California dreamin’: Could a Trump-supporting Brexit cheerleader capitalise on Democrats' dithering?
Former US Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra (C) looks on as Former Democratic US Representative Katie Porter and Republican political commentator Steve Hilton fist bump during a California gubernatorial debate at Bridges Auditorium on the campus of Pomona College in Claremont, California, on April 28, 2026. The eight candidates for California governor are participating in the second televised debate, ahead of the June 2, 2026 primary elections. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images)
“This is worse than my teenagers at dinner,” Katie Porter declared in the midst of the final chaotic debate in the shambolic, scandal-plagued race to become California's next governor.
It was something of an unfortunate quip, given Porter’s ex-husband’s claim that the former Democratic Congresswoman once emptied a pot of potatoes over his head during a dinnertime argument, something her opponents have lost few opportunities to highlight.
The ballots have been mailed out and early voting has started in a tumultuous California primary that has caught Democrats inexplicably flat-footed, reeling from a scandal that forced their frontrunner from the race.
Now they’re in danger of losing the governor’s mansion and control of the world’s fourth-largest economy to a British expat, Trump acolyte, and part-time Fox News contributor with a penchant for wearing cycling shorts and turning up barefoot at meetings.
Those who scoff at the notion that a pint-sized, bald-headed, Brexit cheerleader could become California’s next governor have clearly forgotten the derision that accompanied Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2003 campaign — another chaotic race crowded with celebrity D-listers and dilettantes; including a porn star; a porn publisher; a former child actor; and a one-trick, watermelon-smashing comedian.
Given the right — or wrong — circumstances, it’s possible that they could do the same with Steve Hilton. A former Conservative and adviser to British prime minister David Cameron, Hilton decamped to the US in 2012 and became a citizen in 2021. His friendship with Cameron foundered when he cheered on Brexit from his perch as a part-time Fox News commentator.
Hilton has little discernible star power, much less a policy or platform other than the standard Maga fare of regulation-cutting and climate-change scepticism. During his career as a pundit, he remained near the bottom of the Fox News totem poll. However, his dedication to his role as a Trump acolyte secured the US president’s endorsement, over the protests of Californian Republicans who backed Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.
While Democrats dominate Californian politics and control 43 of their 52 Congressional seats, there is a deep red seam running through this bluest of states. In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump won more than 6m votes to Kamala Harris’s 9.3m, an increase of almost 2m votes over his 2020 tally.
Almost all the tech bros — including those who still live in California — have swung far right, lining up behind Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Their fealty to the Democrats — and, it seems, to democracy itself — was entirely transactional. The Clinton administration, recognising the growth potential of new technology in the 1990s, provided the early innovators with the federal support and funding they needed to develop multibillion-dollar enterprises, several of which have become multitrillion-dollar corporations.
But few of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs are wedded to liberal or republican orthodoxy. They’ll hop into bed with whichever leader promises lower taxes for their centi-billion fortunes and less regulation for their AI ambitions.
For Democrats, the governor’s race was initially mired in lethargy. Californians like a bit of glitz in their governors, and none of their contenders had the charisma or rapid-fire communication skills of incumbent Gavin Newsom, the self-promoting leader of the Trump resistance.
The California primary system pits Republicans and Democrats together, with the two contenders who secure the most votes facing off against each other in November. And with eight Democrats splitting the liberal vote, there was a real risk that the two Republicans would end up taking first and second place, pushing Democrats out of the race.
In March, a panicked Democratic leadership started coalescing around Eric Swalwell. The former Congressman, who was first elected in 2013, was anointed as a rising star by Nancy Pelosi and benefited from her mentorship and admission to her inner circle in DC. Then, just as he emerged as the Democratic frontrunner, his campaign imploded when several former staffers accused him of sexual assault. His denials cut no ice with Pelosi, who cut him adrift and forced him out of the race.
The ensuing criminal investigation forced him to resign from Congress and sent Democrats scrambling for a new frontrunner. Initially it seemed that Katie Porter, the ferociously smart former Congresswoman, who displayed a knack for explaining complex financial issues and cutting through the thicket of dense legislative proposals on Capitol Hill, seemed like the natural choice. But leaked footage showing her swearing at a staff member and abruptly ending a press interview, together with snippets from her combative divorce, provided a reminder that double standards are alive and well, even in liberal Californian politics.
Instead, it seems the Swalwell vote has been divvied up between Tom Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund manager turned environmentalist, and Xavier Becerra, a former Congressman who also served as California’s former attorney general and Biden’s health secretary.
So far, Steyer has spent around $135m (€115.15m) of his estimated $5bn fortune on a massive media campaign. A mild-mannered moderate, he touts his business acumen, tech expertise, and green credentials, promising the sort of no-drama approach that worked for former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. But in a state where tech bros and entrepreneurs have become disenchanted with Newsom’s liberal policies, his poll numbers have stalled at around 13%.
Right now, the momentum is with Becerra, who has moved steadily to the front of the Democratic pack. He and Hilton, each polling at 19%, are most likely to make it to the November run-off. Newsom, who has thrown his support behind Becerra, is pressuring the remaining single-digit Democrats to drop out of the race.
On paper, there’s no doubt that Becerra is the most qualified. He has served as a congressman, the attorney general for California and Biden’s secretary for health and human services, the job that Robert F Kennedy Jr has transformed into a soapbox for cranks, anti-vaxxers, and often ludicrous publicity stunts. You wouldn’t have caught a half-naked Becerra doing push-ups in a sauna alongside Kid Rock. And that may be no bad thing.
As HHS secretary at the peak of covid, Becerra was credited with executing an impressively glitch-free vaccine rollout at a point when covid had ravaged America, claiming more than a million lives, wreaking havoc on its economy and ripping its social fabric asunder. Unlike Anthony Fauci or his much-derided predecessor Alex Azar, Becerra eschewed the spotlight in favour of focusing on the nuts and bolts of getting almost 500m vaccine shots into the arms of some 230m Americans.
Steady, cautious, and soft-spoken, Becerra doesn’t share Newsom’s appetite for bareknuckle brawls online or in front of the cameras. While Newsom gleefully and publicly skewers Trump at every opportunity, Becerra, a Stanford University scholarship graduate, was no slouch when it came to the less flashy, but more effective, method of pushing back through the courts during his stint as attorney general. During Trump’s first term, he brought 155 separate lawsuits against his administration, winning most of them and forcing Trump to backtrack on major policy issues in several others rather than proceed to court.
The single biggest controversy of his tenure involved the HHS’s handling of a surge of 85,000 unaccompanied minors who crossed the border during the early days of covid, and it’s one that Republicans are poised to highlight at every opportunity should the race to become the next California governor come down to a contest between an immigrant Maga cheerleader or the son of Mexican immigrants.
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