Steve Hilton, the former Fox News host and one-time adviser to former UK prime minister David Cameron, said he has entered the 2026 race for California governor as a Republican.
In a video announcement on Monday, Hilton said he would run to replace Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor since 2019, whose term ends in 2027.
“I lived the California dream,” Hilton said in his announcement. But he criticised California’s Covid response under Newsom, calling it “madness” that had led to crime and chaos. “Let’s make California the land of opportunity again.”
Hilton, 55, moved to Silicon Valley in 2012 and became a US citizen in 2021. He is married to Rachel Whetstone, the British former communications director for Uber, Facebook and Netflix.
He will face long odds in a state that has not elected a Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger won a second term in 2006. In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump flipped 10 counties in California but still lost by a wide margin to Kamala Harris, a native of the state, who won 58.5 per cent of the vote.
Hilton on Monday blamed California’s problems on the dominance of the Democrats, who outnumber Republicans in voter registration by a margin of 45-25.
Harris is also believed to be weighing a run for California governor. If she joins the race, some of the seven Democrats who have registered to run are expected to drop out. Only one other Republican, Chad Bianco, sheriff of Riverside County, has filed papers to run.
“We’ve got to end the one-party rule that got us into this mess,” said Hilton, in a voiceover over images of Newsom, Harris and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass. Newsom is widely expected to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.
Hilton went on Fox News in January to criticise Newsom’s handing of the disastrous Los Angeles fires. “There is nowhere that is worse run than California today,” he said.
California has been battling a homelessness crisis, a cost-of-living problem and the perception that its ability to achieve its liberal goals has been hampered by regulations and red tape.
A number of high-profile companies have left the state and moved to Texas in recent years, including Chevron, Oracle and Elon Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX.
During his time at Downing Street, Hilton crafted policies to appeal to British voters who had abandoned the Conservative party for Labour. He was known for wearing jeans and a T-shirt at Downing Street. But he ultimately fell out with Cameron over immigration and Brexit.
