When it comes to the Republican candidates for California governor in 2026, the two who regularly poll ahead of the others — Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and former Fox News host Steve Hilton — come from vastly different backgrounds.
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Bianco, who is often seen sporting a cowboy hat, grew up in a small mining town in Utah, moving to Southern California in 1989. Four years later, he graduated from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Academy at, according to his campaign bio, the top of his class.
To many, the 57-year-old is the no-nonsense, law-and-order candidate who championed Proposition 36, the 2024 voter-approved ballot measure that increased penalties for certain drug and retail theft crimes, and has made public safety a pillar of his campaign.
Then there’s Hilton, a British-born global businessman who helped get David Cameron elected as the United Kingdom’s prime minister before becoming a Fox News host.
Hilton, 56, moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2012 and, in 2023, founded Golden Together. According to its website, the organization advocates on various policy issues in California — ranging from business climate and housing to energy and water and wildfire management — in order to “get this state back on track.”
“Sheriff Bianco, frankly, is right out of central casting for a conservative Republican. He is a lawman from Inland California who wears cowboy boots every day,” said Jon Fleischman, former executive director of the California Republican Party.
“Hilton, on the other hand, is more of an intellectual. He wants to have more sparring and debates on the ideas and the issues,” Fleischman continued.
Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at USC and UC Berkeley, views Hilton as “much more of a MAGA Republican,” a reference to President Donald Trump‘s supporters, and Bianco as “a more traditional conservative.”
“They both represent critical elements of the party base, and there’s considerable overlap between the two of them,” Schnur said. “But they both start out with natural constituencies.”
“We can call it pro-Trump and pre-Trump Republicans.”
‘I value my oath’
To be clear, Bianco has also aligned himself with the president. He endorsed Trump’s 2024 campaign in an announcement during which he sarcastically said “it’s time we put a felon in the White House,” a reference to Trump’s conviction in a hush-money trial related to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Asked if he considered himself a “MAGA Republican” during an interview, Bianco responded by saying, “We should be doing everything we can to make America great again.”
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco announces his intention to run for Governor of California at a press conference in Riverside on Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)
“Somehow making America great again has turned into this violent, extremist thing that the Democrats want people to believe,” he continued. “I want America to be the greatest country in the world 10 times over. And I want California to be the greatest state in the country 10 times over.”
Bianco also addressed those who have criticized his affiliation with the Oath Keepers, an organization with a reputation as an anti-government extremist militia group. Some of its members took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, an event which Bianco condemned. The wrongful actions of some Oath Keepers, Bianco suggested, shouldn’t reflect on the group as a whole.
The Riverside County sheriff was a one-time dues-paying member of the Oath Keepers more than a decade ago. Although no longer a member, Bianco continued to defend Oath Keepers as misunderstood. In reality, he said, group members are simply people who served in the military or law enforcement who swore an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution.
“I’m extremely proud that I value my oath,” he said. “Imagine that: You have a politician that actually values his oath. And people want to make that out like (it’s) a bad thing.”
‘Make California Golden Again’
Meanwhile, the other leading GOP candidate in the governor’s race has been traveling the state, spreading a message to “make California golden again” — a slogan that reminds voters of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” rallying cry.
Author and former Fox News host Steve Hilton listens to video presentations as he announced his run for California governor during an event in Huntington Beach, CA on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. Hilton, 55, is the latest to jump into an already crowded field of candidates vying to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is prevented from running again because of term limits. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
As a Fox News host, Hilton has interviewed Trump. Last month, he told POLITICO his “good personal relationships” with the Trump administration would make him “a good champion for California with the current administration.”
Hilton also hasn’t shied from associating himself with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist who was assassinated on Sept. 10. Within days of the assassination, Hilton changed the bio on his X account to say “we’re going to win this for Charlie.”
Hilton is well aware that many viewed Kirk as divisive. But he saw his recently slain friend as someone who tried to break down barriers between people with differing views and bring them together for civilized debates — goals which Hilton can get behind.
“My campaign is focused on positive, practical things we can do to help working people, small businesses,” he said. “It’s not ideological. It’s not focused on things that divide us.”
Republicans in a blue state
Though some see stark differences between Bianco and Hilton, the two have at least one thing in common: Both can expect their road to the governor’s mansion to be anything but a walk in the park.
It’s been nearly 20 years since Californians last elected a Republican governor. And the state remains solidly blue, with Democrats currently enjoying a 20 percentage-point voter registration advantage over Republicans (45% v. 25%).
Still, both GOP candidates swatted away suggestions that the notion of another Republican governing California is dead on arrival.
“People ask, ‘How can a Republican win in California?’ … My question is, ‘How on earth can a Democrat win, given their record?’” asked Hilton, who rattled off a list of issues he said Californians face.
That list included soaring housing costs, gas prices and electricity bills; high unemployment rates; an unfriendly business climate and low-performing schools — problems he, perhaps unsurprisingly, pinned on Democrats who lead the state.
“It’s unimaginable to me that Californians will vote for more of the same when what we’ve got is so destructive to people’s daily lives. People are hurting so badly,” Hilton said. “How can the Democratic Party be reelected? I think in the end, the facts and substance will be determinative and people will vote for change next year.”
Bianco, meanwhile, projected confidence that voters would choose him.
“We can finally vote for something different — and everyone says that I’m different,” he said. “So either vote for somebody different that’s going to change things or keep voting for the same stuff that we vote for every single election, the dishonest, disingenuous politician that just tells us what they think we want to hear.”
Will Trump endorse?
In California, whoever finishes in the top two spots in the primary advances to the general election, regardless of political affiliation.
Two polls released last month showed former Rep. Katie Porter, a Democrat, leading the overall field of gubernatorial candidates.
Both polls also had Bianco polling better than Hilton: In the Citrin Center and POLITICO poll, Bianco had 15% voter support versus 10% for Hilton. (Bianco also had the edge over Hilton among registered Republicans, 37% to 26%.) In the survey conducted by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, Bianco had 10% voter support compared to 6% for Hilton.
On the other hand, recent polls by Emerson College showed Hilton ahead of Bianco. In August, Hilton had 12% voter support compared to 7% for Bianco in that survey. This month, Hilton, at 10%, continued to poll ahead of Bianco, who had 8%, though the gap had narrowed.
But the primary election is still eight months away, and many voters remain undecided about their choice.
Rob Stutzman, who handled communications for then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the primary difference between Hilton and Bianco will be the title accompanying their names on the ballot. Early polls suggest that when Bianco is identified as a “sheriff,” he performs better, Stutzman said. He said it will be interesting to see what Hilton’s ballot designation says.
In addition, Stutzman said, if Trump ends up endorsing in the race, that could be a game-changer.
He expects both candidates to vie for the president’s endorsement, despite the likelihood that Democrats would use the endorsement to negatively tie the candidate to Trump.
“If either one of them somehow becomes competitive against a Democrat in a runoff (election), the Democrat will tie them to Trump either way,” Stutzman said. “So you might as well get the benefit of the Trump endorsement to emerge from the primary.”
Fleischman agreed that if Trump decided to endorse, his support would end the candidacy of the person who didn’t get the backing.
“Trump has a relationship with Hilton because Trump calls all the Fox News hosts directly,” Fleischman said. “But that doesn’t mean that Trump is going to endorse him because Trump is also partial to lawmen and conservative Republicans.”
“It may be,” he continued, “that Trump decides ‘that’s not something I need to get in the middle of.’”