Sheriff Chad Bianco was elected in 2018 and 2022 as the Republican Riverside County Sheriff. He’s now running for governor of California and is focused on reducing crime, homelessness and immigration. Recent polling has him at the top of the pack.
[SWOYER] I just mentioned polling. I looked, it says the New York Times tracker — New York Times not always the best measurement for Republicans, right? But it has you at the top of the polling. You know, California has always been a blue state. What’s changed? Do you think Democrats are waking up?
[BIANCO] I think they are. I think not only Democrat voters, but I think people that typically don’t vote are now realizing that we are all affected now. It was easy years ago to say, “I don’t care about who’s running, I don’t care about the governor, I don’t care about the president because it doesn’t affect me.” And now we realize it affects everybody. And so I don’t think this is going to be a Democrat and Republican election. It’s going to be a referendum of a wrong direction, and they’re looking for someone to take them in a different direction. And who better, especially in the times that we have, than an ethical lawman that is dedicated his life to making people’s lives better outside of politics to come in and fix things.
[SWOYER] I think there’s been a lot of focus, whether it’s the federal government and their interactions with states or localities, but on Minneapolis specifically. From your local law enforcement perspective with Minneapolis, with the immigration surge, the resistance to it, the unwillingness to work with the federal ICE officers, where did things go wrong?
[BIANCO] Things went wrong with politics and political propaganda and very dishonest and disingenuous politicians creating a narrative that is not true. I’ve been doing this for 32 years. For 32 years, we have always had people in the country illegally. We have always had the federal government enforcing immigration laws. And now all of a sudden, in 2025, it can’t happen anymore. And 2026, it’s getting to the point where now it’s riots about the federal government actually doing its job. This is not about immigration. This is about our failed political system, that we are now turning toward political violence as a way of getting our way.
[SWOYER] And some of the political rhetoric I think also ends up igniting some of that violence that we’re seeing, the rioters you mentioned, on the street. I’ve interviewed Todd Lyons and DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. Both mentioned — and I’d like you to weigh in on this — the idea of, if ICE was able to have the ability to go to the jails and do transfers there, you wouldn’t necessarily have what you were referencing on the streets happen.
[BIANCO] You would never have that happen. The thing about this is, we just have to learn from our history of how we got here. In the law enforcement world, especially in California, because we had an election, I mean, we had a vote where a bill went into law that made us a sanctuary state. The law enforcement world vocally opposed it, telling the legislature this is exactly what was going to happen. And this is what we told them was going to happen. And now we’re seeing it. So this is not a secret. They knew this was going to happen And in my world, if you knew it was going to happen and you did it anyway, that means you wanted it to happen.
[SWOYER] Right.
[BIANCO] So this didn’t happen today. This was planned. And they’re taking advantage of it now, for their own political gain, not, it’s not what’s best for residents. It’s certainly not what’s best for Minneapolis. It’s not what’s best for people that live there. This is only good for politicians to use to somehow influence people to support them.
[SWOYER] One of the things living here in D.C., seeing the National Guard deployed and the decrease in crime that we’ve witnessed, I’m a resident here. What’s your take on that? It’s been effective in D.C. I know there’s been courts shutting down the National Guard going out to other localities. Where are you on that?
[BIANCO] We have in Riverside County a zero tolerance for crime, a never-ending pursuit of criminals. There’s a consequence, so criminals don’t go there. If there’s no consequence, criminals go to that place. So the National Guard coming in was because local law enforcement was not doing what they should be doing with that presence and that enforcement. If there’s not going to be a consequence, then you enable that criminal activity. That presence, that National Guard presence in Washington, D.C., is what drove the criminals out because they knew they would be caught.
Watch the video for the full conversation.
Read more: ‘Easy to repeal’: GOP gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco vows to end California’s sanctuary law
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