At first glance, Steve Hilton’s expected candidacy for governor of California might appear dead on arrival.
A Republican hasn’t controlled the heavily blue Golden State since 2011, when Arnold Schwarzenegger finished his second term and packed up his things to get to the choppa. As far as mystique goes, there’s little point in comparing one of the world’s biggest movie stars to Hilton, a 55-year-old British ex-pat who frequently walks around barefoot, raises chickens, and bears a vague resemblance to Jeff Bezos.
But at a time when Democrats have yet to field a consensus candidate for 2026 and are collectively soul searching after a crushing defeat to Donald Trump, Hilton’s unconventional résumé and close ties to Silicon Valley tech could make him an intriguing candidate. He parlayed his role as a top adviser to former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron into a job as a Fox News host, building a massive social media following by skewering Democrats, particularly those in California.
“There’s a lane for him,” said Larry Gerston, professor emeritus of political science at San Jose State University. “The question is: How wide is that lane?”
Hilton, who moved to California with his wife in 2012 and became a U.S. citizen four years ago, is expected to announce his campaign after completing a book tour for “Califailure,” which will be published March 25. The book focuses on the state’s many crises, from housing and homelessness to public safety and drug epidemics in major cities, laying the blame for these issues at Democrats’ feet.
Tony Strickland, a former legislator from Huntington Beach who is once again seeking a seat in the state Senate, said he has spent considerable time helping Hilton make connections.
“I believe he is going to be a candidate,” Strickland said. “I can’t speak for him, but I will tell you I’ve been encouraging him to do so. I’ve told him that if he decided to take that plunge, I would do everything I could to help him garner as much support as possible.”
The breadth of that support, at least financially, could be far wider than any Republican candidate for governor has collected in recent years.
Hilton has connections to tech after launching Crowdpac, a political fundraising platform, with Democratic donor Reid Hoffman in 2014. Meanwhile, Hilton’s wife, Rachel Whetstone, has served as a senior executive for Netflix, Facebook, and Google. They live in an elite enclave of Atherton in a home estimated to be worth more than $18 million.
To many in Big Tech, the most attractive aspect of Hilton’s candidacy may be his approach to slashing taxes and regulations on corporations. Policy papers for his political organization, Golden Together, slam the state’s approach to business and entrepreneurs while suggesting that bureaucracy be stripped away in a manner similar to Donald Trump’s executive orders and Elon Musk’s attempted dismantling of federal agencies through the Department of Government Efficiency.
“California’s policy regime should be unequivocally on the side of job- and wealth-creators,” a Golden Together report says. “We must forcefully champion all our world-beating industries: from agriculture to life sciences, from aerospace to entertainment, from energy to tech.”
Conyers Davis, a board member of Golden Together and director of the Schwarzenegger Institute at the University of Southern California, suggested that DOGE may have taken its approach from Hilton’s platform.
“A lot of these policies predate DOGE,” Davis said. “So, if anything, I think maybe the DOGE guys have been reading what Steve’s been putting out and copying him.”
For roughly a year, Hilton, who declined comment, has traveled the state touting a “positive populist” campaign that seeks to address kitchen-table issues such as public safety, affordable housing, and early childhood development. This messaging has been particularly aimed at courting Latino voters, a group Trump made gains with in 2024.
However, a close inspection of Hilton’s policy proposals will likely have many Democrats — particularly labor unions — seeing red. They include repealing three laws: the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, which gives public employees the right to bargain as unions; AB 5, which requires tech companies to compensate gig workers as full-time employees; and the Private Attorneys General Act, which allows workers to file class-action lawsuits against their employers.
Jim Araby, the strategic campaign director for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5, the largest private-sector union in Northern California, said these proposals are part of the traditional GOP playbook.
“But I am concerned — and I think many in labor are concerned — about another person catching lightning in the bottle [like Trump] because of the challenges that California faces,” Araby said.
Other policy proposals from Hilton include enacting a state hiring freeze and eliminating 50,000 employees, revisiting contracts for 21 public-sector unions, reducing salaries and benefits down to market levels, and gutting retiree health care. Some state agencies could be eliminated.
These plans will be declarations of war for many Democrats, but Hilton’s aggressive pro-housing policies could appeal to a fair number of left-leaning YIMBYs. (However, his wife was outed by The New York Times going full NIMBY on a proposed multifamily development near her estate, with the help of Trump-backing billionaire Marc Andreessen.)
Hilton also wants to alter environmental laws — creating a new timber and logging industry to reduce wildfires — and eliminate climate-impact disclosures by billion-dollar companies. He would enact stricter sentencing laws for people convicted of multiple misdemeanors and felonies and increase the privatization of prisons and probation programs. In a nod to helping low-income families, he would deploy more social workers to homes to help with child development; these social workers would be trained and monitored through AI technology.
“If he’s modeling himself after DOGE and the Trump efforts to restructure — or maybe destructure — the American government and bureaucracy, this would be a great opportunity for Californians to put their stamp of approval on it or reject it,” Gerston said.
Hilton’s toughest challenge comes down to simple math. Democrats account for roughly 46% of registered voters in California, giving the party a sizable advantage on statewide races. Republicans make up roughly 25% of voters.
However, the clock is ticking on the emergence of a major Democratic candidate, as only Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and former Los Angeles mayor and California Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa have formally announced their candidacies. Many expect former Rep. Katie Porter to launch a campaign, while Kamala Harris could clear the board if she chooses to run. But Harris’ loss to Trump, as well as a potential reluctance to distance herself from the policies of close friend Gov. Gavin Newsom, could hinder her at a time when voters are clamoring for change.
In an interview last month, Hilton sounded keen on potentially running against Harris, saying her motivation comes from not wanting her last act in public life to be certifying Trump’s election victory.
“In other words, it’s all about her and salvaging some kind of, you know, remnants from this campaign that she just lost,” Hilton said.
Political experts contacted for this report agreed that Hilton’s fealty to Trump and support for DOGE could attract support from the president and Musk in a way that shifts the dynamics of the governor’s race. A source familiar with Hilton’s plans noted that he is close with “All-In” podcast hosts Chamath Palihapitiya and David Sacks, the latter of whom is Trump’s czar of crypto and AI, and many in tech are said to be lining up to support the candidate. The Cicero Institute, created by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, helped shape some of Hilton’s policies.
Musk spent more than $250 million to help Trump reclaim the presidency, and Trump in turn handed him the keys to the federal government. The opportunity to politically align California — the world’s fifth-biggest economy — with the White House might be an investment that Trump, Musk, and others in tech view as a smart bet.