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A longtime fixture of the Democratic establishment in California and a Republican former Fox News host will head to a runoff in the race to be the state’s next governor in November.
Steve Hilton, a conservative former political aide and commentator, finished second Tuesday, a week after the state’s nonpartisan primary day. He will compete with Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services Secretary under President Joe Biden. The pair edged out Tom Steyer, a billionaire philanthropist who ran on a progressive platform.
The ascension of Hilton, a conservative power player endorsed by President Donald Trump, suggests dissatisfaction with the slate of Democratic candidates on offer in the open primary and an inability for Steyer, a billionaire who has never held elected office, to break through with a campaign vowing to help redistribute the wealth.
It also offers Becerra an easier path to election, with California voters expected to skew heavily Democratic in November.
Becerra, who ran a relatively quiet campaign focused on his credentials, previously served as California attorney general under former Govs. Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom. He came under fire for his work in that office, as The Intercept reported last month. In 2018, Becerra’s office pushed for the state Supreme Court to artificially inflate the IQ of an intellectually disabled Black man in order to execute him, and he fought to uphold death penalty sentences during the Covid pandemic, despite a moratorium Newsom imposed. Becerra has also been criticized for his alleged mishandling of migrant children who were in his office’s care while serving as HHS secretary.
His primary campaign managed to overcome those criticisms, racking up high-profile endorsements from figures including Reps. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., and Ted Lieu, D-Calif., as well as several notable labor unions. Becerra’s campaign was also boosted by the rapid and scandalous departure of former front-runner Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct, including rape. Swalwell denied the allegations but swiftly resigned from Congress and ended his gubernatorial campaign, clearing a path in the centrist lane that Becerra quickly filled.
Hilton, meanwhile, spent months neck and neck in the polls with Steyer, a former hedge fund manager who used his immense wealth to fund his campaign yet ran on what was widely considered the most progressive platform in the race, earning the head-turning endorsement of Our Revolution, the group founded by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT.
While he’s a relative unknown in the United States, Hilton has a reputation in the United Kingdom for helping to orchestrate the rise of former British Prime Minister David Cameron. If he manages to defeat Becerra in November, Hilton will be California’s first Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger, the architect of the state’s open primary system.
