On June 9, NBC News projected that former Fox News host Steve Hilton finished second in the June 2 primary and will advance to the November 3 general election.
California Republicans haven’t won a statewide office in nearly two decades. They just got their best shot in a generation — and the man carrying it has promised to dismantle the protections that make California a refuge for immigrants and for women seeking reproductive healthcare.
He’ll face Democrat Xavier Becerra, the former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary.
Under California’s top-two primary system, all candidates run on a single ballot regardless of party, and only the two highest finishers move on.
With roughly 88% of ballots counted a week after polls closed, Becerra led with about 28% and Hilton trailed at about 25%.
Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer placed third near 20% and has vowed to stay in the count until every ballot is tallied.
President Donald Trump congratulated Hilton and urged Californians to send him to the governor’s mansion, an endorsement Hilton has welcomed throughout the campaign.
So… is the California election still rigged, Mr. President?
Who is Steve Hilton?
Hilton is a British-American entrepreneur who served as a strategy adviser to former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, moved to the Bay Area about 14 years ago, and became a U.S. citizen in 2021.
He hosted a weekly Fox News show for six years before launching a campaign built around what he calls “positive populism” and a slogan promising to make the state “Califordable” — housing deregulation, tax cuts, and the suspension of environmental rules to lower gas prices.
His running mate is Gloria Romero, a former Democratic state senator.
The packaging is folksy. The policy is not.
A personal note, since Resist Hate doesn’t pretend to be neutral: I follow Fox News closely for my work, and I watched Hilton’s show many times. Of all the network’s hosts, he was the one who made me angriest — viciously attacking the Left and lying about Democratic politicians, then-President Joe Biden above all. Barring a complete personality change, the populism on the campaign trail was an act.
What’s Actually at Stake
For the communities Resist Hate covers most closely, two of Hilton’s positions matter more than any talking point about gas prices.
The first is immigration. Hilton has pledged that under his administration, California “will not have sanctuary policies of any kind” and that the state would be a willing partner to federal enforcement.
He frames it as deference, arguing that immigration is not a governor’s responsibility and that a governor should simply step back and let the federal government carry out its agenda. (Would he say the same if a Democrat were sitting in the Oval Office?)
He has said he would not obstruct federal immigration law and wants to use narrow cooperation provisions buried in the state’s 2017 sanctuary statute to work more closely with ICE.
That is not an abstraction. It comes a year after ICE raids in Los Angeles sparked mass protests and Trump deployed the National Guard to the city.
California’s sanctuary law is one of the few legal shields standing between immigrant families and the kind of mass deportation machinery that has separated parents from children and swept up people with no criminal record.
A governor who treats that shield as an obstacle to be worked around is a governor who has chosen which Californians are worth protecting.
The second is abortion. Last winter, Louisiana indicted Bay Area physician Dr. Rémy Coeytaux for mailing abortion pills to a Louisiana woman, and Governor Gavin Newsom refused to extradite him, citing the shield-law executive order he signed after Roe v. Wade fell.
Hilton has said he would allow that extradition — handing a doctor over to a state that could imprison him for providing care that is legal in California.
Reproductive rights groups, including Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and Reproductive Freedom for All, have called the position extremist, warning it would open California’s doctors to prosecution by the very states working hardest to criminalize them.
The Road to November
Hilton enters the general election as a clear underdog. Registered Democrats far outnumber Republicans in California, and the last Republican to win the governorship was Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006.
Becerra, for his part, has begun framing the race in national terms, positioning himself against what he calls the chaos and cruelty of the MAGA movement.
But underdog is not the same as harmless.
Hilton’s primary showing — and Trump’s eager embrace of it — signals that the fight over California’s identity as a sanctuary state and a reproductive-freedom state is now on the November ballot.
The candidate who finished second wants to undo the protections that millions of Californians depend on.
Between now and Election Day, the question for voters is simple: who gets to feel safe in their own state?
