Steve Hilton: What to know about CA gubernatorial candidate

Steve Hilton, a conservative political strategist and former Fox News host, has been making some Democrats nervous.

As Hilton has been leading most of the polls among a high number of Democrats, Democratic officials are faced with the possibility that the deep-blue state could be led by a Republican governor.

Hilton, along with Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, another Republican, have been frontrunners while several Democrats are splitting potential votes.

Who is Steve Hilton?

Hilton, a London native, is a British-American conservative who has worked for former United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron as his director of strategy for a couple of years.

After meeting his wife, Hilton moved to California and became a U.S. citizen.

He later hosted The Next Revolution, a weekly show on Fox News until 2023.

Before jumping into the gubernatorial race, Hilton co-founded the crowd-funding platform Crowdpac.

What are Steve Hilton’s proposals for California?

Hilton has been aggressively criticizing California Democrats’ and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s policies, blaming them for creating an affordability crisis.

The GOP candidate is sticking to “positive populism” proposals: tough on crime, lower or no taxes for certain groups of Californians. Hilton, endorsed by Pres. Donald Trump, wants to mirror the federal tax policy of eliminating state taxes on tips. He also pushes for no tax for small businesses.

Hilton has been critical of California’s efforts to close prisons and rehabilitate inmates. He has argued California, including Los Angeles, has crime problems because of Democrats’ “far left ideology of ‘decarceration,.”

What does he say about immigration?

Hilton, born to Hungarian refugees to the U.K. and an immigrant to the U.S. himself, told NBC Los Angeles’ Political Reporter Conan Nolan that he is “100% in favor of legal immigration.” But he makes an argument made by other conservative voices: cheap foreign workers are taking jobs away from Californians.

“(A construction worker in Sacramento) said he’s been laid off because the employers are now hiring illegal immigrant workers that they don’t have to pay health care, they don’t have to pay all these costs, don’t have to pay proper taxes,” Hilton said on NBCLA’s NewsConference on March 22. “That’s not fair to regular Californians.”

When asked who will be replacing undocumented workers in the farming industry and “pick crops,” Hilton predicted that most of the farm work will be automated in five years.

What is his beef with fellow GOP candidate Chad Bianco?

Although Hilton may be a frontrunner in the polls, he’s aware that no Republican was elected to a statewide office in California in nearly two decades.

Because the state has a top-two system that allows two candidates with most votes in the primary election to move onto the general election run-off, Hilton argues all Republican and conservative votes need to be consolidated behind one candidate.

“The Republican vote is currently behind split between me and (Riverside County Sheriff) Chad Bianco,” Hilton said. “My argument is to make sure we have a chance for change in California. We’ve got to get behind the strongest Republican candidate, and that’s me.”