Free Republic

The California governor's race is heating up, with Emerson College polls showing two Republicans leading after Eric Swalwell's departure. Steve Hilton leads with 17%, followed by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco at 14%. Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer is tied with Bianco at 14%. Trailing Democrats include former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and former Representative Katie Porter both tied at 10%. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan follows with 5%. The poll also found that 23% of likely voters said they are still undecided, meaning the race remains wide open.

A cousin of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, is throwing his tech fortune behind two of the governor’s biggest critics. Siebel Systems founder Tom Siebel, second cousin of Siebel Newsom, gave $50,000 to San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan’s bid for California governor and another $10,000 to Republican former Fox News Host Steve Hilton. Siebel sold Siebel Systems, an enterprise software firm, to Oracle to 2006 for approximately $5.8 billion, making him a billionaire with an estimated net worth of around $4 billion currently.

Eric Swalwell has dropped out of the race for California Governor after a series of sexual misconduct allegations. Republicans may be celebrating the demise of the prominent Democrat, but they should hold off on the champagne for now. Swalwell’s exit only increases the chance of two Democrats moving through to the run-off, depriving the GOP of a place on the ticket. However some Republicans still believe that the two GOP candidates in the race – Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco – can make it through California’s jungle primary and face each other in November. While it sounds exciting and makes...

Amid the implosion of former Congressman Eric Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign, the race to be California’s new governor next year is up for grabs as pundits guess who will fill in Swalwell’s leading position. A poll released Tuesday may offer a clue: progressive billionaire Tom Steyer leads with 21% of likely voters and Republican candidate Steve Hilton is second at 18%, according to SurveyUSA. Swalwell, who resigned from Congress Tuesday after bombshell sexual assault allegations, polled at third with 9% of voters. The poll was conducted from April 8 to 10, right as the accusations came to light and when rumors...

Progressive billionaire Tom Steyer has been telling California voters he wants to “abolish ICE” despite investing nearly $90 million in a company behind the state’s largest immigration detention center. The California gubernatorial candidate has tried to swat off that criticism, but in a recent interview with the Sacramento Bee, he said it was a “mistake.” “We never had anything to do with running the company,” Steyer said. “But it was a mistake to think that that was a place where it was decent to make money.” Steyer founded a hedge fund named Farallon Capital Management in 1986. Under his management,...

California Gubernatorial Candidate Steve Hilton joins Clay and Buck to discuss Eric Swalwell’s departure from the race, who he thinks inside the Democrat Party orchestrated the hit on Swalwell, and how he feels his campaign will deliver regime change in California.

On April 22, KRON4 will host a California gubernatorial debate airing across the state. On the Democratic side, former Rep. Katie Porter will join East Bay Congressman Eric Swalwell and billionaire activist Tom Steyer on the debate stage. On the Republican side, political commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco will also take part.

With California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) nearing the end of his term, numerous candidates have stepped up to replace him in the upcoming gubernatorial primary race on June 2. Sixty-one individuals appear on the official certified list of candidates competing for California's top office. While there is currently no clear front-runner, several notable candidates have emerged. These include former Rep. Katie Porter (D), Rep. Eric Swalwell (D), climate advocate and businessman Tom Steyer (D), Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco (R), and Fox News host and small-business owner Steve Hilton (R). President Donald Trump released a post on social media on...

Political media habitually use “race” to describe contests for public office. However the word implies movement and therefore would be inaccurate if applied to this year’s election of a new governor. Sixty-one names will be on the June 2 primary ballot, including 10 leaders who profess to be serious about seeking the office. However, they aren’t racing. Rather, the eight top-polling Democrats seem to be in a children’s game, sitting in a circle staring at each other, waiting for someone to blink. Meanwhile, the two top Republicans are taking potshots at each other, potentially undermining the GOP’s only chance to...

The University of Southern California (USC) and Los Angeles television station KABC tried to have a gubernatorial debate on March 24. The qualifying criteria for being invited included polling numbers and fundraising thresholds. Six candidates made the cut: four Democrats: Katie Porter, Tom Steyer, Eric Swalwell and Matt Mahan, and two Republicans: Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton. Democrat Xavier Becerra, who didn't make the cut, called the qualifying criteria "biased. Every one of those who were invited is white. They should all withdraw from this racist so-called debate." His reasoning was so powerful that USC decided to cancel the debate...

"I don’t want this state that I love to become the country I left,” Steve Hilton tells the lunch meeting of South­ern California Republican Women. Knives and forks rattle on porcelain as the perfectly coiffured ladies down cutlery to clap. Remarkably, Hilton, director of strategy under former British prime minister David Cameron, has topped virtually every poll for governor of California since he launched his campaign in April last year. Hilton has leant into the West Coast aesthetic and spirit. Once the rebel of Downing Street in T-shirts and stockinged feet, today he sports a tech-bro beard, more bracelets and...

California Democrats were warned to get their act together months ago. Back off, consolidate, pick a front-runner or risk splitting the vote. They ignored the advice. Now the numbers are in and the results are brutal. A new UC Berkeley-LA Times poll shows the 2026 race for governor is a total mess for Democrats. Support is scattered across a crowded field while Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco have quietly pulled ahead. The data tells the story. Not a single Democrat tops 13% while the GOP contenders sit in the high teens. 16% of voters remain undecided leaving the door...

California's jungle primary system has created a path for Republicans to flip the state in a nightmare scenario for Democrats, according to new polling that shows the Democratic field splintering while GOP candidates consolidate. The Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, conducted March 9-15, has Republican commentator Steve Hilton at 17 percent and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco at 16 percent, while the leading Democratic candidates are scattered below them. Representative Eric Swalwell and former Representative Katie Porter each sit at 13 percent, businessman Tom Steyer at 10 percent, and former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra at 5 percent. […] The...

Apparently, it's panic time for Democrats in their one-party blue state of California. The Los Angeles Times reports that they are facing armageddon in the upcoming governor's race, whose "jungle" primary is in June. According to the Los Angeles Times: SAN FRANCISCO — Leaders of the California Democratic Party, along with liberal activists and loyal power brokers, are openly expressing fear that their crowded field of candidates running for governor may splinter the vote and open the door to a surprise Republican victory in November.SNIP The bottom line here is that Democrats wouldn't have this problem at all if they...

Something appears to be laughably missing in Politico's Saturday story about the June nonpartisan gubernatorial primary in California. Namely the front runner is a Republican, Steve Hilton, and another Republican is very possibly the second place candidate, both of whom would be facing each other in the November general election for governor.Is it a mere coincidence that Politico writers Blake Jones and Lindsey Holden completely ignored them because they happen to have the taboo (R) by their names which are completely AWOL in "Why Swalwell and Steyer are surging in California governor’s race"?The focus of the story (to the complete...

Republican Steve Hilton has opened up a surprise lead in the California governors race, according to a new poll. The Fox News contributor and staunch critic of Gov. Gavin Newsom is leading the crowded field, with 17% support, according to the Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics survey. Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell and GOP candidate Sheriff Chad Bianco are tied for second at 14%, followed by former Rep. Katie Porter at 10%. Billionaire Tom Steyer trails one point behind her. About 21% of voters remain undecided, a 10-point decrease from the last poll in December, with Hilton gaining 5 points since...

Top California Republican Steve Hilton blasted GOP rival Sheriff Chad Bianco for skipping Tuesday’s gubernatorial debate — and for taking a knee with George Floyd protesters in 2020. Before answering questions from moderators, Hilton wanted to address the “RINO who is not in the room.” “In 2020, during the Black Lives Matter riots, he took a knee when told to by BLM,” Hilton said. “Now, he says he was praying.” Hilton urged voters not to take his word for it, but see the video of the “shifty sheriff” online for themselves. ... Hilton is considered the leading Republican in the...

In four years of operation, Gov. Gavin Newsom's (D-Calif) $236 million mental health CARE Court program has helped 22 individuals. Initial estimates projected that 12,000 to 50,000 would be helped. The Governor denied the program was a flop. "Look, it's not as if there was no benefit," he said. "Almost two-dozen individuals got the care that they needed. It was a better deal than the Somali daycare fraud that siphoned off billions from the public coffers of federal and state governments. Besides, if we hadn't made this investment no one would've been helped. So, I ask my critics, 'what would...

As an immigrant, I’m disgusted by the behavior being revealed in Tim Walz’s Minnesota… But whatever is going on there, the corruption in Gavin Newsom’s California is a thousand times worse. Our Employment Development Department paid out at least $20 billion in fraudulent unemployment benefits during the pandemic — over a billion alone in the names of state and local prisoners, even inmates on death row. The corrupt “homeless industrial complex” grabbed $24 billion in state spending, as crony nonprofits and developers pocketed taxpayer cash while homelessness increased. Working families who pay into the system cannot afford groceries, rent or...

Hard as it is to believe, could change really be in the works for California?It may be, according to this Emerson poll, as reported by Newsweek:Republican candidate Steve Hilton is very narrowly ahead in the latest poll from Emerson College on California's gubernatorial race, pulling into the lead over former U.S. Representative Katie Porter, the Democratic front-runner.According to the details:The latest Emerson poll, conducted on October 20 and October 21, shows Hilton with a slim lead in the crowded field to replace outgoing Governor Gavin Newsom in California next year. The Republican has the support of 16 percent of California's...