California’s primary election is less than a month away, but the field of gubernatorial candidates remains crowded.
Republican candidate Steve Hilton has regularly been leading in the polls, and recently received a key endorsement from President Donald Trump.
The British-American Hilton is an entrepreneur, former Fox News commentator, and served as a senior adviser to former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. He moved to the Bay Area 14 years ago, and became a U.S. citizen in 2021.
Hilton spoke with Insight Host Vicki Gonzalez about his vision for California.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Why did you decide to become an American?
Hilton: My parents are actually Hungarian; they were refugees from communism in Hungary. I grew up in England, but for many years I just thought of California as this absolutely iconic representation of what I consider to be the greatest nation in the world, America… partly informed by the roots in the Communist system and the oppression of freedom. That really was part of how I thought about the world from an early age. America represented the antidote, the opposite of that, and California represented the very best version of America in my imagination.
I now use this phrase a lot on the campaign trail… “California means to America what America means to the world." America always meant so much to me from afar, and almost the minute that we moved here, I just felt this is where I’m meant to be.
What are some tangible things you would do in your first year as governor that would realistically ease the strain on Californians, especially when it comes to affordability?
Hilton: That really is the heart of what I'm arguing for in the campaign. The theme is very simple, it's actually one word — “Califordable.” Three-dollar gas, cut your electric bills in half, your first $100,000 tax-free, a home you can afford to buy. Each one of those has a policy reform plan behind it.
The theme of the action that I would take, and that would be reflected in and contained in my first major act as governor, would be sending my first budget to the legislature. Those priorities, and the action needed to implement them, will be reflected in that as well as through some of the direct administrative action we can take.
For example on gas prices, one of the things that I think we need to do is just have a commonsense position which is that as long as we are using oil and gas in California, let's use the oil and gas we produce here rather than shipping it in on giant supertankers halfway around the world. That is something that we can immediately take action on and I would take action on day one through appointments and executive orders through the particular agency that regulates that. Same with water for our farming industry. Through appointments [and] executive orders to the state Water Resources Control Board, you can immediately start increasing deliveries of water to our farmers and other areas.
It’s a combination of the budget and then immediate executive action to deliver what I really see the whole thing as about, which is they're just reducing the costs and hassle of living in and running a business in California.
Would you strip California's climate policies?
Hilton: I think we've got to really be honest about this. I think of myself as an environmentalist… I'm all for sensible action on that, but not stupid things that are self-harming and don't actually help the climate. What is any of this pain that we're inflicting on working families and small businesses in California in the name of climate action, what is it actually doing for the climate in terms of impact on global temperatures? I can't see any evidence that it's doing anything.
You would need to work with the legislature if you are elected as governor, and the legislature is overwhelmingly Democrat. How would you work with this supermajority?
Hilton: I think I’m attitudinally very prepared for that. I'm a pragmatist; I'm not an ideologue, I'm not tribal. I've always had friendships and relationships right across the political spectrum. I think there are interesting signs that we may be able to get agreement on certain things… we'd all agree about the need to make housing more affordable and utility bills lower. The question is: do we agree about the way to get there? I think in some areas the answer is yes.
For example on my tax proposal… the first line of my tax plan is a pro-worker tax reduction, which is your first $100,000 tax-free. Just the other week at a debate Katie Porter, one of my Democrat colleagues in the governor's race, announced on stage that she supports that. She said “I’ve stolen that from Steve Hilton.” I'm proud to say that and I think we should take good ideas wherever they are.
We've had 16 years of only Democrats running everything. I think introducing some balance actually could be very healthy for our politics and government, shake things up a little bit in Sacramento. And I'm very confident that we could work effectively together to make good practical things happen.
You received a major Republican endorsement in this race from President Donald Trump. Is that a good thing considering the number of Democrats in California is almost the same as Republicans and “no party preference” combined?
Hilton: As I said at the time, I didn't ask for the president's endorsement and I certainly didn't expect it, but I'm very honored to receive it. I think that it's actually helpful for Californians to have a governor who has a good relationship with the president because so many things that the federal administration does or doesn't do interact with what happens here in California.
Let’s just take gas prices. Part of getting gas prices down to a level that's more in line with what you see in the rest of the country is opening up California energy production. The president and his team want to do that; you saw some action they took just recently with Sable off the coast of Santa Barbara. Gavin Newsom and Rob Bonta are blocking that. You see that kind of dynamic in so many other areas — forest management, finding fraud and cutting it out of our spending — where you've got what I would characterize as commonsense action or intention by the federal administration that would benefit Californians being blocked by the California Democrats.
I would argue that I'm in a better position to negotiate something really good for California and for our industry and jobs here in California because I have that endorsement from the president.
What do you think of President Trump's escalation on immigration enforcement?
Hilton: There is actually a model for the level and nature of immigration enforcement that I think most people would support, which is if you have laws we should uphold them. We should enforce them. What's the point in passing laws and then just ignoring them?
Actually you saw a higher level, just slightly higher than now, of immigration enforcement under President Obama, including deportations. But you didn't see the kind of confrontational posture from around the country, either from Democrat or Republican states. That's why I think it went much more smoothly then. President Obama was very clear, there’s some strong statements he made about it doesn’t matter how you came here, it doesn’t matter how decent you are, if you break the law to come here you need to be held accountable.
I think that's the kind of enforcement we need to get back to, and I think the sanctuary state policy and attitude — highly confrontational — that's what drives enforcement operations having to take place in ways and in places that none of us would want in terms of going into the community, the kind of confrontations we've seen on the streets. No one wants to see those scenes again.
My argument would be… obviously immigration policy and enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government, but let's have a governor that doesn't get in the way of that and actually works to make sure that goes smoothly, and in a way that lowers the temperature on this whole issue.
The top two candidates from the primary will advance to the November general election, regardless of party. Are you worried that there wouldn’t be a Republican in those top two positions?
Hilton: I am. I think that's a very serious concern, and in fact that's one of the things I've been warning about all year. We've seen these polls showing myself and the other Republican in the top two in many of them. That is a fantasy; that's not going to happen because the Democrat machine is not just going to give up power as easily as that.
They have tens of millions of dollars to spend manipulating the result. We've seen that before, with the Senate campaign with Adam Schiff and Katie Porter two years ago. They would make sure that there's a Democrat in the top two. In fact [that’s] the more dangerous outcome for California because it would mean that despite the fact that there's a majority of Californians now believe that the state's going in the wrong direction and that we need change, they wouldn’t have the chance to vote for change.
This is the scenario I think that is still a real possibility. You have an establishment machine candidate rising up, it seems to be that Xavier Becerra is now the person in that role, and you have Tom Steyer — the billionaire has already spent $140 million on his campaign, there's plenty more where that comes from. You could imagine that he would spend even more to get even higher.
It's really time for the Republican side to unite behind the leading candidate, and frankly right now that is me on every measure. I'm leading in the polls, leading on fundraising, I have the endorsement of the leader of the party nationally, President Trump. I think that's it very, very important that we do get behind the leading candidate and make sure we offer Californians a real choice for a new direction in November.
