Trump endorses Steve Hilton for California governor, giving GOP a front-runner

President Donald Trump has endorsed Steve Hilton for California governor, a move that could possibly consolidate Republican voters ahead of the still wide-open primary election in June.

Hilton, a former Fox News host based in the Bay Area who previously served as a political adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron, has campaigned on the goal of improving California’s hostile relationship with the federal administration. He and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco are the only two Republicans among the 10 notable candidates in the primary field.

“I have known and respected Steve Hilton, who is running for Governor of California, for many years. He is a truly fine man, one who has watched as this once great State has gone to Hell,” Trump wrote early Monday on his social media site, Truth Social. “Steve Hilton has my COMPLETE & TOTAL ENDORSEMENT. He will be a GREAT Governor and, importantly, WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!!!”

With Democratic voters split, Hilton and Bianco have risen to the top of public polling in the race, threatening to leave the majority party in the state without a candidate in the top-two general election. Now, Trump’s endorsement could boost Hilton and allow a Democrat to overtake Bianco.

“It certainly increases the chances that a Democrat is going to make it into the top two,” said Tim Rosales, a Republican strategist. “The Bianco campaign has to reassess and reposition themselves in the wake of this, but the Democrats still don’t have a clear front-runner.”

In the most recent public polling, Hilton and Bianco have occupied a crowded top five alongside three Democrats: Rep. Eric Swalwell, investor Tom Steyer and former Rep. Katie Porter.

Hilton and Bianco often split the Republican Party’s support about evenly in polling, and a March primary election simulator created by Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., put the odds of a Republican-only general election at about 25%.

If that were the case, the state would have a Republican governor for the first time in more than two decades.

In an interview with KQED’s Political Breakdown, Hilton touted his relationship with U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and vowed to work collaboratively with the Trump administration to boost California’s timber industry and manage forests.

“There’s a whole set of positive things we can do if we work more closely with the federal government on that issue,” he said.

While he told Politico that as of last week, he hadn’t spoken to Trump about the gubernatorial race, he’s repeatedly invoked the president’s own campaign slogan, saying that as governor, he would “Make California Great Again.”

Trump remains deeply unpopular in California, with just 30% of likely voters approving of the job he is doing as president, per a February poll from the Public Policy Institute of California. But that same survey found Trump’s support remains strong among California Republicans, with 76% approval.

“Republican voters still hold the president in pretty high regard,” Rosales said. “It certainly does make Hilton the front-runner amongst Republicans, and in a top-two primary like this, where you’ve got a crowded field, anything that a candidate can do that really solidifies a base of voters is critically important.”

The loyalty of the GOP base has allowed Trump to play kingmaker in past California primary elections. In 2018, he endorsed businessman John Cox, boosting Cox into the general election and dashing the prospects of an all-Democrat general election between Gavin Newsom and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Before Trump’s overnight endorsement, Bianco also seemed to have been courting the president’s support, launching a high-profile recount of ballots cast in last November’s special election, when California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50 to redraw congressional maps to favor Democrats. Last month, Bianco seized more than 650,000 ballots, calling the unprecedented investigation a “fact-finding mission” into potential voter fraud, which Trump has often called rampant despite a lack of evidence.

Many Republican strategists, however, believed that the party’s best chance to win both spots in the primary relied on Trump’s staying out of it. The state’s GOP also hasn’t weighed in, though it’s expected to decide whether to make an endorsement at its upcoming convention next weekend.