US President Donald Trump has endorsed a former top adviser to ex-British PM David Cameron for governor of California, shaking up an unusually unpredictable race in the heavily Democratic state.<\/p>\n
In a Truth Social post, Trump declared Republican candidate Steve Hilton would “be a great governor”. The president argued that “Democrats have done an absolutely horrendous job” in California and that “people are fleeing” the state.<\/p>\n
Hilton is one of 10 total candidates running in the 2 June primary. The top-two finishers, regardless of party, will advance to the general election.<\/p>\n
Republicans have not won a statewide election in California in two decades.<\/p>\n
Hilton posted on X on Monday that he was “deeply honored” to receive the Republican president’s endorsement.<\/p>\n
But Trump’s backing could become a hindrance if Hilton faces a Democrat in November’s election in the liberal-leaning state.<\/p>\n
Hilton, who now lives in California, previously served as a top aide to Cameron from 2010\u201312, but later grew critical of the Conservative prime minister’s immigration policy.<\/p>\n
Hilton went on to host a Fox News show for several years, and continues to contribute to the conservative news network.<\/p>\n
He is running for governor on a platform of lower taxes and cutting back the state budget, while helping lower housing and other costs for families.<\/p>\n
Hilton joined Stanford University in California as a visiting scholar in 2012, and said he was applying for US citizenship in 2019.<\/p>\n
Democrats dominate California state politics, but Republicans viewed this as a rare chance to capture the governor’s mansion because of a splintered Democratic field of candidates in the state’s so-called jungle primary system.<\/p>\n
Trump’s endorsement of Hilton, however, may squeeze out the other Republican in the race, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, leaving the door ajar for a Democrat to become a top vote-winner.<\/p>\n
A March poll by the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies rattled the political establishment, after it suggested Hilton and Bianco were ahead of the Democratic contenders.<\/p>\n
Democrats became alarmed enough that top state party officials called for some candidates to drop out.<\/p>\n
The University of California, Berkeley poll suggested that congressman Eric Swalwell, former congresswoman Katie Porter, and billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer had the most support among the eight Democrats running.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump has endorsed a former top adviser to ex-British PM David Cameron for governor of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,112817,536,70134,112818,17382],"class_list":{"0":"post-254514","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-david-cameron","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-governor-of-california","14":"tag-riverside-county-sheriff-chad-bianco","15":"tag-steve-hilton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254514","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=254514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}