Then there’s Steve Hilton, a Republican who has a shot at being California’s next Governor. Hilton’s resumé reads like the opposite of what you’d expect for the next leader of a state that backed Kamala Harris over Trump by 20 points. A British-born dual U.S.-U.K. citizen since 2021, Hilton was once a member of Margaret Thatcher’s political machine and a senior adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition government before becoming a Fox News personality. In most other blue states, Trump’s endorsement would be the kiss of death. But under California’s jungle primary system, the top two vote-getters get to face each other in a head-to-head contest in November, regardless of party. If the latest polls bear out, Hilton is well-positioned to advance.
“We've had 16 years of one-party rule, and the results are in. And it's a massive disappointment on every front,” Hilton says. “People are sensing that there's an energy for change this year. You can feel it in the energy around Spencer Pratt's campaign [for Mayor] in L.A. You can feel it around the response that we're getting up and down the state.”
So far, liberally aligned candidates like Becerra and Steyer have been fighting each other more—and splitting the Democratic vote in the process—rather than bothering with Hilton. That would change in a head-to-head-matchup when the issues where Hilton is closer to Trump’s position would move to center stage. A year after ICE raids in Los Angeles sparked mass protests and Trump deployed National Guard soldiers to the city, Hilton says he would work to have California work better with Trump on immigration. A challenge to the state’s sanctuary spaces law, passed in 2017, is underway, but Hilton says “I can’t just delete that” on his own. Instead, he wants to use provisions in the law—criticized by liberals at the time—that allow narrow collaboration with the feds. “We’ve got to lower the temperature. I think that we’ve had far too much confrontation. It’s unnecessary,” he says. “No one wants to see anything like what happened in L.A. last summer or, let alone, Minneapolis.”
Hilton, right, and Xavier Becerra speak during a gubernatorial debate on April 28, 2026 in Claremont, Calif. —Leon Bennett—Getty Images for CBS Television Stations“It's just very obvious that it hasn't worked, this experiment in progressive governance where Democrats have had total control, able to do everything that they want. They've had two-third majorities in both chambers in the Legislature, all the statewide offices, all of the big cities, in the counties. The state Supreme Court has a 6-to-1 Democratic majority. This incredibly powerful Democrat machine that's been able to do exactly what it wants, and the results are really bad.”
“It’s not just the visible things that you can see and anyone across the country can: the homelessness and the squalor of the big cities and smash-and-grab videos of crime rampant and all those things. But actually just the basics of life,” Hilton says. When I ask him about the solution, he says, his north star would be practicality: What can work and how quickly?
It’s a line that others—including Democrats—have used in their campaigns. Hilton is definitely tapping into an anti-Establishment mood, one California Gov. Gavin Newsom might want to note as he plots his all-but-certain 2028 presidential campaign. Hilton’s populism is grounded in an argument less about feelings than about objective fact. “There's a certain place for righteous rage. It's institutions that're letting people down, but you can do it with a smile on your face,” he tells me.
Working With the California Legislature
Hilton is clearly a planner and player, stemming from his days as a top aide in the United Kingdom’s first coalition government running Number 10 since 1945—working with the Liberal Democrats. He even shared an office next to the Cabinet Room with his counterpart who advised coalition partner deputy PM Nick Clegg. It’s a skill that has more than a few Democrats in California paying attention to a technocratic pitch from the former London restauranteur.
The accountants, though, will have their issues. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s last budget, in 2010, was $122 billion. Newsom’s most recent budget? $349 billion. Hilton’s plan would dramatically change this math.
And when the California Legislature says not-so-much? Hilton knows he can’t override them lawmakers. But he wants to make them prove they actually think the vote is worth defending. In fact, Hilton is envisioning vetoes putting lawmakers on record; the last time a session in Sacramento overrode a veto was in 1979.
That slight tweak—far from the grandiose promise of political revolution—might find power in the voters’ verdict. It’s one that echoes the grumblings in Washington after Trump’s win in 2024. “The election of a Republican Governor will change the dynamic,” he says. “People voted for change. My platform was very clear, very specific. … These are not controversial things. You could disagree about the means of getting there. I’m sure we will.”
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