Democracy means political competition. But California Republicans haven’t won a statewide race in two decades. No wonder we’ve had tax increase after tax increase.
Steve Hilton aims to change that by winning the governorship in 2026. The former Fox News host and Silicon Valley executive is campaigning to reduce the immense size, cost and waste of the state government. He would succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In an interview, my first question was how Hilton planned to break out of the 40% ceiling of votes Republicans have won in recent statewide elections. John Cox garnered just 38% against Newsom in 2018 and Brian Dahle 41% in 2022.
“The majority of the people in California want change,” he said. “My argument is the person who is going to win is the change candidate – and that’s going to be me. I would almost flip the question and say: How on earth could I possibly lose? My job is to make sure people know I’m the candidate who will bring the change. The fundamental issue is, it’s so tough for regular families in California. And it’s the Democrats who created this mess.”
He brought up a United Way of California survey released April 29 which found 35% of households “do not earn sufficient income to meet basic needs.” It’s 54% for households with children under age 6. He blamed the high costs for housing, electricity, gas, “everything.” And he said small businesses are “being crushed by regulations.”
In 2022, Newsom spent $39 million on his campaign to Dahle’s meager $4 million. But a competitive race in 2026 could run the bill to $100 million for each candidate. “I don’t think of it in terms of money,” Hilton said. “I think of it in terms of how you reach people with your argument.”
He said the $100 million number well might be right. But he pointed to spending in last year’s presidential election, including allied super PACs, totaled $2.7 billion for loser Kamala Harris to $1.8 billion for winner Donald Trump.
I would add Hollywood liberals might “go GOP” with their contributions if they remain enraged at how Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass have not sped up the slow pace of rebuilding permits after the January wildfires burned down their Pacific Palisades bungalows.
If Hilton becomes governor, he’ll face a hostile Democratic Legislature. How to get anything done? “I’ll make the point to the Legislature that my election means a political revolution in California,” he said. “I would expect that they would take account of that. And a governor has a huge amount of opportunity to make change in a positive direction.”
On the issues, he decried the state’s high tax burden. He has crafted a plan to end all state taxation below $100,000 of income, and a flat tax of 7.5% above that. He said it “would be an incentive for entrepreneurs and business owners and will help create growth and jobs.”
And he promised massive cuts to wasteful spending. He pointed out general-fund spending soared from $140 billion for fiscal year 2018-19, Gov. Jerry Brown’s last budget, to $229 billion in Newsom’s Jan. 10 proposal for 2025-26. That’s a whopping 64% increase in just seven years.
He said in talking with Californians on the campaign hustings, they’re tired of “all these agencies, the bureaucracies, whether it’s the Air Resources Board, the Coastal Commission, the Department of Pesticide Regulation – hundreds of them.” Wikipedia lists 239, not including law enforcement.
On education, he is being advised by one of the state’s top educators and a longtime source of mine, former Democratic state Sen. Gloria Romero. She’s the author of the 2010 Parent Trigger Law, which let parents vote out an entire failing school administration and bring in reformers. Unfortunately, in 2015 the California Department of Education used a sneaky bureaucratic maneuver effectively to repeal it.
Hilton called for giving “a simple grade for every school and every teacher, so every parent can see how their child’s school is performing.” Consequences could include removing the principal or the teacher.
He said he favors an end to the weak standards the state has adopted in recent years, more charter schools and, “I’m a big supporter of school choice. I think that’s great, but slow in its impact. In the short term we have to focus on raising standards immediately in our public schools,” including accountability and “what works in the curriculum.”
Hilton brought up how proficiency on the 2024 California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress scored just 47% on English Language Arts, 35.5% on math and 30.7 on science. “It’s astonishing to me that phonics isn’t the method used for teaching English in our schools,” he said.
A 2022 study by the California Reading Coalition found 81% of schools still were using, as least part of the time, the discredited “whole word” method. With it, kids absurdly are taught to recognize entire words by sight, instead of sounding out the syllables – phonics – the way of learning alphabets since they were invented millennia ago.
I’ve been writing about what were called the Reading Wars going back to the 1980s. It’s shocking that now a third generation of kids is being damaged.
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Hilton isn’t the only Republican running. But he’s setting a high standard for the other candidates. Maybe one will restore California democracy.
John Seiler is on the SCNG Editorial Board
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