{"id":354129,"date":"2026-06-10T03:41:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T03:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/354129\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T03:41:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T03:41:29","slug":"republican-steve-hilton-advances-in-tight-california-governors-race-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/354129\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican Steve Hilton advances in tight California governor\u2019s race | California"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican<\/a> Steve Hilton, the former UK political operative turned Fox News personality, has advanced to the November general election in the race to become California<\/a>\u2019s next governor, facing off against Democrat Xavier Becerra<\/a>, a former congressman, state attorney general and US health secretary.<\/p>\n

Hilton\u2019s success, a remarkable achievement for a recent immigrant, came after he was endorsed<\/a> by Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press projected that Hilton would secure one of the top two spots in the nonpartisan primary election, which was held on 2 June.<\/p>\n

Hilton was in second place<\/a> behind Becerra, who unexpectedly but steadily consolidated support<\/a> among Democratic voters.<\/p>\n

When the first votes were counted last week, Hilton initially led the field, prompting Trump to prematurely declare him the winner. By the next day, as Becerra won more of the votes counted late, Trump, without evidence, accused<\/a> the state of election-rigging.<\/p>\n

But as California counted<\/a> millions more<\/a> ballots sent by mail, Hilton was overtaken by Becerra on 5 June. Hilton still finished ahead of Tom Steyer<\/a>, the billionaire hedge fund investor running as a progressive.<\/p>\n

Steyer released a concessionary statement on Tuesday evening, thanking his supporters and vowing to remain committed to the fight.<\/p>\n

For his part, Hilton acted as if he had won the primary from the morning after the election, when he stopped just short of declaring victory, but said: \u201cChange is coming, and the campaign for change starts today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rise of the newly minted American, who left his native Britain for the San Francisco Bay Area in 2012 and became a US citizen in 2021, as a serious contender to be California\u2019s governor has surprised<\/a> former colleagues in the UK, where he was a prominent adviser to David Cameron, the Conservative prime minister at the time.<\/p>\n

Hilton, who was known as the \u201cpint-sized Rasputin\u201d of Conservative politics, was known for inventing catchy slogans that caused some to cringe. Credited with coming up with the \u201chug a hoodie\u201d campaign for Cameron\u2019s government, Hilton is now claiming that a vote for him will make California \u201cCalifordable\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Cameron\u2019s director of strategy, Hilton was known in political circles in London for his unorthodox working style. He would reportedly walk around the prime minister\u2019s offices in socks, ordering civil servants to enact off-the-wall schemes that led to him being parodied<\/a> in Armando Iannucci\u2019s political satire The Thick of It<\/a>, which set the template for the US TV series Veep.<\/p>\n

Hilton still faces an uphill struggle to win in November in a heavily Democratic state<\/a>. Running with Trump\u2019s endorsement in a state where the president is deeply unpopular<\/a> makes the path forward even more fraught.<\/p>\n

In each of the last three California<\/a> governor\u2019s races, the Democratic candidate has taken about 60% of the vote. Democrats control nearly all levels of government in the state and hold a nearly two-to-one voter registration advantage.<\/p>\n

Hilton\u2019s attempt to cast himself as living what he calls \u201cthe California dream\u201d can be seen in the images on his campaign website<\/a> \u2013 which show him on a beach; at a Trump rally in Coachella, where the current president praised him; and holding an In-N-Out burger. Another effort to embrace the state\u2019s culture fell flat however, when Hilton was widely<\/a> mocked<\/a> for referring to a hard-shell tortilla concoction he held in a social media video as a \u201cstreet taco\u201d, a style of taco traditionally made with two soft corn tortillas.<\/p>\n

In a video posted on Tuesday evening, Hilton portrayed himself as an immigrant with working-class parents who moved to California because it was \u201cthe ultimate expression of America, the home of freedom\u201d. Hilton vows to \u201csave California\u201d and says: \u201cI\u2019m not a politician. I\u2019m an outsider, running for governor to shake up a broken system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hilton has called himself \u201ca pragmatist, not an ideologue\u201d, and has said his experience in a coalition government during Cameron\u2019s premiership is proof that he can work well with people whose politics do not align with his. He has said the fact that he gets along with Trump and his cabinet is a potential asset, and can attract federal dollars and other forms of cooperation from Washington that will lower the temperature after more than a year of feuding<\/a> and<\/a> name-calling<\/a> between Trump and Gavin Newsom, California\u2019s current governor.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy job,\u201d Hilton told the Guardian<\/a> last month, \u201cwill be to deliver pretty pragmatic things, all focused on making your life easier and better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Gumbel and Helena Horton contributed reporting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican Steve Hilton, the former UK political operative turned Fox News personality, has advanced to the November general…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-354129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354129","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=354129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}