By In a pointed critique of California’s political status quo, Steve Hilton — the former Fox News host and longtime conservative political strategist — announced Sunday that he is running for governor, positioning himself as a Republican insurgent determined to dismantle what he describes as the entrenched Democratic orthodoxy of the nation’s most populous state.
Declaring his candidacy on Twitter, Hilton invoked a campaign motto steeped in nostalgic idealism: “Make California Golden Again.” The phrase — both a nod to the state’s storied past and a thinly veiled echo of Donald Trump’s branding — sets the tone for a campaign focused on cost-of-living pressures, regulatory overreach, and what Hilton casts as the corrosive effects of prolonged one-party governance.
It’s time to make California Golden Again.
We need some balance here after 15 years of Democrat one-party rule.
Positive, practical policies that actually help people, not ideological crusades.
It's why I am running for governor of California ☀️ pic.twitter.com/Vfu1T18zGR
— steve hilton (@SteveHiltonx) April 21, 2025
“California has gone off course,” Hilton said in a pre-recorded interview with NPR, released shortly before his announcement. “We’re seeing the results of unchecked political power—inefficiency, lack of innovation, and growing public frustration.”
The state, he argued, has become emblematic of what happens when political competition is all but eliminated. Citing surging housing prices, punitive taxation, and widening inequality, Hilton contends that the Democratic supermajority in Sacramento has governed without accountability or vision for nearly two decades.
Hilton is no stranger to politics — nor to reinvention. A British-born U.S. citizen, he once served as chief strategist to former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron before rebranding himself as a populist television personality on American cable news. From 2017 to 2023, he helmed “The Next Revolution” on Fox News, a show that married grassroots conservatism with anti-establishment rhetoric. More recently, he authored Califailure: Reversing The Ruin Of America’s Worst-Run State, a book going after what he sees as the bureaucratic inertia and ideological excesses of California’s ruling class.
His gubernatorial platform is expected to center on three interlinked themes: the escalating cost of living, the burdens of state regulation, and the growing power of Silicon Valley’s corporate elite. Each, Hilton argues, reflects a deeper failure of governance — a system designed to serve insiders rather than ordinary Californians.
California leadership is a political monopoly,” he said. “These elite have only encouraged and enacted far-leftist policies that endanger California residents.”
Hilton’s candidacy faces daunting odds in a state where Democrats control every statewide office, dominate both legislative chambers, and command overwhelming margins in voter registration. No Republican has been elected governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006, and California last backed a GOP presidential nominee in 1988.
Even so, Hilton welcomed speculation that Vice President Kamala Harris — herself a former California attorney general — could return to state politics with a gubernatorial run. Calling her “a formidable opponent,” he said her entry would sharpen the stakes of the campaign and elevate the public conversation.
“She’d bring a lot of attention to the race and the issues that California faces,” Hilton said during a recent interview. “And I think that’s important that we can have a really serious policy discussion about how we turn things around and make California what it should be, which is the best of America.”
Whether Californians are ready to entertain that debate — or ready to consider a Republican alternative — remains an open question. But Hilton, at least, appears undeterred. His candidacy, he insists, is not just about winning office but about “restoring balance” to a state that, in his view, has lost its way.
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