host a gubernatorial debate<\/a> on May 5, hours after the president posted his nod in the race.<\/p>\nIf Trump\u2019s endorsement leads to California Republicans coalescing behind Hilton, severely damaging Bianco\u2019s campaign, that reduces the odds of two GOP candidates finishing in first and second place in the primary. <\/p>\n
Political experts predicted that Trump\u2019s endorsement will backfire on the GOP by causing the party\u2019s voters to consolidate behind Hilton, resulting in him and a Democrat winning the top two spots in the primary and the Democrat inevitably winning in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is bizarro political judgment. Trump has been making a bunch of decisions that seem likely to hurt Republicans in the midterm election,\u201d said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College who worked for Republican elected officials and causes for years in Washington. \u201cHe is handing the election to the Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hilton on Monday lashed out at Rob Pyers, research director for the California Target Book, a nonpartisan political almanac, who said Trump\u2019s endorsement likely saved the Democrats from spending tens of millions of dollars to ensure that at least one party candidate survived past the primary election. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey think they own this place, the Democrat machine. They think they\u2019re born to rule California forever,\u201d Hilton said in a video posted on X. \u201cWell, it\u2019s not like that in America. We don\u2019t have an aristocracy in America. We don\u2019t have inherited power. In America, we the people decide who is in charge, not the Democrat machine, not the unions. We decide.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jon Fleischman, the former executive director of the California Republican Party, wrote on Substack late Sunday that he believes Trump\u2019s endorsement will significantly boost Hilton\u2019s support among GOP voters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Timing Is Not Accidental,\u201d he wrote, noting that it was previously unclear whether either candidate could receive the 60% of delegate votes to secure the party nod at its upcoming convention. \u201cWell, obviously this endorsement from the President for Hilton will supercharge his momentum going into the weekend convention.\u201d<\/p>\n
In California\u2019s 2018 governor\u2019s race, Trump\u2019s endorsement of Republican businessman John Cox helped cement him as the GOP front-runner and led to his second-place finish in the primary election. That propelled Cox to the general election, where he was trounced by Newsom.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s endorsement came the day after Hilton and Bianco squared off in a testy debate in Rancho Mirage that was moderated by Richard Grenell, Trump\u2019s former ambassador to Germany, and days before the state GOP meets in San Diego to consider an endorsement in the race.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Bianco said he suspected that Trump would weigh in on the race and that his team had been in talks with the president\u2019s advisors.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, I would want him to support me. He\u2019s the president of the United States,\u201d Bianco said in an interview.<\/p>\n
Hilton on Saturday questioned whether the president would weigh in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve said that I\u2019d be honored to have the president\u2019s endorsement. I think that the California governor\u2019s race is pretty low on his [agenda] right now,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cI haven\u2019t asked for that, and I\u2019m not expecting him to weigh in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump endorsed conservative commentator Steve Hilton for California governor late Sunday night. The endorsement could have a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,88489,37615,251059,5015,230370,275,4515,251057,88495,3,968,34180,10119,251058,13109,3479,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-568779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-bianco","10":"tag-california-governor","11":"tag-california-republican-voter","12":"tag-candidate","13":"tag-crowded-field","14":"tag-day","15":"tag-democrats","16":"tag-endorsement","17":"tag-hilton","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-president-trump","20":"tag-primary","21":"tag-race","22":"tag-recent-opinion-poll","23":"tag-state","24":"tag-trump","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-united-states-of-america","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}