Conservative Steve Hilton Heads to November Runoff, Democrats in Full Panic Mode

Former Fox News host and conservative commentator Steve Hilton is heading to a November runoff for California governor. The most reliably blue state in America may be about to have the biggest political fight in its modern history.

With approximately 56 percent of the votes counted as of Wednesday, Hilton led the California all-party gubernatorial primary with roughly 28 percent of the vote. Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, trailed with approximately 25 to 26 percent. Billionaire climate activist and progressive megadonor Tom Steyer was in third place with around 20 percent. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the other prominent Republican in the race, had roughly 11 percent. Under California’s jungle primary rules, the top two finishers advance to November regardless of party, and the results with more than half the vote counted showed a Republican in first place.

The Democratic Party of California saw this coming and tried desperately to prevent it. In the days before the primary, California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks held a press conference to release internal polling showing two Republicans, Hilton and Bianco, leading the field. It was a panic move designed to consolidate Democratic voters around whichever candidate they believed could stop the GOP surge. It did not work. Hilton absorbed enough of the right-of-center vote to stay ahead of a fragmented Democratic field, and Becerra, despite the institutional support of the party establishment, could not pull away.

Former Representative Katie Porter, the progressive favorite who launched her campaign with national fundraising numbers and a loyal small-dollar donor base from her Senate run, conceded on election night with roughly 60 percent of the expected vote counted. Porter told supporters in a video statement that she knew she would not advance to the general election. Her departure from the race in real time as results came in was the death knell for the progressive wing’s hope of controlling both runoff slots.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa dropped out even earlier on election night, reading the results and making the practical decision not to let his vote totals run into the ground publicly. Matt Mahan, the San Jose mayor who ran as a moderate Democrat and drew favorable coverage from the political media as a potential crossover candidate, followed Villaraigosa out of the race before the night was over.

Hilton’s path to this moment is one of the most unlikely and genuine political stories of the 2026 election cycle. Born in London to Hungarian immigrant parents, he became a naturalized American citizen in 2021 and launched his gubernatorial campaign with a video that invoked his family’s journey from Hungary to Britain to the United States as proof of what this country and this state were supposed to stand for. He said California means to America what America means to the world. He said it was time to make California Golden Again.

He spent months crisscrossing a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by millions, making the argument that California’s catastrophic failures on homelessness, public safety, housing costs, education, and business climate are the direct result of single-party progressive governance, and that the people of California are not actually happy about what has been done to their state. They just have not had a credible vehicle for saying so.

The polls eventually validated that argument. Hilton pulled in roughly $4.1 million in donations in the second half of 2025 and built a campaign organization capable of competing in a state where every institutional advantage belongs to the other side. He appeared on Fox News constantly, keeping his name recognition high and his message sharp. He picked fights with Gavin Newsom’s record that resonated with voters who had watched the governor campaign for national office while California crumbled under his watch.

The intra-Republican drama of the race added a layer of complexity that threatened to sink Hilton’s chances for weeks. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the other prominent Republican in the field, refused Hilton’s repeated requests to step aside and consolidate the right-of-center vote. Bianco posted a social media message suggesting that not only should Hilton supporters vote for him, but that Becerra, Steyer, Porter, and every other candidate’s supporters should too, a provocation dressed up as an appeal to unity. The Republican vote was split. Hilton ran strong enough that it did not matter.

Steyer, whose presence in the race as a third-place finisher is the story Democrats most need to grapple with, poured over $216 million of his personal fortune into his campaign. He ran ads everywhere. He had the name recognition of a national progressive donor and the financial firepower to compete in a state where media buys are astronomically expensive. He got 20 percent. Hilton, running as a Republican in California with a fraction of Steyer’s money, got 28. That is not a fundraising story. That is a message story.

The November matchup between Hilton and Becerra, assuming the ballot counts hold and Hilton secures second place, will be one of the most watched races in the country. Becerra is a career California Democrat, former state attorney general, former congressman, and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services under Joe Biden, where he spent four years implementing the left’s healthcare agenda. He is the embodiment of the Sacramento-Washington establishment corridor that has run California for thirty years.

Hilton is a British-born former political adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron who became a conservative media personality, moved to Silicon Valley, watched California deteriorate from the inside, and decided to run for governor because he had the name recognition and the message to actually do it. He is unconventional, unapologetic, and genuinely believes California can be fixed if someone is willing to make the fights the establishment has been avoiding for a generation.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the last Republican to hold the California governorship, won his seat in a recall election in 2003 by running as a change candidate against a failing Democratic incumbent. Hilton invoked the Schwarzenegger legacy in his election night remarks, delivering on his promise to the former governor by earning a spot in the runoff. That pledge, delivered publicly during the campaign, was both a piece of political theater and a genuine expression of the coalition Hilton is trying to build: a California Republican who can appeal across party lines to voters who are furious about what Sacramento has done to their state.

The challenge ahead is immense. California has not elected a Republican governor since Schwarzenegger’s final term ended in 2011. The state’s voter registration gap has only grown since then. Becerra will have the full support of the California Democratic Party apparatus, the public employee unions, the environmental lobby, the Silicon Valley donor class, and every progressive institution in the most progressive state in the country.

But Hilton goes into November with something those institutions cannot buy: the credibility of a man who earned his runoff spot fair and square in a jungle primary, who outran a billion-dollar progressive field, and who did it in a state where the conventional wisdom said it could not be done.