Can the GOP pull off a California upset? (with Steve Hilton)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Steve Hilton** (0:14)
This state is desperate for change. We've had 16 years of Democrat one party rule. They've run everything.

**Dasha Burns** (0:23)
Hello, hello, and welcome to The Conversation. I'm Dasha Burns. And this week, I sat down with Steve Hilton, a Republican candidate for governor of California. You heard it right. And our conversation happened during a chaotic week for that race. Representative Eric Swalwell, a front runner Democratic candidate, suspended his campaign and announced that he will resign from Congress and in sexual assault and misconduct allegations, which Swalwell has denied. With Swalwell out, the California race just got a little less crowded, and the remaining candidates now have a window of opportunity to elevate their campaigns ahead of the primary on June 2nd. Enter Steve Hilton. He's a former Fox News host and former senior advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron. Yep, he's British. Kicking off his foray into American politics, Hilton has won President Trump's endorsement for the governor's race, and surprisingly, the Republican has been polling toward the top of the pack. We chatted about the Swalwell shakeup and where he thinks the primarily Democrat-led state of California is coming up short. Steve Hilton joins The Conversation.
Steve Hilton, Republican candidate for governor in California. Thank you so much for joining The Conversation.

**Steve Hilton** (1:35)
It's fantastic to be with you. Thank you.

**Dasha Burns** (1:37)
My goodness. This might be the most unpredictable California governor's race in recent history. As a Californian myself, I grew up in San Diego. I am fascinated by what is going on here. Now, the dynamics have changed completely. Now that Eric Swalwell is out, who was a front-runner for the Democratic Party, that might be opening up some opportunity for Republicans. I've gotten some very concerned texts from Democrats in this state that things are getting even more complicated. For those who don't know, the way that the California primary works is that the top two vote-getters will move on into the general. It doesn't matter what party. It could be two Democrats, could be two Republicans. It's just the top two vote-getters. So do you think now you and your fellow Republican, Chad Bianco, could box Democrats out?

**Steve Hilton** (2:24)
Well, how did I know, Dasha, that you're going to start by saying, what's going on with this crazy governor's race? It's exactly right.

**Dasha Burns** (2:31)
I know. Not the most surprising question, but we got to talk about it.

**Steve Hilton** (2:34)
Of course. I totally get that.
Here's the thing though, it's interesting because actually, in the space of one week, we've had two very big developments, which is that, as you mentioned, Eric Swalwell dropped out. But also at the beginning of the week, literally a week before on Easter Sunday, President Trump endorsed me. And those were actually two very big moments on either side. Here's how I see it. If we just go right back to the beginning of this year, I've been saying all along that this idea that you could get two Republicans in the top two, while kind of mathematically true, was politically impossible because the Democrat machine in California would just never let that happen. Who thinks that they would just surrender California to two Republicans to fight it out? We know that the machine has almost unlimited money. You got the government unions funding it. In fact, as you saw in the reaction to President Trump's endorsement, you had many Democrat insiders in California saying, well, now the Democrat machine, the unions and whatever, won't have to spend tens of millions of dollars to make sure that there's a Democrat in the top two. So I never thought the two Republicans thing was at all a serious possibility. It's true that for most of this year, it has been me and the other Republican in the top two in the polling. During the course of the last few months, I've been moving ahead.
In fact, you saw last week two polls that were published, taken before the president's endorsement, that had me substantially ahead, including one from Eric Swalwell supporters just before he dropped out, had me on 22 percent, Swalwell on 18 percent, and then everyone else 13 percent and below. Actually, I think that the exit of Eric Swalwell points to something that I've been saying alongside all these other things, which is that if you want to look at probabilities, it's more likely that you'll get two Democrats in the top two than two Republicans, because I had assumed that the following two things would happen.