you put together campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n
An intra-Republican primary<\/p>\n
Despite very different backgrounds, Hilton and Bianco are running on similar policies.<\/p>\n
Hilton is a British political strategist who\u2019s written extensively about populism, reducing bureaucracy and decentralizing power, and Bianco is a bombastic local sheriff who is\u00a0pushing the boundaries of police authority\u00a0over elections.<\/p>\n
Both are pushing a deregulation agenda, railing against Democratic-backed environmental policies they blame for raising the state\u2019s cost of living. Their targets include the landmark California Environmental Quality Act, which requires environmental reviews for new construction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both Republicans also want to reverse prison closures, boost oil production to lower gas prices and reduce or eliminate the 61-cents-a-gallon gas tax.<\/p>\n
Hilton wants to shield the first $100,000 of earnings from the state income tax (a goal Democrat Katie Porter shares) and significantly lower taxes on higher earners by cutting 18% of the state budget, including areas he claims are fraudulent or wasteful such as using cannabis tax revenue to support substance abuse programs. Bianco also wants to cut, and bring in oil revenues to eliminate the income tax entirely.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hilton, one of the race\u2019s top fundraisers, has raised more than $6.6 million so far, exceeding Bianco\u2019s haul by more than $2 million. The two are second and third to Democratic former Rep. Katie Porter in the total number of campaign donors \u2014 one measure of popular support.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Polls show they remain neck-and-neck at or near the top of the pack, with\u00a0one survey released last week\u00a0by the California Democratic Party showing Hilton and Bianco statistically tied with 16% and 14%, respectively. To be competitive, they each need to win over independent and undecided voters, some of whom lean Republican and most of whom\u00a0are fixated on the state\u2019s cost of living crisis. The California Republican Party is slated to take an endorsement vote at its convention next weekend.<\/p>\n
Each has tried to outrank the other on conservative credentials.<\/p>\n
Hilton has attacked Bianco for having \u201ctoo much baggage\u201d related to liberal causes, pointing to a\u00a0video showing the sheriff kneeling\u00a0during the 2020 Black Lives Matters protests, as many police officers did then to de-escalate crowds, and later describing his actions as praying. Under Trump, the FBI this year fired several agents who had done the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a question of character and honesty and judgment,\u201d Hilton said in an interview.<\/p>\n
Bianco pointed to the two Republicans\u2019 continued tie in the polls as proof Hilton can\u2019t carry the party. He\u2019s called Hilton, who worked for the conservative U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, \u201ca fraud amongst Republicans\u201d in part because a political crowdfunding startup Hilton co-founded in 2013, Crowdpac,\u00a0later\u00a0rebranded to exclusively support Democrats.<\/p>\n
And each has aimed to align himself with Trump without saying the president\u2019s name directly. While both are vocal fans of the president, nearly three-quarters of California voters disapprove of him, and Democratic voters in particular are motivated this year to vote against the president\u2019s agenda. Hilton and Bianco have both blasted Democrats for linking the gubernatorial race to Trump.<\/p>\n
Hilton, who once called for an audit into Trump\u2019s loss in the 2020 election, is promoting \u201cCalDOGE,\u201d a program to look into reports of fraud and waste in California government. It\u2019s a nod to Trump and Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency that slashed federal spending and employment last year. So far, as part of the project, Hilton has held press conferences criticizing state grants to nonprofits with advocacy wings that support liberal causes, like stricter environmental laws and holding voter registration drives; he\u2019s vowed to cut them as governor.<\/p>\n
Bianco, who endorsed Trump\u2019s 2024 reelection by saying America should \u201cput a felon in the White House,\u201d told KTLA last fall if he had the president\u2019s support\u00a0he\u2019d downplay it\u00a0on the campaign trail. Asked last week if he\u2019s seeking the president\u2019s approval, he said he instead wants \u201cthe endorsement of every single person in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have an entire Democrat field trying to label me as Donald Trump, and the reason why is because they have absolutely nothing to run on,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n
He has embarked on an unprecedented effort in Riverside County to recount ballots from last year\u2019s special election based on what local elections officials say is inaccurate and flawed raw ballot data, a move that mirrors the Trump administration\u2019s seizure of 2020 ballots in Georgia. But Bianco has insisted it\u2019s not political. The investigation, he said this week, is on hold amid legal challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Who is Bianco?<\/p>\n
The ballot seizure is one of the many ways Bianco has courted controversy as county sheriff, a seat to which he was first elected in 2018 with hefty campaign contributions from the union that represents sheriff\u2019s deputies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The three-decade law enforcement officer and one-time member\u00a0of the far-right militia group Oath Keepers\u00a0gained attention in 2020 for fighting state orders to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, refusing to enforce masking or stay-at-home rules or to mandate vaccination for deputies. He also opposes school vaccination laws.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s often criticized the state\u2019s sanctuary law that limits police cooperation with federal immigration agents, simultaneously insisting he\u2019ll do everything he legally can to help immigration agents but\u00a0clarifying to Riverside County residents\u00a0that deputies do not enforce immigration laws and take reports of crimes from anyone. He\u2019s presided over a\u00a0spike in deaths\u00a0in county jails that he\u2019s attributed to fentanyl and suicides, though the state attorney general\u2019s office has\u00a0opened an investigation.<\/p>\n
He has ties to\u00a0an evangelical pastor in Temecula who helps elect Christian conservatives and is pushing to increase the influence of Christianity in government.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His pitch to voters is that he\u2019s an outsider \u2014 and he\u2019s prone to using hyperbole to prove it, calling environmental activists who sue to stop development\u00a0\u201cterrorists,\u201d\u00a0promising to \u201ccompletely destroy special interests\u201d and saying if elected he\u2019d\u00a0\u201ctake a nuclear bomb\u201d\u00a0to the decisions made in California government.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s running, he said, to offer a change from the \u201ccrime and corruption\u201d he says has defined state politics and claims he\u2019s the only candidate with strong executive experience (however, several Democratic opponents have led state or federal agencies, or major cities.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019s endorsed by several law enforcement groups, some of which have also jointly endorsed a Democrat, and funded by campaign contributions from dozens of officers and police chiefs, various business owners and the powerful\u00a0Peace Office Research Association of California, a special interest with outsize influence at the Capitol. The law enforcement association extends to his title as Riverside sheriff on the ballot, which will give him an edge over Hilton, GOP strategists say.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery other person in this race is nothing but a career politician,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re over career politicians, millionaires, billionaires, bright, shiny objects and career politicians and strategists. California is sick of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who is Hilton?<\/p>\n
Hilton, meanwhile, is making lofty promises like $3-a-gallon gas and halving electricity bills, and says he has experience from London to achieve such cuts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The son of Hungarian immigrants to Britain, Hilton got his start in the Conservative Party there before moving to the private sector and returning to politics as Cameron\u2019s director of strategy from 2010 to 2012.<\/p>\n
The British press noted Hilton\u2019s\u00a0penchant for casual dress\u00a0and credited him as the ideological force pushing the party to loosen workplace regulations, cut welfare, shrink the size of government, lower taxes and withdraw from the European Union. Hilton was disillusioned with Cameron\u2019s progress,\u00a0the Washington Post reported, when he left his team after two years to join his wife, tech executive Rachel Whetstone, in California and take a sabbatical at Stanford. The couple still maintain\u00a0several properties in central London.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government has lost its ultimate radical,\u201d\u00a0The Economist declared\u00a0of his departure from 10 Downing Street in 2012. \u201cIn his visceral disdain for the state, reverence for local communities and commitment to enterprise, he might be the most deeply conservative figure at the very top of this government.\u201d<\/p>\n
He founded Crowdpac in 2013 with two partners, a Stanford professor and a Google executive, with the stated goal of getting more people engaged in politics by using software to match their views with candidates they could support financially. The platform,\u00a0he highlighted at the time, was used by a Black Lives Matter leader to crowdfund a run for Baltimore mayor and by anti-Trump Republicans hoping for a Paul Ryan presidential run. In 2015, he wrote\u00a0a column in the Guardian\u00a0supporting a higher minimum wage in Britain and walking back his own prior campaigns against one.<\/p>\n
Years later, Hilton left the platform when Crowdpac, having mostly been used by Democrats,\u00a0stopped helping Republican candidates\u00a0in what executives called \u201ca stand against Trumpism.\u201d It later shut down and relaunched again as a Democrats-only platform. By then, Hilton had already endorsed Trump for president in 2016 and landed a weekly Fox News show, which ran from 2017 to 2023. He\u2019s now returned fully to his conservative roots, pushing to \u201cmassively reduce spending\u201d and regulation the same way he did in the U.K.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a very clear message of change that\u2019s practical and positive and not ideological,\u201d he told CalMatters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hilton has raised the third most in the race, behind Democrats Tom Steyer, a self-funding billionaire, and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who has pulled in millions of dollars primarily from Silicon Valley. Hilton has put $200,000 of his own money into his campaign, and counts among his supporters Uber, Fox Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch and tech executives who have also supported Democrats: Google founder Sergey Brin and Ripple executive Chris Larsen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Will Democrats really be shut out of the race?<\/p>\n
Experts say a Democratic shutout is unlikely, unless the field remains entrenched.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt depends upon those two Republican candidates who are splitting the Republican vote fairly evenly right now, doing that, and then having more than a half a dozen Democrats with no one that is a leading favorite, which is what we\u2019ve seen so far,\u201d said Mark Baldassare, director of polling at the Public Policy Institute of California. \u201cBut one thing I would say is it\u2019s still early.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks has also used that reasoning. He has started an incremental public pressure campaign to prompt lower-polling Democratic candidates to drop out, but the candidates have\u00a0resisted so far.<\/p>\n
Hilton, too, dismissed analyses that both Republicans must advance for either to have a shot of winning the seat, calling it a hypothetical exercise from GOP strategists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t know what they\u2019re talking about, I mean these are the kinds of people who have been losing for 20 years,\u201d he said. \u201cThe idea that the Democratic Party is just going to concede California is obviously ridiculous. \u2026 It\u2019s going to be a Republican against a Democrat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bianco said he\u2019s running against Hilton, whom he called a \u201ccareer strategist,\u201d as much as any of the Democrats. He said he hasn\u2019t thought too much about who his opponent would be in a general election.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really doesn\u2019t bother me,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not doing this for Republicans. I\u2019m not doing it for Democrats, independents, anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California Republicans have an unusual shot of claiming an upset victory in the governor\u2019s race this year \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,943,1748],"class_list":{"0":"post-251593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-governor","12":"tag-republicans"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251593","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=251593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}