*Breaking News* President Trump Endorses Steve Hilton for Governor - Full Analysis
This a very significant turn of events - with significant potential impacts on the race for California Governor.
Our morning content is free for all subscribers and guests! You can also listen to this post — along with my California Post column — on our podcast feed, So, Does It Matter? SPOKEN. It’s available on your favorite podcasting app, or you can find it here.
Boom!
Let’s start with putting the President’s Truth Social Post of last night right here:
This matters in this election. Late last week I wrote an analysis entitled The Four Biggest Factors That Could Determine Whether Democrats Are Locked Out of the Top Two in the Governor’s Race. You can read it here.
The very first factor I brought up was the potential of a Trump endorsement. Specifically, I wrote:
1) WWTD? What, If Anything, Will President Trump Do?
President Trump has never been shy about weighing into Republican-on-Republican contests, though he has been selective about when and where he engages. Notably, he has stayed out of the U.S. Senate GOP runoff in Texas between Senator John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton. In California, he has also, at least so far, declined to endorse either Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco or Steve Hilton.
There are several possible explanations for that restraint. Trump may be reluctant to inject himself into a race in a state where he remains deeply unpopular with the broader electorate, or he may simply have relationships with both candidates and prefer not to choose. It is also possible that conversations have taken place privately, with no public signal yet given.
What is clear is that if Trump does weigh in, it would materially shift the Republican side of the race. Both Bianco and Hilton have enough resources to communicate that endorsement to likely GOP voters, and the earned media alone would amplify its impact. In a fragmented field, that kind of signal could be decisive in determining which Republican consolidates support.
Well this show has now dropped. While the President’s popularity with the overall electorate is at a low point for either of his two terms in office, he continues to be very popular among Republican voters. As I said above, Hilton has the resources to let likely Republicans voters know about Trump’s support (though many will find out through the earned media of the coverage of this happening - especially as it is sent around on social media circles.) I have no doubt that, given a little time, this will materially boost Hilton’s numbers
What Will This Mean For An All-GOP Top Two?
As more GOP voters hear about this endorsement many will be influenced to support Hilton. Sure some of those will be from the “undecided” pool - but a good chunk are likely to come from people who had been telling pollsters they were with Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.
The entire gambit of two Republicans getting into the top two spots and blocking Democrats from the November ballot was and is predicated on Hilton and Bianco staying roughly even in the polls. If Hilton materially shoots up in support because of Trump’s support, it likely means Bianco’s numbers stagnate or even drop a bit. This could be all it takes for a Democrat to eventually surpass the Sheriff snf grab the other spot in the runoff.
This Timing Is Not Accidental
This weekend California Republicans will gather for their convention in San Diego where they will consider whether to endorse in the Governor’s race. People who are decent at head counting had handicapped as of now that it was unlikely that either Hilton or Bianco would garner the 60% of the votes required to get the endorsement. But that Bianco was in a slightly stronger position than Hilton. Well, obviously this endorsement from the President for Hilton will supercharge his momentum going into the weekend convention.
In my analysis from last week, another of the four factors that I examined was a potential CAGOP endorsement. This is what I wrote:
2) Will the California Republican Party Endorse?
In less than two weeks, delegates to the California Republican Party State Central Committee will gather in San Diego for their only convention of 2026. Both Bianco and Hilton are seeking the party’s endorsement, which requires a 60 percent vote—a high threshold that is not easily reached.
If one candidate does secure that endorsement, it would provide a meaningful, if not overwhelming, advantage. While not as powerful as a Trump endorsement, it still carries weight with engaged Republican voters and can help unify party activists and donors around a single candidate.
At the same time, there is a strategic tension here that is hard to ignore. The party’s most realistic path to winning in November may depend on shutting Democrats out of the top two entirely. From that perspective, an argument can be made that the optimal move for the party is not to pick a side at all, but to allow both Republican candidates to advance as far as possible. In that sense, doing nothing may be the most strategically coherent choice. (Seems rather obvious to this delegate.)
So, Does It Matter?
The bottom line of this news (absent a very quick dual endorsement by Trump) is that the odds of Hilton advancing in to the November election have gone up - and the odds of it being two Republicans advancing are now even lower than they were (and it was already a long shot).
You can be sure if come early May it still looks like a possibility that both Hilton and Bianco might make the top two, that it will (ironically) be the powerful and well heeled public employee unions (most notably thr California Teachers Association) that spends millions of dollars making sure likely Republican voters know Trump’s pick in the race.
This is what I said about this last week in the same column:
3) Will Democrat-Aligned Efforts Spend Big to Boost One GOP Candidate?
There is now a clear track record of Democrats and their allies intervening in Republican primaries when it serves their broader strategic interests. The most recent example came in 2024, when Adam Schiff’s Senate campaign spent millions to boost Republican Steve Garvey, effectively blocking Katie Porter from advancing to the general election. The strategy worked, and it worked decisively.
In this race, the same playbook is readily available. While Tom Steyer is the only candidate in the field with the personal resources to execute such a strategy directly, the real financial muscle lies with organized labor and allied interests. The California Teachers Association, SEIU, the California Labor Federation, the California Medical Association, the California Hospital Association, and the prison guards union, among others, have the capacity to deploy significant independent expenditures.
Any one of these entities—or a coordinated effort among them—could choose to elevate one Republican while suppressing the other, shaping which candidate emerges as the stronger GOP contender. If a Trump or CAGOP endorsement enters the equation, it would only provide additional material for these efforts to exploit. Meanwhile, independent expenditures backing San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan are already reaching into the millions, though those efforts may be more focused on lifting their own candidate rather than engineering the Republican field.
So this is big news. Let's see how it plays out. One thing is for certain, if it is a Trump-endorsed Hilton in the general election this fall, while Hilton tries to run a campaign on the issues, look for Democrats to just re-employ the Prop. 50 strategy and just make it all about President Trump.
Pub note: I have rushed to get this out. No doubt I will have more follow up as this develops. But always want you, my readers, to get information like this endorsement as soon as I can get it to you!