So the former Fox News host is deploying a new campaign strategy in the race for California governor: attack fellow Republican candidate Chad Bianco.

During the recent televised debate that featured some of the leading candidates in the gubernatorial contest, Hilton referred to Bianco as a “RINO,” a term that stands for “Republican in name only” and is used to insinuate someone is not a loyal or true Republican.

Hilton also criticized Bianco for kneeling with protesters during tense demonstrations in 2020 in the wake of George Floyd‘s murder. Bianco, in a news interview at the time, said he wanted to get past “this big huge divide, where it’s us vs. them” and agreed with “the concept of this protest” until it was no longer peaceful.

“Chad Bianco has more baggage than LAX,” Hilton said during the debate, referring to his fellow GOP contender as “shifty sheriff.”

This pivot in strategy, Hilton said in an interview after the debate, is all about making it through the primary.

Both Bianco and Hilton have consistently topped polls in the race for governor, while Democrats struggle to break through with a clear frontrunner in the deep blue state. Bianco is 2 percentage points ahead of Hilton in Real Clear Politics’ aggregate of polls, followed by Rep. Eric Swalwell and former Rep. Katie Porter, who trail Hilton by 1.5 and 2 percentage points, respectively.

“The Republican vote is being split between me and Chad Bianco,” Hilton said. That means, he said, there’s a good chance two Democrats will make it through the June election to vie for the governor’s seat in the general election.

“I think our responsibility is that we make sure that we don’t have a split vote and have two Democrats in the top two,” Hilton said. “My job is to do everything I think we can do to avoid that disastrous outcome and get behind one Republican candidate, the strongest one. I think that’s me.”

Election observers say Hilton’s point about splitting the vote isn’t wrong.

“It’s simple math. You can’t get to a plurality or even second most by splitting the Republican vote,” said Matt Lesenyie, an expert in political psychology who teaches at Cal State Long Beach.

“There just aren’t enough Republicans in the state to spare on a candidate with no chances (the Republican running second) since the top two vote-getters will not be Republicans,” Lesenyie added. “It’s gut check time, time to ask: Is their candidacy a vanity project or a committed and strategic run for governor?”

Hilton, of course, said he believes he’s the committed candidate.

Bianco — who did not attend the debate, reportedly because of a scheduling conflict — did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

But in a social media post the day after the debate, Bianco said he is a “doer.”

“If you want to elect a talker, there are plenty of options,” the post said. “If you want a doer, that’s me. Ask the officers under my command who they trust. Ask the business owners who stayed open during COVID.  Ask the people who have been here fighting the fight with me for decades.”

Although they are both Republicans and both gubernatorial contenders, Bianco and Hilton hail from vastly different worlds.

Hilton, 56, is a British-born global businessman who helped get David Cameron elected as the United Kingdom’s prime minister before becoming a Fox News host. He moved to the Bay Area in 2012 and, in 2023, founded Golden Together, a policy organization.

Bianco, who is often seen sporting a cowboy hat, grew up in a small mining town in Utah, moving to Southern California in 1989. Four years later, he graduated from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Academy at, according to his campaign bio, the top of his class.

To many, the 58-year-old is the no-nonsense, law-and-order candidate who championed Proposition 36, the 2024 voter-approved ballot measure that increased penalties for certain drug and retail theft crimes, and has made public safety a pillar of his campaign.

Hilton’s recent attacks on Bianco — giving him nicknames à la President Donald Trump’s own notorious way for going after political opponents and launching a website that attempts to tie the sheriff to the Black Lives Matter movement in a demeaning way — is keeping in line with his persona, said Dan Schnur, who teaches political messaging at USC and UC Berkeley.

“He’s a much more aggressive presence on the campaign trail. This strategy reinforces the way he (Hilton) wants voters to think about him,” Schnur said.

Hilton, meanwhile, insisted he’s open to working with Bianco.

And he isn’t asking the other Republican contenders for statewide office he’s running alongside — lieutenant governor candidate Gloria Romero, attorney general contender Michael Gates and controller contestant Herb Morgan are campaigning as what they’re calling “California’s Golden Ticket” — to avoid appearing with Bianco at other events. (Gates, for example, is scheduled to appear at a Conservative Patriots of Orange County gathering in Santa Ana with Bianco later this month, according to an invitation for the event.)

Should Hilton prove to be successful and make it through the primary, Schnur does not believe his attacking Bianco will turn away any of the Riverside County sheriff’s Republican supporters in the fall.

“The playbook is much different today than it might have been 10 years ago. Voters are much more tolerant of one member attacking another member of their party than they might have been in the past,” said Schnur.

And whether Bianco actually heeds Hilton’s call to drop out of the race, well, that’s a bit of a long shot, election observers said.

“The goal of Hilton’s message is probably less to convince Bianco to step aside but to convince his voters to switch their allegiance,” Schnur said.

“Assuming that one or the other does finish in the top two in June, they have an uphill fight to November,” he added.

“But you can’t fight that fight unless you get there.”

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His comments indicate that if Biden gives into calls to step aside, the California governor will not challenge Harris, a front-runner in conversations about who should replace the president on the November ballot, if she seeks the nomination.

“Of course,” Newsom said when asked whether he stood by comments he made last year about not running against Harris. “Yes.”

Newsom’s vow would avoid a potentially ugly political battle for the party and its donors. Newsom and Harris rose up in Bay Area politics to become the state’s two most prominent elected officials. As vice president and Biden’s 2020 running mate, Harris would be the presumed Democratic front-runner to lead the ticket if called upon.

Newsom reaffirmed his stance during a news conference about California’s wildfire response at Sacramento McClellan Airport after returning from a swing-state tour on behalf of the Biden campaign.

Newsom campaigned for Biden in New Hampshire and Michigan as part of his effort to shore up support for the president after his poor debate performance against former President Trump in Atlanta in late June. The governor, who attended the debate as a surrogate for Biden, has attempted to swat down concerns about the president’s mental capacity and attested to the president’s abilities based on their personal interactions.

He’s continued to back Biden even as other Democrats question his ability to run.

On Wednesday, Newsom said he hadn’t read the full breadth of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comments about Biden on MSNBC that morning.

“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run,” Rep. Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said. “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short.”

Newsom said he had also not read an opinion piece written by actor George Clooney calling for a Democrat to replace Biden.

Biden repeatedly has said he intends to remain in the race and even challenged Democrats who think they can beat him to step up.

“I think I’ve had 100 media outlets asking the same question, and I think that I’ve amply answered my support for the president and the support I saw on the ground was demonstrable,” Newsom said Wednesday.

He referenced Biden’s support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and compared the president with Trump, who Newsom said “didn’t even know what NATO was.”

In the past, he’s said the vice president would be naturally lined up to run if Biden ended his campaign. In New Hampshire, Newsom said he thought Harris could beat Trump.

“I have no doubt about that,” Newsom told reporters. “If it comes to that, but I don’t expect it’s going to come to that.”

Staff writers Noah Bierman and Seema Mehta contributed to this report.

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