When Chad Bianco entered the California governor’s race, he touted himself as a pro-Trump sheriff who would help Trump implement his agenda in the deep-blue state of California.
He was a frontrunner at one point, but then Steve Hilton entered the race, and after a brilliant debate, he has taken the lead and even distanced himself from the frontrunning Democrat, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA).
While Hilton is now calling for Bianco to drop out to consolidate the ticket, Bianco has gone a different route to attract more moderate voters.
Bianco announced his run in February 2025, stating, "As Californians we want leadership that actually cares about the cost of living …and leaders who will do something about it.”
He added, "We want homes we can afford. We want air conditioning when it's hot, not rolling blackouts. We want water for the crops and animals that feed us. We want the opportunity to achieve the California Dream, not be prevented from it because of red tape and regulation from government.”
He continued, “We want honesty and transparency from our elected officials. We want lower taxes and less government waste. We want sanity restored and common sense to prevail."
Bianco was clearly pro-Trump, and he seemed to have the support of many Republicans, as he had appeared during Police Week at the Capitol to support law enforcement. But that would all change soon enough.
Hilton entered the race in April 2025, and he started to get traction nearly immediately.
In fact, he and Bianco were holding two of the top three positions for most of this race, which was quite surprising. Outside of former Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), and now Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), the slew of other Democrats in the race were not getting any traction at all.
Hilton really took control of the race after the first debate, where viewers clearly thought he outperformed everyone else.
After polling on the debate was revealed, Hilton declared victory, stating, “I won the debate because I told the truth about the total disaster of 16 years of Democrat one party rule, the fraud, the waste, the corruption, and the cost of living that sky hide for regular working Californians.”
Bianco is now tied for third with Porter, so he made a move I doubt anyone expected him to make.
After a long spiel about how his family is a family of immigrants, and how he would work with other governors, he stated, “Whether they came across illegally, into the country legally, or not, is irrelevant because we allowed it to happen. So now we just have to fix it. Secure our borders, don’t let it happen again, and now we have to give a path to citizenship to the ones that are here.”
He continued, “We have to create a way for them to become U.S. citizens and productive, make their families great, if they truly did come here to make their lives and their family’s life better, we have to get to a position where we allow that to happen."
I have not really looked into these candidates yet, but I can tell that statement alone discounts him as far as I am concerned. The moment you start talking about a path to citizenship for anyone who broke our laws to enter this country, you lose me, and he surely lost MAGA. He likely wants to attract moderates, but I would think he is going to lose far more support than he will gain with that statement.
Now I am really looking forward to the next set of polls to see how that impacts the race.
