SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom has dismissed questions about the race to succeed him in California for much of the last year.
“You know my position,” he said to reporters last month. “I don’t talk about this governor’s race.”
But as his party runs the risk of losing the most powerful office in the state, Newsom recognizes that he may need to step in and endorse one of the Democratic candidates whether he wants to or not.
California Democrats have put themselves in an unnecessary pickle in the 2026 gubernatorial election: Too many candidates, with few policy distinctions between them, are running to replace Newsom. Opinion polls show no clear favorite and Democrats largely splitting votes.
The tepid support raises the possibility that two Republicans in the race could place first and second in the June primary and advance to the general election. By their own strategic blunder, Democrats could be knocked out of the contest in a state where they outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1.
It’s a disaster everyone saw coming and no Democrat, except perhaps Newsom, has the power to stop, said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at UC San Diego.
“Gavin Newsom’s megaphone is loud enough to echo across this race, leading other prominent members of the party to endorse whomever he chooses and vaulting someone, finally, out of the crowded pack,” Kousser said. “This could be the last remaining chance for the party to avoid splitting its vote in June and being locked out of November.”
Endorsing a successor before the primary carries inherent risk and perhaps more so for Newsom, who is positioning himself as a potential leading candidate in the 2028 presidential contest. Publicly backing a candidate for governor ties Newsom to the outcome of the race and the candidate.
“If it doesn’t work, his endorsement would broadcast his political vulnerabilities and attach him to his party’s weakness just at the time when he needs to project his personal strength,” Kousser said. “But if his intervention rescues the party and elevates his chosen successor into being an overwhelming favorite in the general, it would further elevate his national profile while winning him a close friend in Sacramento.”
Newsom is taking a wait-and-see approach for now, tracking polls to determine whether his intervention is necessary.
President Trump’s decision to endorse conservative commentator Steve Hilton over the weekend could relieve some pressure on Newsom to weigh in.
If Trump’s support causes support for Hilton to rise and Bianco to drop, it’s more likely that one Democrat and one Republican will place in the top two in the primary.
Trump’s endorsement left Kousser and other California political observers scratching their heads. If a candidate from each party advances to November, the Democrat is expected to easily win the race because of the voter registration advantage.
But the governor publicly celebrated a California Supreme Court ruling this week that Bianco halt the investigation.
“This rogue sheriff chased conspiracy theories, tried to undermine our elections, and got the ruling he deserved,” Newsom posted on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk. “Trump and MAGA’s election denialism is a cancer, a danger to our democracy, and it must be stopped.”
Rob Stutzman, a Republican political consultant in California, compared Newsom’s posts about Bianco to “trying to return a gift.” The Democratic governor’s attack could boost Bianco’s profile and support among Newsom-hating voters.
“Trump has probably bailed the Democrats out of their dilemma by elevating Hilton and for Newsom’s response to be to elevate and draw attention to Bianco, just doesn’t make any sense, and it’s everything Bianco wanted out of this whole ballot seizure gambit to start with,” Stutzman said.
Newsom’s reluctance to endorse a Democrat in the race is, in part, a reflection of his feelings about leaving a position he’s held for eight years and a recognition of his own “sell-by date” in the post. His answers to questions about the contest vary from declining to comment to pointing out that voters don’t appear interested in the race, either.
The focus on national politics, attention Trump draws “24 hours a day” and earlier speculation over whether former Vice President Kamala Harris or U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla would run for governor distracted from the candidates in the field, he said.
“But when I’m out in the community, people aren’t talking to me about it, which is interesting this late, just weeks and weeks before early voting,” Newsom said in March. “And so, as a consequence, I’m not directly as engaged as perhaps I might need to be.”
His comments suggesting that he isn’t paying attention to the race haven’t sat well with some of the candidates. Some Democrats, including San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, were already running against Newsom’s record.
For Newsom, inaction is more risky than picking a losing candidate, Kousser said. Though California’s top-two system and poor leadership from the state party would mostly be to blame if Democrats lose, giving control of California to the GOP would bolster criticism of Newsom’s leadership.
“A Republican victory in the state Newsom leads would be read, on the national stage, as a rejection of his legacy,” Kousser said.
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — As Republicans vie for their best shot to win the California governor’s office in two decades, the fight between the most prominent candidates to win over the party of President Trump has switched from subdued to vicious.
Conservative commentator Steve Hilton, at their first one-on-one debate in Rancho Mirage earlier this month, accused rival Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco of coddling illegal immigrants and called him “wishy-washy.” The law enforcement chief called Hilton, a British immigrant, a “fraud” and heartless for denying others the same pathway to U.S. citizenship he received.
“What an outrageous and offensive insult that Chad just made to every legal immigrant in this state and in this country,” Hilton fumed.
The heated exchange took place days before the California Republican Party weighs making an endorsement in the 2026 race for California governor. Hundreds of party delegates will gather in San Diego this weekend to decide, though it’s unclear if either candidate will be able to win the 60% vote threshold to receive the official party nod.
Most polls have shown the two Republicans as the top candidates in the race, despite registered Democratic voters outnumbering Republicans nearly 2-to-1 in California.
Bianco and Hilton are competing against eight heavyweight Democrats who are splintering their party’s votes in the election to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. Under California’s unique primary system, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary will move on to the November general election, regardless of party affiliation.
The prospect has alarmed state Democratic leaders, who unsuccessfully urged struggling candidates todrop out to avoid their party being shut out of the November election.
Still, a lot can happen before the June 2 primary to stir up the race. President Trump endorsed Hilton late Sunday, which could significantly influence the state’s GOP voters. More than 6 million Californians voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, though he was trounced by Vice President Kamala Harris, one of the state’s top Democrats.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican candidate for governor, and Kate Monroe, chief executive of VETCOMM, talk with a woman lying on the sidewalk on Skid Row in Los Angeles in January.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
On the campaign trail, Bianco and Hilton have frequently raised the prospect of a Republican being elected governor as the result of failed Democratic rule of the nation’s most populous state and the world’s fourth-largest economy.
“For the first time in probably our lifetimes, really since Ronald Reagan … every legitimate poll has either shown me or Steve Hilton at the top two Republicans at the top of [every] statewide poll,” for the last six months, Bianco recently told about 100 attendees at a Valley Unity Republican Women luncheon at the Woodland Hills County Club overlooking verdant fairways.
Hilton, who has participated in more gubernatorial forums and debates than Bianco, said polling that shows him besting Democratic rivals proves that Californians are fed up with 15 years of one-party rule.
“I tell you right now, there is not a single one of them who represents to the slightest degree the change we need in California,” he told a few hundred people at Big Bear’s Calvary Chapel. “We are going to do it this year.”
From afar, Bianco appears to be out of central casting for a GOP candidate for governor: an armed lawman, with a salt-and-pepper mustache and close-cropped hair who has dedicated his life to protecting the vulnerable and locking up criminals.
Bianco, echoing independent pollsters as well as political strategists in both parties, said having “Riverside County Sheriff” next to his name on the official state ballot will be a major boon to his campaign.
“I will tell you this, if we took the names and the party off of the ballot and simply went up with resume — we made you all read a resume of who you’re going to put as your next governor — I would win this election 100% to nothing,” Bianco told the GOP women’s group.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton greets a member of the Big Bear Valley Republican Assembly before speaking at a town hall at Calvary Chapel in Big Bear in March.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
But Bianco’s badge hasn’t shielded him from Hilton’s blistering attacks about the sheriff’s past statements about immigration, pandemic mask mandates and Black Lives Matter protests — which is disqualifying for some GOP voters.
Bianco opposes “sanctuary city” laws, calls for the deportation of criminal illegal immigrants and says the border must be secured. But he has also supported a pathway to citizenship for lawful, working undocumented people and told his constituents that his deputies were not taking part in ICE raids.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bianco ordered county residents to wear masks or face punishment, though he later pushed back at Newsom’s stay-at-home orders.
That same year, he and his deputies were photographed kneeling and speaking with protesters in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, an action he has since recast as praying.
Bianco’s wife, Denise, on Thursday accused Hilton of endangering her husband by sending mailers to voters that featured Bianco’s face surrounded by circles that she described as a “bullseye target.”
“We have all watched way too much political violence directed at law enforcement officers in recent years. I never imagined it would come from a political candidate directed at my husband,” she said in an Instagram post. “Steve, why on God’s earth would you think it’s acceptable to put my husband’s face, a dedicated sheriff, on a shooting target?”
Election security has also highlighted differences in the candidates’ views.
Hilton and Bianco echoed Trump’s call to make GOP voter turnout “too big to rig.” But their statements about alleged malfeasance differed.
Hilton decried “total corruption in the voting system in California.”
“I’ve said for the longest possible time that I don’t understand why we can’t do things the way that most places do it, which is vote on one day, count on one day, get the results on one day,” he said.
Asked by a voter about electoral fraud in California in March, Bianco replied that he was confident that law enforcement in California ensures that such fraud is “not happening here,” while agreeing that such “cheating” occurred in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania in the 2020 election.
But the same month, he seized more than 650,000 ballots from the November election as part of an investigation to determine if they were fraudulently counted.
California voters have not elected a Republican as governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger won reelection in 2006. Two Republicans on the ballot in the June 2 primary election hope to change that.
(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
Hilton has sought to capitalize on these positions, labeling Bianco the “shifty sheriff,” an attack that resonates with some voters.
“The man lies. The man is not honest about taking a knee to BLM, which is unacceptable,” said Agnes Gibboney, 71, of Rancho Cucamonga. “And coming up with three, four different excuses is unacceptable. And then to get mad at the voters for asking the question.”
Bianco has labeled Hilton as a shape-shifting opportunist, pointing to him championing a climate change agenda while advising British Prime Minister David Cameron and expressing support for views expressed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the 2016 presidential election, and posting a picture of Hilton hugging Newsom on social media.
“Steve is a fraud. He’s a liar, and I’m not going to sit by and just let him do it anymore,” Bianco said after the Rancho Mirage debate. “When he starts attacking me, he starts attacking my deputies, my profession, I’m not gonna let it happen anymore.”
“He remade himself just for this governor election, and everyone is starting to see through it,” Bianco said.
The son of Hungarians who emigrated to Britain, Hilton served as an advisor to Cameron before becoming an American citizen. At campaign events, supporters have gifted Hilton with a Kézimunka, a traditional Hungarian embroidered cloth, which was stitched with a heart, as well as stars-and-stripes bathing trunks.
“My parents are Hungarian refugees from communism,” Hilton said. “I am fighting to make sure that this state that I love does not turn into the country that I left …. I have renounced my U.K. citizenship. I’m all in for California and America.”
Of the two candidates, Hilton has been more publicly visible, and benefits from GOP voters seeing him speak on Fox News for several years.
Both men argue one-party Democratic rule of California has destroyed a state once viewed as the epitome of the American dream.
Hilton describes state leaders as “far-left lunatics.” They’ve ruined the most amazing, the most beautiful place on earth,” and tweaked a popular Texas slight about someone being all hat and no cattle to describe Newsom.
“He’s all hair, nothing there. Don’t you think it’s time in California we have a governor with less hair?” said Hilton, who sports a smooth crown.
Bianco calls the state’s Democratic leaders “far-left psychopaths” who have enacted policies, taxes and fees that are forcing Californians to flee the state.
“We all know government has completely failed and we’re ready to take our state back,” he said, later adding, “They don’t want our lives better. I do …. No one leaves California because they want to. It’s government agenda and policy that is harming California and making it bad.”
Most of the candidates’ pledges, such as tackling unaffordability, reducing gas prices, increasing capacity in state prisons, protecting gun owners’ rights and keeping trans athletes out of girls’ locker rooms, are nearly identical.
They both promise to slash California’s vehicle registration fees, a proposal that echoes former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pledge to repeal the car tax during the 2003 recall election that was immortalized by his campaign dropping a wrecking ball on an Oldsmobile in Costa Mesa.
Schwarzenegger was elected governor soon after.
No candidate in either party can match Schwarzenegger’s global appeal, or voters’ familiarity with the state’s most recent Democratic governors — including Jerry Brown, the scion of a storied political family — or Newsom’s charisma, added GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, a former Schwarzenegger advisor who is not aligned with any candidate in the 2026 race.
“Voters are finding this to be an uninspiring list of candidates. And in fact, the impressive list would be those that chose not to run, right?” he said, referring to Harris, Sen. Alex Padilla and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta. “So it’s not a surprise that there isn’t much interest.”
Though Hilton and Bianco were previously cordial in person, such as when they crossed paths at September’s state GOP convention, their public criticism of each other has ratcheted up in recent weeks, which could sway the many undecided GOP voters in the race.
“My main contention is looking to see whether or not they’re gonna follow the will of the Lord. So I’m paying attention to what they say and what they do,” said retired Air Force IT specialist David Solomon, 42, after seeing Hilton speak in Big Bear. “It really just comes down to who’s gonna be able to enact their plan.”
Jane Price, a 77-year-old Sherman Oaks resident, said she worried that Republicans failing to unite behind a candidate would give Democrats an edge in the governor’s race.
“We don’t want to split, right? That’s a problem,” the charter member of the woman’s GOP group said after seeing Bianco speak. “The state of California is at stake. We were thriving here in California. But now, it has been nothing but a downhill slide. We need people who appreciate what California is all about.”
If conservative commentator Steve Hilton is elected California’s next governor, as President Trump wants, it would mark a “political revolution” for the liberal state, the candidate said.
The state’s Democrat-controlled Legislature, “after all their years of lecturing us about democracy,” would be forced to work with him “to enact the changes that Californians just voted for,” and he would be willing to work with them too, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and former Fox News host said.
“You want to know how I’m gonna work with a Democrat Legislature? I’m not. I’m gonna get every single one of them unelected,” Bianco said. “Every single day, I’m gonna stand on the steps of the Capitol, and I’m gonna tell the California voting public about the idiots in Sacramento that are ruining their lives.”
For the first time in years, the state GOP is riding into its convention this weekend on a wave of optimism about the upcoming gubernatorial race.
According to recent polling, Hilton and Bianco both stand a chance of winning more votes in the June 2 primary than any of the many Democratic candidates, who have spread thin their party’s nearly 2-1 advantage in voter rolls. If the GOP candidates do that, they would advance to a head-to-head contest in November’s general election, and one would become the state’s first Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Much could change to prevent that scenario. More Democrats could drop out. Voters could coalesce around one or two of those left. Hilton, with Trump’s endorsement, could consolidate Republican support and push Bianco out of contention.
Still, the prospect of a Republican governing California, a stronghold of the anti-MAGA movement, has captivated political experts and spectators alike.
Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on the death penalty shortly after taking office, a policy the next governor could reverse. At San Quentin, an inmate is moved from his cell on death row.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Trump, in his recent endorsement, said he has “known and respected” Hilton for many years and would help him “turn it around” in California after an “absolutely horrendous job” by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state Democrats.
“With Federal help, and a Great Governor, like Steve Hilton, California can be better than ever before!” Trump wrote.
Many Democrats predict the opposite: grandstanding and gridlock as either Hilton or Bianco’s MAGA-aligned agenda meets stiff resistance from powerful state Democrats repulsed by the president’s movement.
“If the new governor decided to go hard MAGA, they would face enormous pushback,” said state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), who considers it unlikely for both Republicans to advance.
“I don’t think there’s any question that the state would descend into chaos,” said Phil Angelides, a Democrat and former state treasurer who lost to Schwarzenegger in the 2006 gubernatorial race.
The limits of power
California governors hold substantial power.
They direct and appoint leaders to the state’s many executive agencies, boards and commissions, which oversee vast portfolios in vital areas, such as the environment, California’s university systems and the state parole board. They craft the state budget and have a line-item veto to eliminate legislative appropriations. They can make major unilateral decisions — such as welcoming federal troops into California cities — and command a bully pulpit to drive public opinion and policy, including through statewide ballot measures.
Demonstrators confront California National Guard troops and police outside a federal building during protests in Los Angeles in 2025 after the Trump administration sent in the National Guard. The Republican candidates for California governor said they would welcome similar orders by the Trump administration.
(David McNew / Getty Images)
California’s next governor would have the power to end Newsom’s moratorium on the death penalty, appoint state judges and grant state pardons. During emergencies the governor would be able to reshape state regulations, suspend laws and redirect funding, as Newsom did during the COVID-19 pandemic by banning price gouging, halting evictions and postponing the 2020 tax deadline.
But their power also has limits.
Many of the governor’s appointees are subject to state Senate confirmation. The Legislature can change and amend the governor’s proposed budget and pass a budget bill distinctly different from his proposal. Democrats, with their supermajority, can also override the governor’s vetoes.
The independently elected state attorney general can sue to defend state laws, regulations and residents, a power current officeholder Rob Bonta, a Democrat, has exercised more than 60 times to challenge the Trump administration. The California Supreme Court, which leans liberal, can rein in the executive branch if it determines it has violated the state Constitution or other statutes.
Trump has repeatedly pushed the limits of executive authority and benefited from having a Republican-controlled Congress and a conservative U.S. Supreme Court majority that holds an expansive view of executive power. Hilton or Bianco would face the opposite in California, where many legislators would refuse to acquiesce to a Republican governor, especially one almost certain to face a swift recall, political experts said.
Hilton or Bianco could “potentially build alliances” with Democrats on issues such as housing and affordability and drive change that way, said Kim Nalder, a political science professor and director of the Project for an Informed Electorate at Sacramento State. But “if the Democratic majority in the Legislature decides to dig in its heels, then they could oppose practically everything [the new governor] would do.”
Nalder said Hilton or Bianco could also “try to rule in a Trumpian way” by testing the boundaries of their authority. She expects Bianco would do so given his recent decision to “violate the norms of democracy” by seizing more than half a million 2025 ballots as part of an unusual local sheriff’s investigation into allegations of voter fraud that state and county officials say have no merit.
But he “wouldn’t have the public support or the hold on the other branches of government that Trump has,” she said, “so it would be much more difficult.”
Angelides said electing either Hilton or Bianco would put someone “deeply associated with the MAGA movement” atop a deeply blue state government in which many career employees hold opposing views, which would cause a cascade of disruptions.
“There’s no reason to believe it will be different than the chaos we’ve seen in the Trump administration: an evisceration of a number of state agencies, as well as the departure of a lot of talented people who will not stay and would not jeopardize their careers, their reputations, to work under a governor from the MAGA movement,” Angelides said.
State employees are protected by powerful unions with deep ties to Democratic leaders, which Hilton said he would sever.
A Bonta spokesperson said in a written statement that the attorney general “works in service of the people of California — not the Governor,” and would not hesitate to exercise his independent authority under the state Constitution.
“We hope to maintain a close working relationship with whomever California’s next Governor is, but our mission and our priorities will not change,” the spokesperson said. “Regardless of who is in that office, we will continue to enforce civil rights laws, investigate and prosecute complex crimes, protect public safety, stand up for consumers and the environment, and fulfill our duty to Californians.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limón (D-Goleta) also offered a diplomatic response, saying in a statement that “it is critical that whoever our next Governor may be helps advance the lives and goals of California and its communities.”
In their own words
Hilton and Bianco both said they would radically reshape state government, in part by dismantling regulations that are hampering development and making basic necessities — housing, food, gas, electricity — too expensive.
Hilton, a top advisor in British Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition government more than a decade ago, would install agency leaders who would be hyper-focused on slashing costly regulations in order to “reduce the burden of cost and hassle on California families and businesses,” he said. “Elections have consequences, and so it would be irresponsible not to use maximum aggression to make the changes as quickly as possible.”
The top two Republican candidates running for California governor said they would have a much better relationship with President Trump than Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who challenged the president’s policies in court and mocked him on social media.
(Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press)
Bianco said “every single regulation in this state is leaving” if he wins, with California becoming far more business friendly. “The environmental activism, the environmental activism terrorists who are controlling state government, are going to be put in their place, which is outside where nobody hears from them.”
Both Hilton and Bianco also sharply criticized California Democrats for challenging Trump at every turn, a practice they would end.
“I would be wanting to work with the administration to help Californians,” Hilton said.
“Why would you ever push back on a president unless they were seriously trying to destroy your state?” Bianco said. “California is failing because of its own policies.”
Hilton said he expects Bonta to lose to his Republican running mate for attorney general, Michael Gates. Bianco said that if Bonta remains in office, he would completely “defund” the state Justice Department.
Hilton and Bianco also shared similar thoughts on Trump’s immigration crackdown and deployment of the National Guard to Minneapolis and Los Angeles, the latter without Newsom’s approval.
Hilton said that he “certainly would never want to see, in California, the scenes that we saw in Minneapolis, nor would I want to see repeated the scenes that we saw in our state last summer,” but that those clashes were “provoked and instigated by Democrat sanctuary policy,” which he would end.
California’s sanctuary policies largely bar local police and corrections officials from conducting or assisting federal authorities in immigration enforcement, which state leaders say is not their responsibility and could undermine community trust in local police.
Bianco said that Trump sent in troops because Newsom “was derelict in his duties to protect the people of California,” and that it is more important to address “failed Democrat policies for the last 20 years.”
“President Trump has done not one single thing to harm California in the last year,” he said.
Matt Lesenyie, an assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach, said that if Hilton or Bianco becomes governor, Sacramento will see “a lot of gridlock and grandstanding, and that’s from both parties.”
But he also said he does not expect that to happen, because undecided voters are going to “figure it out” and coalesce behind a Democrat — even if at the last moment.
“That last slice of the electorate,” he said, “doesn’t wake up until the last two weeks.”
Times staff writer Katie King contributed to this report.
President Trump endorsed conservative commentator Steve Hilton for California governor late Sunday night.
The endorsement could have a major impact on a race that remains up for grabs, with recent opinion polls showing Hilton and his top Republican rival, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, as top contenders in the 2026 contest.
“He is a truly fine man, one who has watched as this once great State has gone to Hell,” Trump posted on Truth Social, adding that he has known Hilton for many years.
Trump in his endorsement praised Hilton while attacking the record of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, using a derogatory name for the governor. Newsom is serving the last year of his final term as governor as he weighs running for president in 2028.
“Gavin Newscum and the Democrats have done an absolutely horrendous job. People are fleeing, crime is increasing, and Taxes are the highest of any State in the Country, maybe the World. Steve can turn it around, before it is too late, and, as President, I will help him to do so! With Federal help,” Trump said.
Despite California’s solidly Democratic electorate, a recent poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies found Hilton and Bianco leading the crowded field of candidates just months before the June 2 primary — leading to the possibility of Democrats being shut out of a November election that will determine California’s next governor. The crowded field of Democrats in the race has splintered their party’s voters, providing an opening for the Republicans, the poll showed.
Under the state’s top-two primary system, the top two candidates advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation.
If Trump’s endorsement leads to California Republican voters coalescing behind Hilton, severely damaging Bianco’s campaign, that likely would reduce the odds of two GOP candidates finishing in first and second place in the primary.
Trump’s endorsement came the day after Hilton and Bianco squared off in a testy debate in Rancho Mirage that was moderated by Richard Grenell, Trump’s former ambassador to Germany, and days before the state GOP meets in San Diego to consider an endorsement in the race.
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’s advisors.
“Of course, I would want him to support me. He’s the president of the United States,” Bianco said in an interview.
Hilton on Saturday questioned whether the president would weigh in on the race.
“I’ve said that I’d be honored to have the President’s endorsement. I think that the California Governor’s race is pretty low on his [agenda] right now,” he said in an interview. “I haven’t asked for that, and I’m not expecting him to weigh in.”
Jon Fleischman, the former executive director of the California Republican Party, wrote on Substack late Sunday that he believes that Trump’s endorsement will significantly boost Hilton’s support among GOP voters.
“This Timing Is Not Accidental,” he wrote, noting that while it was previously unclear whether either candidate could receive the 60% of delegate votes to secure the party nod at its upcoming convention. “Well, obviously this endorsement from the President for Hilton will supercharge his momentum going into the weekend convention”
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco says he’d like to be our governor, but more and more, it’s looking to me like the real goal for the far-right provocateur is just to be MAGA-famous.
That’s cool. That’s fine. Honestly, who in Southern California hasn’t dreamed of their 15 minutes? And he certainly has the cop-stache to play the role of rogue Wild West lawman.
But Bianco’s bid for celebrity may help extremists take down American elections, and that is a problem — one California needs to deal with quickly, before the midterms suffer from his antics. There are two separate issues at play here, both of which state courts will be asked to weigh in on in coming days — Bianco apparently is putting his so-called investigation on hold until those cases bring some measure of clarity, and hopefully sanity.
The fact that these two issues are coming up now — together— is no accident. President Trump’s election fraud claims have been moving toward this moment for years, largely out of the consciousness of mainstream voters, but very much intentionally pushed by those who would like to see MAGA officials remain in power, even at the cost of democracy.
The real question being answered right now in Riverside — the one we should all be clear on — is, if Republicans want to invalidate election results that don’t go their way this November, what’s the nitty-gritty of actually doing that?
Bianco is attempting an answer.
“This is about more than just what Sheriff Bianco is doing,” said Matt Barreto, faculty director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project. “… It shouldn’t happen. And again, it doesn’t matter if Democrats are winning or Republicans are winning, no sheriff should come in and take over possession or counting of ballots.”
Bianco claims he has the right to seize these ballots and investigate as he sees fit — and it’s not our business or anyone else’s, not even state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who ordered Bianco to stop what he was doing until Bonta could review it.
Bianco has largely ignored that order, instead scooping up even more ballots late last week — all but giving Bonta a certain finger reserved for simple communication. Fox News loved it. Bianco’s admission Monday that he is pausing his effort is the first hint that even he may see he’s gone too far.
But Bianco’s hubris is in line with the attitude of many so-called constitutional sheriffs, a national movement by some far-right elected lawmen that Bianco has been associated with, though he’s never claimed outright affinity.
These extremist sheriffs misguidedly believe that they are above both state and federal law, and get to decide for themselves what’s constitutional or not in their jurisdictions — and therefore what’s law and what’s not.
Since about 2020, empowered by successes in ignoring pandemic restrictions, these sheriffs have dived deeper and deeper into the election fraud movement that Trump loves so much, claiming increasing rights to investigate alleged fraud. Though their national organization doesn’t publish its membership list, media and other tracking show there are at minimum dozens of these like-minded lawmen across the country, likely closely watching Riverside County.
Some election experts now worry that if Bianco is successful in the courts in retaining the right to take ballots, it will give a dangerous legal precedent that empowers other constitutional sheriffs to do the same at the midterms. Only then it would be fresh, uncounted ballots — leaving these far-right sheriffs in charge of providing results instead of trained, trusted elections officials.
“What happens if the ballots have not been properly counted by the right people yet and a sheriff decides they want to go confiscate them?” said Chad Dunn, co-founder of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project and the trial lawyer who successfully halted Texas’ gerrymandering effort, for now anyway.
“Once the chain of custody … is broken, as they have been with these, you’ll never count them in a way that you’ll be able to get reasonable confidence from the public,” Dunn said. “It puts the entire election process in jeopardy.”
The constitutional sheriffs would become the boots on the ground for Trump’s election deniers to implement their will, seizing ballots as they see fit and creating such a crisis of confidence that it’s likely we the voters would never accept the results, Republican or Democrat.
It could even give Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson a plausible reason — an ongoing fraud investigation — not to seat elected Democrats, stalling as he did with Arizona’s Adelita Grijalva last year after she won a special election.
The Voting Rights Project, along with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, filed a lawsuit last week asking the state Supreme Court to uphold the laws that govern how ballots are handled in California — basically protecting that chain of custody and making it clear sheriffs can’t ignore it and are not part of it.
“They do not, under California law, have the right to take ballots away from the Registrar of Voters, and they do not, under California law, have the right to count or handle ballots,” Barreto said. “There’s no question that it violates California election law.”
Separately, Bonta’s office filed its own action, with that issue of constitutional sheriffs front and center. Bonta is asking courts to tell Bianco that he’s not a law unto himself, and does in fact answer to the state attorney general.
This issue of whether sheriffs have any legal duty to listen to the state’s top law enforcement officer has long been one of Bonta’s fights — he argued about it with then-L.A. Sheriff Alex Villanueva in another public corruption fiasco over then-L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl.
I’m guessing Bianco will refer Bonta back to that simple communication of a single finger, much the same as Villanueva did.
But it’s long past time that the state decide just how powerful sheriffs are, for the good of the country this time. The state Legislature has repeatedly kicked the can on clarifying the issue, a failure on their part.
Legislators could amend the state Constitution to make sheriffs appointed instead of elected — the same as police chiefs. Then boards of supervisors could hire and fire them just like other law enforcement leaders.
With the Legislature’s resounding absence on the issue, we have to rely on courts. That’s likely to be a long battle.
In the meantime, Bianco is up to his mustache in attention. This has become a national story, boosting his profile throughout the MAGA-verse as a champion of election deniers everywhere.
Whether Bianco wins or loses these legal battles, resumes his investigation or not, he’s won the attention battle — he’s even polling at the top in the gubernatorial race, thanks to the 8 million Democrats who refuse to drop out.
Riverside County, once as red as it comes, is increasingly purple, Barreto points out. Bianco’s tenure as elected sheriff may not last forever. His shot at governor, despite the polls, is unlikely.
But maybe Fox News will be so impressed with his aggressive rants that he’ll get an offer. Maybe Trump, known for watching it, will like what he sees. So many possibilities from the publicity.
Once upon a time in California, I went to the Orange County fairgrounds to watch Arnold Schwarzenegger give the signal for a wrecking ball to drop onto a vehicle.
The audience went wild, and Schwarzenegger went on to become governor and deliver on his promise to roll back a car tax increase, thereby blowing a $4-billion hole in the state budget.
I think it’s fair to say that in the current gubernatorial campaign season, the excitement level is several decibels below what we experienced in 2003. But once again, it’s fair to say we’ve not seen anything quite like this year’s derby.
“There’s no historical precedent in modern California history for a governor’s race with such a large field or such an amorphous field of candidates,” said longtime political observer Dan Schnur. “Unless you’re paying very close attention, it feels like a big multi-headed political blob.”
The two Republicans could be the top two vote-getters because the Democrats have arranged themselves into a circular firing squad. While the Dems scramble for votes in the June 2 primary, the two Republicans lead in the polls because they’re splitting the GOP vote, and under the rules of the top-two primary, they could face off in the November election.
That means that California, which is one of the bluest states in the country and has nearly twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans, could end up with a Republican governor, which would be like having a Dodgers manager who wears a Yankees jersey in the dugout.
And by the way, if it happens, the Republican would be able to shuffle regulatory boards, attempt to squeeze budgets and create a bit of chaos, but still not get much accomplished because of Democratic super-majorities in the Senate and Assembly.
And he would be targeted for recall even before he takes office. (More on that in a minute.)
There is a way for the Democrats to avoid this humiliation, but they can’t seem to agree on anything at the moment. Party leaders have all but asked the candidates at the bottom of the polls to bow out, but understandably the response has been, “Why me? I’m no worse than the others.”
USC decided to host a debate night, a simple enough proposition, but then flubbed the deal by leaving four candidates off the invitation list — four candidates of color. A kerfuffle followed, and the debate was dumped, and an attempt to let everyone into the party fell apart.
So now what?
It’s possible the Dems will huddle around one or two candidates who then move up in the polls and remove the threat of the unthinkable — two Republicans head-to-head. That would be Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco going against former Fox TV host Steve Hilton.
It’s also possible the Dems will play dirty and either spend money to promote one of the two Republican candidates or torpedo one of them. All they want, at the moment, is for a Democrat to make it past the primary, because that would all but ensure victory in November, given voter registration advantages.
And then, if that doesn’t work, there’s the recall scenario.
“You could shut it down probably within five or six months,” said Mike Madrid, a longtime California GOP political consultant.
“It would surely happen,” said Rob Stutzman, a GOP strategist who helped Schwarzenegger knock Gov. Gray Davis out of office, and take his job, in the 2003 recall.
A wealthy Democratic donor could bankroll the recall campaign, Stutzman said. Or public employee unions might put up the money, given that a Republican winner is likely to create a state version of Elon Musk’s ham-handed attempt to fire nearly everyone on the federal payroll.
“The pitch,” Stutzman said of the recall strategy in an email, would be that “Trump still looms and CA must resist, and a GOP gov is a fluke of weird election law. Difficult to imagine it wouldn’t succeed.”
I thought of one more approach the Democrats could use to make sure at least one of them is on the ballot in November. Tom Steyer, a leader for many years on one of the most critical issues in California and the world, climate change, has already spent tens of millions of dollars on TV ads that run about every two minutes, promoting him as the best candidate for governor.
They’re so repetitious, you can’t help but tune them out.
But everyone would pay close attention if Steyer instead ran ads offering incentives for either Bianco or Hilton to leave the state. Steyer could offer $10 million cash for Bianco to move to Hawaii, and maybe throw in a beach house. He could buy a private jet for Hilton to take him back to his native Britain. Every day, there could be new ads upping the ante until one of them leaves the Golden State.
Wouldn’t that be a better use of Steyer’s money? It might even get him elected.
To be honest, having some honest pushback against Democratic authority in California wouldn’t be a terrible thing. It’s not as if Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats are winning the battle against homelessness, housing shortages, affordability and other big challenges, and voters understandably want more — way more — for their tax dollars.
An experienced, no-nonsense, sensible, fiscally conservative GOP candidate would do the state good.
The problem is that the two Republicans in the running, Bianco and Hilton, are Trump toadies.
In an embarrassingly amateurish political stunt, Bianco blew the president a kiss and all but begged for an endorsement by seizing 650,000 ballots from last November’s election to determine whether they were fraudulently counted.
Hilton recently said in an interview with ABC’s Eyewitness News 7 that he believes “everybody supports” Trump’s immigration policies.
Hilton might have missed the news that U.S.-born residents are carrying their passports in case they’re targeted by skin color. That Californians by the thousands have joined the resistance. That despite claims, most deportees don’t have criminal records. And that even some of the state’s GOP lawmakers have begged Trump to stop raiding industries that rely on immigrant help (and are often owned by Republicans).
And by the way, is this a smart time for a GOP candidate in California to be doing his best Trump impression?
The president’s popularity is down, consumer prices are up, he’s shamelessly pardoned drug lords and Jan. 6 barbarians, he thinks the presidency is a game of Battleship after promising to keep us out of wars, gas prices are sky high, he just said he was glad that Vietnam War hero and former FBI Director Robert Mueller had died, and he’s playing golf all day as if everything’s hunky dory.
Like I said, there’s not a big-name character like Schwarzenegger in the race, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t good options. If you like Bianco or Hilton, so be it. Otherwise I suggest you read up on the other eight:
Steyer, Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, former L.A. Mayor and legislative leader Antonio Villaraigosa, former Rep. Katie Porter, former state attorney general and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former State Controller Betty Yee, San José Mayor Matt Mahan, and U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell.
The feud between California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco has escalated after Bonta asked a court to stop Bianco’s investigation into alleged election fraud.
In a 70-page petition filed with the Fourth Appellate District Monday, Bonta wrote that “the Sheriff’s misguided investigation threatens to sow distrust and jeopardize public confidence” in upcoming elections. The investigation, which he also called “sweeping and unprecedented,” is an abuse of the criminal process, he wrote.
Bianco, who is a leading Republican candidate for governor, last month seized more than 650,000 ballots cast in Riverside County in the November election for Proposition 50, which temporarily redrew the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats.
The sheriff has said that his investigators are looking into allegations by a local citizens group that “did their own audit” and found that the county’s tally was falsely inflated by more than 45,000 votes — a claim that local election officials have emphatically rejected.
Bianco has described his probe as a “fact-finding mission” to determine if votes were fraudulently counted. He has accused the attorney general, a Democrat, of improperly interfering with what he says is a lawful criminal investigation.
In Riverside County, the proposition passed by more than 82,000 votes. Statewide, it passed with about 64% of the vote and a margin of more than 3.3 million ballots.
“Well, well, well, the political corruption in California just gets bigger and bigger,” Bianco said in a social media video Monday night in response to Bonta’s petition.
“Why in the world would Rob Bonta want that count stopped unless he was afraid of what that count would uncover?” he added. “We have an extremely politically biased appeals court, so this is going to be interesting.”
Political observers have said that Bianco, an outspoken supporter of President Trump, appears to be vying for attention from Trump, who has called on the federal government to “nationalize” state-run elections, remains fixated on his 2020 election loss and has falsely claimed widespread fraud.
Kim Nalder, a political science professor and director of the Project for an Informed Electorate at Sacramento State, said that Bianco’s investigation appears to be “an electoral ploy.”
“At this stage in the election, most voters haven’t really tuned into the gubernatorial race, and there are a ton of candidates,” she said. “People who don’t know his background will know now. This is clear signaling.”
The sheriff has denied the probe has anything to do with his campaign.
A poll released last week by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times showed Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton leading the crowded field of gubernatorial candidates by slim margins, with the Democratic vote split among multiple candidates in a left-leaning state.
Bonta’s office said in a statement Monday evening that it was asking the court to pause the investigation “while we work to understand its basis.”
Bonta’s petition revealed that — in addition to warrants issued on Feb. 9 and 23 — the sheriff obtained a third warrant from the Riverside County Superior Court on March 19 to restart a paused recount of the ballots. The warrants now are under seal.
Bonta’s office called the warrants and the affidavits supporting them legally deficient because “the Sheriff has not identified any particular crime that may have been committed by anyone — a necessary predicate to obtain a criminal search warrant.” Bonta had earlier questioned whether Bianco had concealed important information from the magistrate judge who approved the warrants.
In his petition, Bonta wrote that the sheriff’s department had planned to assign “12 employees working four days a week, five to seven hours each day” to count the votes.
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former senior trial attorney overseeing voting enforcement for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, agreed with Bonta’s assessment that the sheriff’s probe is a legally deficient “fishing expedition.” He questioned how Bianco got a judge to sign off on three warrants.
“You can’t use a warrant as a PR tool, as something to help your political campaign,” Becker said. “You have to meet certain standards in order to obtain a warrant, because a warrant is extraordinary. A warrant is saying we believe there is probable cause to seize evidence, and we need it now.”
Bianco said in a news conference Friday that a Riverside County Superior Court judge had ordered the appointment of a special master to oversee the count. His investigators had already begun counting, but the tally would start over under the court’s guidance, Bianco said.
“This isn’t about counting yes and no votes,” Bianco said in his social media video Monday. “This is simply counting the total ballots and comparing that total with the number of votes. … Plain and simple. Common sense.”
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is a leading Republican candidate for governor, has seized more than 650,000 ballots from last November’s election and is investigating whether they were fraudulently counted.
“This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes recorded,” Bianco said at a news conference Friday.
The unusual probe drew a sharp rebuke from California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who said in a statement Friday that it is “unprecedented in both scope and scale” and appears “not to be based on facts or evidence.”
“There is no indication, anywhere in the United States, of widespread voter fraud,” Bonta said. “Counts, recounts, hand counts, audits, and court cases all support this.”
According to Bonta’s office, Bianco’s department on Feb. 26 seized about 1,000 boxes of ballot materials in Riverside County related to the November election for Proposition 50, which temporarily redrew the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats in response to partisan redistricting in Republican states, including Texas.
The sheriff said his investigators are looking into allegations by a local citizens group that “did their own audit” and found that the county’s tally was falsely inflated by more than 45,000 votes — a claim that local election officials have rejected.
President Trump, who remains fixated on his 2020 election loss, continues to amplify election conspiracy theories and has repeatedly called for the federal government to “nationalize” state-run elections to counter what he says is widespread fraud.
Bonta and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, both Democrats, have vowed to fight federal interference that could affect voting in California, including efforts to seize election records, as the FBI recently did in Georgia.
Bianco is an outspoken Trump supporter who said in an endorsement video in 2024 that, after 30 years of putting criminals in jail, he figured it was “time to put a felon in the White House — Trump 2024, baby” — referencing Trump’s conviction by a New York jury for falsifying business records while paying hush money to a porn actor.
Bianco’s investigation, which includes all the ballots cast in Riverside County in November, raises questions about how he would handle the election denialism movement if elected governor.
A poll released last week by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times showed Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton leading the crowded field of gubernatorial candidates by slim margins, in a left-leaning state.
Last fall, Proposition 50 passed in Riverside County with 56% of the vote — a margin of more than 82,000 ballots.
A citizens group called the Riverside Election Integrity Team has said it performed an audit finding that 45,896 more ballots were counted than were cast.
In a lengthy February presentation to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco disputed that figure, saying it was based on a misunderstanding of raw data that had not been fully processed.
The actual discrepancy, Tinoco said, was 103 votes, a variance of 0.016% that was far below what he said was the state’s preferred 2% margin of error for certifying results.
Bianco on Friday said that there “is no acceptable error, small or large, in our elections.”
The sheriff did not name the Riverside Election Integrity Team, but his description of the allegations brought to him by “a group of citizen volunteers” matched theirs.
Bianco said the investigation was “not a recount” for the Proposition 50 contest and was “just as much to prove the election is accurate as it is to show otherwise — we will not know until the count is complete.”
Bonta said his office has “attempted to work cooperatively” with the Sheriff’s Department to understand the basis for the probe. The sheriff, Bonta said, “has delayed, stonewalled, and otherwise refused to work with us in good faith” and failed to provide most of the requested documents.
“We’re concerned that there is not sufficient justification for seizing every ballot that was cast in this very largely populated county,” an official in Bonta’s office said in an interview Friday night.
In a March 4 letter to Bianco, the attorney general cited Bianco’s plan to use Sheriff’s Department staffers, “who are not trained and have no experience,” to count the ballots.
“Let me be clear: this is unacceptable,” Bonta wrote. “Your decision to seize ballots and begin counting them based on vague, unsubstantiated allegations about irregularities in the November special election results sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections. You are also flagrantly violating my directives.”
At his news conference Friday, Bianco fired back by calling Bonta “an embarrassment to law enforcement.”
A Riverside County Superior Court judge, Bianco said, has ordered the appointment of a special master to oversee the ballot count.
In a statement Friday, Secretary of State Weber said “the Sheriff’s assertion that his deputies know how to count is admirable. The fact remains that he and his deputies are not elections officials and they do not have expertise in election administration.”
