{"id":254130,"date":"2026-04-06T14:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T14:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/254130\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T14:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T14:35:09","slug":"trump-endorses-republican-steven-hilton-for-california-governor-reordering-wide-open-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/254130\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump endorses Republican Steven Hilton for California governor, reordering wide-open race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump has endorsed Republican Steve Hilton for California governor, reordering a crowded, wide-open race to lead the nation&#8217;s most populous state.<\/p>\n<p>Trump posted late Sunday on his social media platform Truth Social that he has known Hilton for years and called the conservative commentator \u201ca truly fine man\u201d who could turn around a state beset with notoriously high taxes. California, Trump wrote, \u201chas gone to hell.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith Federal help, and a Great Governor, like Steve Hilton, California can be better than ever before!\u201d Trump added.<\/p>\n<p>The endorsement \u2014 coming about a month before mail ballots go to voters in advance of the June 2 primary \u2014 will help Hilton coalesce conservative support in a race with no clear leader. However, Trump is widely unpopular in heavily Democratic California outside his conservative base and Trump&#8217;s backing would become a liability if Hilton faces a Democrat in the November election.<\/p>\n<p>With a large field, Democrats have been fearful that a quirk in the state&#8217;s unusual \u201ctop two\u201d primary system could allow only two Republicans to reach the November general election ballot \u2014 Hilton and GOP rival Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff. Trump&#8217;s decision \u2014 a strong signal to undecided conservative voters \u2014 will make that outcome less likely by helping Hilton lure additional support.<\/p>\n<p>There are more than 50 candidates on <a href=\"https:\/\/elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov\/statewide-elections\/2026-primary\/cert-list-candidates.pdf\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the ballot<\/a> \u2014 including eight established Democrats and along with Hilton and Bianco, the two leading Republicans. An all-GOP general election is possible in California, which puts all candidates on one primary ballot and only the top two vote-getters advance to November, regardless of party.<\/p>\n<p>Polling in early February by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found the field had broken into two distinct groups, with Bianco, Hilton and three Democrats \u2014 U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, former Rep. Katie Porter and billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer \u2014 in close competition, with other candidates trailing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump has endorsed Republican Steve Hilton for California governor, reordering a crowded,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,112709,9,8,28687,536,24115,146,2390,2391,3263,2386,2387,2388,2389,112710,112711,25299],"class_list":{"0":"post-254130","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-donald-trump-endorsement-steve-hilton","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-chad-bianco","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-eric-swalwell","15":"tag-katie-porter","16":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","17":"tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","18":"tag-product-30031-ap-california-state-news-no-weather","19":"tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","20":"tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","21":"tag-product-32510-ap-online-general-election-news","22":"tag-product-32520-ap-online-other-u-s-government-news","23":"tag-steven-hilton","24":"tag-steven-hilton-steven-hilton","25":"tag-tom-steyer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254130","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=254130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}