Just days after President Donald Trump announced his preferred candidate in the race for California governor, the state\u2019s GOP delegates were unable to come up with an endorsement Sunday.<\/p>\n
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco snagged 49% of the vote from the delegates at the California Republican Party\u2019s convention in San Diego. Conservative commentator Steve Hilton \u2014 who has Trump\u2019s backing \u2014 came in at 44%. The state party\u2019s rules require a candidate to win at least 60% of the delegate vote to secure its backing.<\/p>\n
Both candidates said they were feeling strong despite the lack of a formal nod.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everyone understands that the endorsement that really matters is the one that came last Sunday with President Trump,\u201d Hilton said after the vote. \u201cI\u2019m totally confident that we are going to win the primary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bianco said he was \u201chappy with the entire weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was obvious in that entire room that we have the far overwhelming support of that entire room,\u201d Bianco said, referring to the loud cheer that went up when his name was announced before balloting began.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a setback. This is very positive,\u201d Bianco said. \u201cI have the majority of the vote here so I have the popular vote.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several delegates said they were actually pleased with the lack of endorsement.<\/p>\n
\u201cChoosing one over the other would have divided this group so badly,\u201d said Barbara Hallmeyer, a delegate out of Tulare County.<\/p>\n
Delegate Karen Barton of San Diego said the rules require a threshold to be reached. \u201cFortunately, we have two great candidates, but we couldn\u2019t come to 60% threshold,\u201d said Barton, who is the president of the Point Loma chapter of Republican Women of California.<\/p>\n
California\u2019s primary system calls for all candidates to be listed on one ballot, with the top two vote-getters advancing to the general election, regardless of party preference.<\/p>\n
San Diego resident and delegate Carol Buser said she\u2019s hopeful both GOP candidates will pull in the most votes and head to the general election.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe seldom get somebody in the top two,\u201d Buser said. \u201cThis year we feel like we might absolutely, positively might get two Republicans in the top two because they are both excellent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Delegates did endorse in several other statewide races including Gloria Romero for lieutenant governor; Michael Gates for attorney general; Don Wagner for secretary of state; Herb Morgan for controller; Jennifer Hawks for treasurer; Stacy Korsgaden for insurance commissioner; and Sonja Shaw for state superintendent of public instruction.<\/p>\n
California is a majority Democratic state, meaning Republican candidates may face an uphill battle in November. Voters approved Proposition 50 last year, which has redrawn the state\u2019s congressional districts to benefit Democrats.<\/p>\n
In speeches at the convention on Saturday, many of the GOP candidates expressed support and alignment with the Trump administration and its policies, including efforts to ban transgender athletes in women\u2019s and girls\u2019 sports and abolish sanctuary cities, which limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Support for Trump was on full display, including signs saying \u201cMake California Golden Again,\u201d co-opting the president\u2019s signature slogan.<\/p>\n
This story is developing and will be updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just days after President Donald Trump announced his preferred candidate in the race for California governor, the state\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,5196,181,23,205,100,13,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-264525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-downtown-san-diego","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-local-politics","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-san-diego","16":"tag-san-diego-county","17":"tag-san-diego-headlines","18":"tag-san-diego-news","19":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264525","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=264525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}