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MISSION VIEJO — Twenty years after the GOP last won a state-level election in California, few Republican voters believe this will be the year.

But they can hope.

“I’m praying, praying, praying that people will come out of the woodwork and show up and just vote for Steve,” said Annette Owens, a 65-year-old Orange County resident and longtime special education teacher.

Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host originally from the United Kingdom, faces Xavier Becerra, a longtime Democratic politician who is heavily favored to win the Nov. 3 election to replace term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The 2026 elections are looking particularly grim for California Republicans, whose statewide influence over the past two decades has atrophied to super-minority levels. Redistricting from Proposition 50 removed some key GOP seats in Congress. And nationally, the party is struggling with high prices, fallout from the war in Iran and polls showing President Trump’s popularity at all-time lows.

While she is “doubtful” Hilton or any other Republicans running statewide will beat their Democratic opponents, Owens says “if anyone’s going to do it,” it’s Hilton.

The candidate had just spent nearly 40 minutes addressing several dozen Orange County moms in Mission Viejo, a hilly and affluent enclave speckled with golf courses and Spanish colonial architecture.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton visits patrons at Victorio’s Ristorante in North Hollywood, which hosted a watch party for the CNN debate between him and Xavier Becerra.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Sipping mimosas in a glass-walled event space overlooking the city’s verdant public course, women — and a couple of tagalong husbands — listened as Hilton and local Republicans argued for a change after 16 years of Democrats controlling California government.

“We can make this a place where people follow their dreams and build their lives, and that’s the ultimate test: That people are moving back to California after my first four years in government,” Hilton said.

Rachel Darvish drove from her home in Pacific Palisades to support the gubernatorial candidate. In the aftermath of the January 2025 fires, Darvish was captured on viral video angrily confronting Newsom as he toured the wreckage. She joined the Republican Party after the fires.

“I considered myself an independent up until the day I realized we had no choice,” Darvish, wearing a Hilton campaign T-shirt, said. “I think this is really the first election that the R or the D really does matter, and there is an obvious difference.”

Hilton and other Republicans acknowledge the math. Democrats outnumber GOP voters nearly 2-to-1 in California, and no-party-preference voters largely side with Democrats in statewide contests.

Hilton, who is endorsed by Trump, often declares to supporters that the race against Becerra, a President Biden-era U.S. Health and Human Services secretary and former state attorney general, “is going to be really difficult to win, but not impossible.”

As he calculates his chances of victory, the former Fox News host considers three sets of facts. The “establishment polls,” as he calls them, conducted by widely trusted pollsters, including the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and the Public Policy Institute of California, have shown him more than 20 percentage points behind. His internal polls also have him losing, albeit by smaller margins.

Then there are the people who come to his events.

California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra speaks at a rally Thursday in Bakersfield.

(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)

“Every single day I get all these people saying, ‘I’m a lifelong Democrat, but I’m voting for you because we got to have some balance, we got to have a change,’” he said in an interview on the golf course patio following his event. “A lot of them say, ‘But I’m not telling anyone.’”

Midterm elections are historically more difficult for the incumbent president’s party. While never popular in California, Trump’s approval rating recently fell to a record low of 27% in a Berkeley IGS poll.

Fierce headwinds for GOP in California

Political operatives expect anti-Trump sentiment to intensify the headwinds Republicans face in California. More than half of likely Democratic voters, and 37% overall, said a top motivator in this election is pushing back against the administration‘s policies.

“I’m not really anticipating Republicans winning for anything statewide,” said Jon Fleischman, a conservative writer and former executive director of the California GOP. “If somebody’s anticipating that, then they don’t know how to do math.”

He doesn’t expect Republican turnout to drop, but “Democrat turnout could be enhanced over what it normally is. Maybe it’s a distinction without a difference.”

Some Republicans are frustrated by the Democratic-only choices in the high-profile race for Los Angeles mayor, as well as the down-ballot contest for state insurance commissioner.

Darvish, who supported conservative Spencer Pratt for L.A. mayor in the primary, described the runoff between incumbent Karen Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman as a choice between “Satan and Lucifer.”

“I’m going to have to vote for Karen Bass,” she said. “It’s really hard for me to say that,” but she does not want Raman or any candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America to win.

Some Republicans say they won’t vote for insurance commissioner, the only statewide race between two Democrats: Jane Kim, a former San Francisco supervisor, and state Sen. Ben Allen.

Fleischman described the DSA-endorsed Kim as “nuts” and Allen, who represents Manhattan Beach, El Segundo, Beverly Hills and other cities, as “an extreme liberal” who “has enthusiastically supported virtually every Gavin Newsom policy I dislike.”

While Trump and Republicans will likely suffer midterm losses, many Democrats are “massively unpopular as well,” said Republican strategist Rob Stutzman. “All politicians are underwater right now. Voters are in a pretty bad mood.”

Hilton concedes it would be easier to run a midterm race with a sitting Democratic president, but believes the Trump endorsement is not as toxic to his campaign as it might seem.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton enjoys a light moment with a woman who was happy to get gas for $3 a gallon at a gas station in Los Angeles on Oct. 8.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“It doesn’t come up in really any of the meetings,” he said. “People really are asking about gas prices.”

Republican candidates and party officials are making the case that California’s longstanding homelessness and cost-of-living woes have little to do with the president.

“I can’t think of anything less relevant” than Trump, said Roxanne Hoge, chair of the Los Angeles Republican Party. “We are drowning in high taxes and high costs. Anyone trying to make this election about who the president is — and who will only be president for two more years — has a screw loose and also doesn’t have much of anything to offer.”

Hilton doesn’t engage in voter fraud allegations

Federal authorities this week charged 28 people in California with illegally registering and casting ballots as part of a broader fight to exert more control over elections, which are run by states.

Having just won an election primary in June, Hilton walks a line when discussing claims of electoral fraud. He takes issue with rules like ballot harvesting and a seven-day, post-election deadline for mail ballots to arrive, but he does not believe there is systemic fraud or cheating.

“We mustn’t let ourselves believe that every time we lose an election, it’s because they cheated,” he said when a supporter made the accusation during a Modesto town hall in August. “We lose the elections [because] we don’t win enough votes, right?”

Viewers attend a watch party at Victorio’s Ristorante in North Hollywood during the debate between gubernatorial candidates Democrat Xavier Becerra, left, and Republican Steve Hilton earlier this month.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

That’s why he is trying to reach independent voters and Democrats who “can’t stand President Trump” but “are desperate for something to change in California,” he explained as applause rippled through the heavily Republican crowd.

Hilton is counting on voters like Summer Behan, a former Democrat, to not only vote for him but persuade other disenchanted voters.

“My car got broken into 14 times in a year and a half,” Behan told Hilton during the Modesto event. “Our homeowners insurance went from $180 to $860, so we had to sell our house.”

She drives more than two hours to her nonprofit job in San Francisco.

“It’s sort of an exhausting way to live,” Behan said after the town hall. Families from her children’s schools have moved to other states, but she wants to stay. “California is beautiful, and it’s just got so much to offer people, so I want to try and stick it out and see what it looks like with different leadership.”

In case it wasn’t already clear: Debora Cahn, the creator of “The Diplomat,” likes to leave viewers in suspense.

The Netflix political thriller has followed Kate Wyler (Keri Russell), the highly competent, intensely impulsive, deeply flawed and incredibly relatable career diplomat, as she’s cleaned up backroom deals, navigated volatile international crises and unstable government leadership — all while managing a topsy-turvy marriage tangled up in it. And the stakes escalate with each season’s finale, forcing Kate to test her limits. But the fourth season has brought her breaking point.

Alarmed by the questionable decision-making by President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) — as the bullying tactics used against the U.K. to ensure their cooperation against Russia become untenable — Kate resigns in unplanned, but grand fashion at the G7 summit in front of world leaders. She’s eventually joined by other members of Penn’s administration: chief of staff Billie Appiah (Nana Mensah), Secretary of State Miguel Ganon (Miguel Sandoval) and, most notably, her husband, Vice President Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell).

“We like a good cliffhanger,” Cahn says during a recent video call.

Cahn’s thought about how “The Diplomat” will ultimately conclude. But like the show’s savvy titular character, she perfectly executes the art of the charming evasion when pressed for answers — namely, how close are we to getting there?

Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, left, Rufus Sewell as Hal Wyler, Allison Janney as Grace Penn in Season 4 of “The Diplomat.”

(Netflix)

“I don’t know — maybe it just did,” she teases. Cahn then turns more serious: “I’ve always had an idea of what the end is. As with everything on the show, I’m always delighted to have that idea blown out of the water by a better idea, but so far it hasn’t happened.”

Cahn began her television writing career on Aaron Sorkin’s acclaimed political drama, “The West Wing,” spanning seasons 4 through 7. After working on shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Vinyl” and “Homeland,” she took the helm as creator and showrunner for the first time with “The Diplomat.” And writing a political drama today meant grappling with a creative responsibility she hadn’t faced before.

“I didn’t have to figure out what ‘The West Wing’s’ political position was going to be or what ‘The West Wing’ thought about the world,” she says. “I want to make a show that is compelling for a lot of different people. And there are certain things that are happening in the world that, as much as I try or would like to be even-handed, … [are] really difficult to ignore when you’re living at a time when you feel like democracy is crumbling.”

On a recent afternoon from her home in New York, Cahn spoke more about the new season of “The Diplomat.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation, which includes spoilers.

The marriage between Kate (Keri Russell) and Hal (Rufus Sewell) is tangled with their work.

(Netflix)

So much of the show, but particularly this season, is about lines that are drawn and the crossing of them. How did you and the writers decide what would be the line for Kate?

It took months and months and months to decide because we wanted to treat the question as realistically as possible. A lot of good people don’t quit. And so, why? What’s the reasoning? The whole season is examining that question for Kate and, in a way, for all of them. I didn’t want to be like, “Well, she doesn’t like the president, so she walked on out.”

What did you want out of that final moment of the season?

The moment when she stands up, she has come to a clarifying realization that her line has just been crossed. It happens in that room. And we argued about that a lot. We ended up feeling really strongly that it be what was happening right there. That this was a question she had wrestled with, but when you see that you are off the cliff, it will become clear what you have to do. So for her, Grace’s speech was that moment. She then walks out of the room and thinks: “What the mother f— did I just do? I’ve just ended my career. Have I ended my husband’s career?” That’s how she feels until she hears the door open and sees Billie walk out, and both of them go through a similar moment when they hear the door open, and Ganon walks out; then obviously the last one [is Hal] that really nobody was expecting. But for Kate, there is a big difference between having realized that you can’t go forward because your own line has been crossed, to realizing that you have started a movement, and that there is a contagion in that action.

How much did the real world, particularly international relations, inform or shape the season?

I don’t ever like to do a ripped-from-the-headlines show, particularly because we write it and then a year or two passes before it gets on air. But it did feel like, at a time when this administration was coming back into power again, and their first move was to fire people and really obliterate the institution that we were writing about, it didn’t seem like a story that we could walk around and ignore.

Bradley Whitford as Todd Penn and Allison Janney as Grace Penn in Season 4 of “The Diplomat.”

(Nick Wall/Netflix)

We haven’t had a woman president. We know the sexism around this topic: Women are too weak, women can’t make tough decisions. What was the lay of the conversation in the writers’ room about who Grace Penn would be as president?

The situation that we wanted to sustain throughout the season was she’s not doing these things because she got shot, her stomach hurts and she’s mad. She’s doing things because she became president, and she thinks this is how the country needs to be run. Is there an overcompensation around her making sure that people don’t think that she’s too weak and afraid to be a foreign policy hawk? I think in plenty of circumstances, women in positions like that are more likely to take a strong decisive military action because there is this looming concern of, “Well is she tough enough? Is she gonna try and have everybody hold hands and make up?” There is an instinct to make sure that people realize that that isn’t your plan. Every one of the decisions that she made, we made sure that there was a smart, strategic, security mandated argument for doing what she was doing.

What Grace says at the top of that summit regarding the U.K. and Russia, if you didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes, it would seem reasonable and strategic.

I’m happy to hear you say that because that was very deliberate. We went round and round with different versions of what she said in that speech because some people would listen to it and say, “Oh, my God, she can’t say that. It’s just overwhelmingly reprehensible.” Then we would show our Washington people, and they were like, “It’s not so bad.” Democrats who were like, “This isn’t crazy. This is kind of middle of the road these days.” We realized that we couldn’t have her saying things that have become accepted in Washington because the public would view it as monstrous, and we didn’t want to be portraying a villain.

Is that the most difficult thing for you as the showrunner of a political show today — a president as a villain?

It’s trickier than I hoped it would be. I’m not really interested in the presidency as much as I’m interested in the thousands of people who interact with the president and perhaps don’t, as individuals, wield as much power in their hands as that office holder does. But real power, particularly in numbers, can make things happen or stop really disastrous things from happening. Whether or not we think that there’s a villain in the White House, what does everybody else do to try to manage it?

Rory Kinnear, who plays Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge, sings opera in a scene where his character is having a hallucination.

(Clifton Prescod / Netflix)

There’s a surreal interlude with Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) and his hallucinations — he’s singing opera, at one point. How did you arrive at that turn for him?

I would be lying if I didn’t say one of the big reasons I wanted to do that was because I found out Rory Kinnear sings opera. When we knew we were going to have this situation where he was going to through something even more stressful than everything that he’s been through up until now, it felt like it would be really great to see what’s going on in there [his mind]. I called him up and I said, “I’d like to have you singing ‘Pagliacci’ — is that OK?” And he was like, “Well, let’s start warming up now.”

For a brief moment, with Grace shot, Hal is acting president. I’m curious how you arrived at the length of time he’d fill in for Grace. It’s a few hours. And it reveals so much.

There’s a gravitational pull that we’ve been resisting ever since we made the president a big role, and then placed one of our leads in the role of vice president. There’s this pull toward the White House. But I’ve never wanted to be like, “Oh, well, then Hal’s president. Then, Hal dies, and Kate’s president! Everybody gets a chance.” Once he was VP, it started to seem equally absurd to not have a taste of that because it is, in fact, the reality in that job.

Making Hal a president for a long period of time wasn’t all that interesting to me, but I did want a little bit of a window into it. We think we really know what Hal Wyler is going to do in that role — and by we, I mean Kate, really —and it just isn’t true at all. It also turns out she really had no idea who he was as a vice president, and he’s a much different person than she thought. She thought he was going to continue to be a bull in a china shop, big swings and big ideas and asking for forgiveness, not permission. That’s not who he’s been in that job.

Billie (Nana Mensah), left, Kate (Russell), Hal (Sewell), Grace (Janney), Fitzwilliam (Neil Pearson) and Todd (Whitford) in “The Diplomat.”

(Nick Wall/Netflix)

Both couples faced questions like: Who is this person I married or how am I responding to who they are at this moment? What were you interested in exploring in both these dynamics?

The conversation that we were just having is in a way relevant for all four of them. Not only is Hal different than Kate thought he would be, Hal’s different than Hal thought he would be. I haven’t run a show before. This is this is my first time in that position, and I am absolutely different than I thought I would be. I was 100% sure I knew exactly how I would handle things, and it didn’t happen. That’s an idea that we wanted to keep alive for Hal and definitely for Grace. You can prepare for it all you want and still not know.

You can’t help but feel for Todd as he tries to figure out Grace. But then he nearly dismantles NATO and you’re like, Todd!

Todd goes through two phases. He has this terrible feeling of helplessness that is eventually supplanted by this terrible feeling of power that he’s unable to manage. In a lot of ways, the Todd story is the most realistic one we’re telling because a lot of people who’ve never done this before are making the most consequential decisions, literally in the world. And Todd’s not a dumb guy, and I don’t think the people that we’re watching do this are dumb people, but, boy, are they in over their head really fast.

I want to talk about Grace and Todd and the use of “babe.” There’s something so intriguing to me about what they’ve done with that pet name across the season.

You’re thinking about all my favorite things. I don’t know what to say other than I’m glad it’s reading. You take a term of affection, and, at a certain point, it just becomes a name. The affection that it carries with it is just a horrible memory of a moment that is clearly gone.

Some Big Brother fans demanded another housemate be nominated for eviction after the task

It came after a ‘brutal’ task caused chaos.

Fans of Big Brother were left raging as they claim some housemates made the ‘worst choice ever’ with a killer nomination. It comes as the housemates were confronted with the final power game in their teams.

Rob chose Yasmin, Omar and Rhianna to represent the red team. Meanwhile, Samuel picked Rochelle, Catrin and himself to play on behalf of the blue team.

Housemates had to take it in turns to place a domino in a line on a beam. Once all 60 dominos were lined up, one player knocked down the first domino to trigger a run and win the game.

However, after having to restart, Yasmin said: “We’re actually f**ked.” Rihanna was displeased with Omar’s attempt at encouraging comments and told him: “Shut up Omar. Just one second, please.”

Back in the living area, Rob commented: “Please don’t start bickering.” Frankie said: “We’ve got a civil war going on now, falling apart.”

The blue team thought they had victory in their grasp but had to start the whole thing again. At one point, Sam quipped: “Guys are showing your true colours in this game.”

To which Yasmin responded: “Sam, is that not the game? It’s the rules.” And Catrin noted: “No, I think you’re just being quite bitter with it. Quite nasty, I’ll be honest.”

Amid rising tensions, Yasmin knocked over the other team’s dominos which meant that her team was disqualified and the blue team was named winner. The entire group was called to the Task Room and Big Brother revealed the prize.

He said: “Congratulations, you have won today’s power game… but you have not won power of the House. You have won the power of the vote… you are now in possession of a killer nomination.”

Harry replied: “That’s crazy.” Big Brother instructed: “You must now select one housemate from the opposite team to receive this killer nomination. Whichever housemate you select will automatically face the public vote this Friday.”

Lynx quickly tried to put Rob up for eviction again, repeating previous reasons for nomination about his singing. Omar was suggested by Samuel and Catrin because of comments he made to Yasmin and Rihanna during the dominos challenge.

The house seemed to descend into chaos as the blue team struggled to come to a decision. Ultimately Yasmin was chosen.

It did not take long for fans watching along at home to share their feelings about it. One posted on social media: “Worst possible outcome. Not our Yasmin.” While another replied: “How’s that happened? Like the worst choice.” Someone else commented: “This killer nomination has actually ruined my mood.”

Others demanded that Omar be nominated for eviction later in the week after his recent behaviour. This included his conversation with Samuel as he confronted him for calling his behaviour as ‘classeless’.

One person said: “I genuinely don’t think Omar knows what classless means… that whole conversation was embarrassing. I wish Sam had the confidence to challenge him.”

A viewer agreed: “Actually don’t think I can watch anymore till Omar is out. I feel like I’m losing the plot because he’s moving around like that and they’re all just saying he’s a sweet misunderstood little superstar.”

Big Brother continues tomorrow at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX.

Raise your pretend glasses, Kyle Juszczyk and Jake Ferguson, and chug the imaginary beverages of your choice. Your recent five-figure fines have been rescinded!

The NFL and the NFL Players Assn. released a joint statement Wednesday to clarify some of the on-field celebrations that are and are not allowed during NFL games.

Of particular significance to San Francisco 49ers fullback Juszczyk and Dallas Cowboys tight end Ferguson is this sentence: “Recent celebrations imitating drinking a beverage will not be considered violations or result in discipline.”

Juszczyk had been fined $29,852 after celebrating two catches during a Sept. 20 win over the Miami Dolphins by pantomiming the act of drinking a beverage, something he’s done for years. The league initially ruled it an “imitation of chugging a beer” that “constituted an offensive demonstration and could reasonably be construed as being in poor taste.”

“I wasn’t drinking beer in my celebration,” Juszczyk told reporters on Sept. 24. “I think you guys all know my nickname is Juice. I have Juice on my pads. The stadium yells ‘Juice!’ when I catch the ball. When I celebrate, I celebrate by drinking juice, and it’s been that way for years. So I was surprised as anybody when I got a fine this week.”

Ferguson was fined $13,611 for a similar celebration during a Cowboys win over the Washington Commanders also on Sept. 20. The fifth-year player later said that his invisible drink was actually Gatorade.

The fines to Juszczyk and Ferguson had been reported as rescinded before the joint statement from the league and its players union came out. Colts offensive lineman Matt Goncalves also should be off the hook for his fine of $8,847 for a similar celebration during a game against the Kansas City Chiefs on the same day. His fake beverage of choice for that particular celebration, Goncalves has said, was Coke.

It seems like the NFL realized players could claim to have been demonstrating their love for anything from water to a wild huckleberry mint mojito mocktail and decided to let this one go. As for the still-prohibited celebrations, those include gestures that depict violence (including the use of guns/weapons and gang-related signs), imitate smoking or drug use, or are sexual in nature

The Associated Press contributed to this report.