Former Fox News host Steve Hilton has announced that he will enter the California governor’s race in a bid to become the Golden State’s first Republican chief executive since Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to Politico.
Schwarzenegger served as governor of California from November 2003 to January 2011.
Politico reported that Hilton, who previously served as an adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron, has been mulling a run for some time and is the second major Republican candidate to enter the 2026 contest. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco has also thrown his hat in the ring as a Republican.
“I just want to ask people to imagine what California would be like after another 15 years of one-party rule by the Democrats, yet more stagnation and decline,” Hilton told Southern California News Group ahead of his campaign launch. “If you look at the state of California today, it is just a disaster on every front.”
Hilton is also the author of “Califailure: Reversing the Ruin of America’s Worst-Run State,” which offers policy fixes for what he sees as the failure of the supermajority of Democrats in the state Legislature.
In recent years, California Republicans have generally come together to back one of their party’s candidates to ensure that they survive the state’s “jungle primary” system, which puts the top two candidates on track for a runoff general election, regardless of their party affiliation. Hilton’s decision to enter the race puts him in direct conflict with Bianco to consolidate GOP support by June 2026.
Republicans have long been outnumbered in California, but the state’s conservative movement picked up momentum in the last election cycle, resulting in some downballot wins in November.
Over the next few months, Hilton’s performance will be a test of his support compared with Bianco’s, as well as the conservative advance in a state that has swung blue in gubernatorial races for more than a decade.
Hilton has reportedly filed the paperwork to run for governor and has a public event set for Tuesday in the conservative Orange County city of Huntington Beach.
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