Former Fox News host Steve Hilton has advanced to the general election in the California gubernatorial race, NBC News projects, where he will face former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
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Hilton, a Republican, emerged from a crowded primary where candidates from all parties appear on the same ballot and the top two-vote getters move on. NBC News projected Friday that Becerra, a Democrat, would advance.
With 88% of the expected vote tallied one week after polls closed, Becerra was taking about 28% support compared to 25% for Hilton. Billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer was in third with roughly 23%, while Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco was the only other candidate in double digits, with 10%.
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Vote-counting in California can take weeks because of the state’s heavy reliance on mail-in ballots, which take longer to process. And ballots that are postmarked by election day and received up to a week afterward are allowed to be counted. The wait has fueled unfounded claims from President Donald Trump and some Republicans of a “rigged” election in California.
Hilton will now enter the November general election as a significant underdog in a state where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans nearly 2 to 1. California voters haven’t elected a Republican governor in 20 years, and Trump lost the state by 20 points in the 2024 election.
Hilton was born in the United Kingdom, where he previously worked as an aide to then-Prime Minister David Cameron before becoming a U.S. citizen in 2021. He was able to consolidate Republican support after Trump endorsed him in April.
Prior to Trump’s involvement, some Democrats feared they were at risk of getting shut out of the general election, with so many of their candidates on the ballot and no clear front-runner. Bianco, who stirred up controversy after seizing hundreds of thousands of ballots in March as part of a purported investigation into California’s 2025 election, had also been polling near the top of the field along with Hilton.
The field was further shaken up in April, when former Rep. Eric Swalwell, one of the top-polling Democrats, dropped out of the race after facing sexual assault and misconduct allegations, which he has denied.
In the wake of Swalwell’s abrupt exit, Becerra, a former California attorney general and congressman, quickly began to rise in the polls after he was mired in the low single digits for much of the campaign.
As Becerra became the leading choice for more moderate Democrats, Steyer ran as a progressive, pushing for single-payer health care and a billionaire tax. He also poured more than $215 million of his own money into his campaign, allowing him to dominate the airwaves.
Steyer, a former hedge fund manager, has now spent more than half a billion dollars on unsuccessful campaigns for elected office. In 2020, he did not win any delegates during his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination after spending more than $300 million of his own money.
Term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, remained neutral in the race to replace him.
Becerra and Hilton traded barbs during the primary debates that could preview the attacks to come in the general election.
At a May debate, Hilton described Becerra — and his party more broadly — as responsible for the state’s problems after holding power in California for decades.
“Some of these Democrats on the stage, they talk as if we’re in some parallel universe where Democrats haven’t been running the state for the last 16 years of one-party rule. I mean, you look at Xavier — 36 years he’s been a career politician for Democrats,” Hilton said.
Meanwhile, Becerra hit back at Hilton over his lack of government experience.
“What does a Fox News talking head know about running government,” he said. “You’ve never balanced a budget the size of California’s.”
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