Politically Unstable: California needs a Republican governor

Washington Times Commentary Editor Kelly Sadler interviews gubernatorial candidate and Fox News personality Steve Hilton on California politics and why the state needs a Republican governor.

[SADLER] I’m from New York. I have really low hopes that that state will ever turn red. California has been blue for so long, there are rumors that Kamala Harris is taking the month of July to evaluate whether or not she’s going to jump into the gubernatorial contest. Can the state of California turn red? And why are you throwing your hat in the ring? Why do you believe you can change the tide? 

[HILTON] Yeah, absolutely. I think that this is our best shot in at least 20 years. You’re seeing the signs of that already. First of all, it’s much less of a deep blue state than people sometimes think. They look at our state legislature, which is basically 80/20 Democrat-Republican. That’s a direct result of gerrymandering. 

If you look at statewide elections for the last few years, then last 20 years, there’s been a very steady Republican vote of just over 40%. Now, that’s not 50%, but it’s less of a gap than some people think. If you look more recently, the tide is really turning. You saw 10 counties last November flip from blue to red. Some major cities kicked out their DAs and mayors, whether that’s Oakland and Alameda County, San Francisco, George Gascon, of course, in L.A. kicked out. 

You saw the Republican position on a bunch of statewide ballot initiatives on crime and taxes, minimum wage, rent control, all pass. The Republican position won on statewide ballot initiatives. Individual counties and cities where you’re seeing Republicans picking up support, voter registration increases for Republicans, decreases for Democrats. So I think the ingredients are there. But honestly, I think that the real point is this, that actually there’s for a long time now in California, there’s been a majority for change. It’s not as if people like what’s going on. 

Just the other week, 60% of people think that the state is going in the wrong direction. That’s been true for many years now. What we haven’t had is a really positive, strong, energetic alternative put forward. That’s really why I’m running because, in my career, I’ve started and run businesses. I’ve worked in the government back in the day in the U.K., senior advisor to the prime minister. Responsible really for the implementation of our domestic reform program. I’ve started companies here in America, more recently my media platform. Putting all that together, I think I’ve got the opportunity to really go out there, put together a common sense, positive, pragmatic alternative to this far-left nonsense we’ve got from 15 years of one party rule, and then really sell it and get people excited about it. And so far it seems to be working. 

Watch the video for the full conversation.

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