Former Fox News host Steve Hilton and reality television veteran Spencer Pratt delivered surprisingly strong performances in California’s jungle primary Tuesday night.
Both men entered their respective races with thinner war chests than their establishment rivals and no prior experience in elected office.
Their campaigns were built less on policy infrastructure than on raw charisma, populist messaging, and a straightforward argument that California’s leaders had failed its residents.
By the time the first results came in, both candidates were outperforming what most political handicappers had predicted would be their ceiling in the state.
Hilton, the British-born candidate, thrilled supporters at his election night gathering with a story involving Arnold Schwarzenegger, the last Republican governor of California.
Schwarzenegger had sent Hilton a congratulatory video when he became an American citizen, telling him he had “the wrong jacket” for his road to becoming governor.
“And I made a pledge that day that one day I would get the jacket that Arnold told me to get on my road to being governor of California,” Hilton told the crowd.
Hilton opened his jacket to reveal an American flag lining on one side and the California state flag on the other, drawing chants of “U-S-A” from the room.
With roughly half the ballots counted, Hilton had edged into the lead, sitting one point ahead of Democrat Xavier Becerra and seven points clear of progressive billionaire Tom Steyer.
Steyer had spent more than $200 million of his own money on the campaign, the largest self-funded outlay of any candidate in the country this primary season.
Hilton struck a notably unifying tone when pressed on his general election strategy, framing his outsider status as a fresh set of eyes rather than an ideological weapon.
“I’m here to fight for you and to help you have the chance at following your dream, whatever it is,” Hilton said. “It’s not ideological – it’s not even particularly partisan. It’s not about Democrat or Republican. It’s about change.”
Roughly 50 miles north in Los Angeles, Spencer Pratt was writing his own chapter in what shaped up to be a remarkable night for California’s anti-establishment right.
With nearly half the votes counted, Pratt amassed a sizeable lead for second place in the Los Angeles mayoral race, pulling 30% of the vote and sitting nine points ahead of progressive city council member Nithya Raman.
Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass led the field at 37% but fell well short of the 51% threshold needed to avoid a runoff election.
“Obviously, God wanted to give more months of me exposing all the failures of our mayor,” Pratt told reporters outside a private election-watch party. “It’s going to be a fun ride. I hope she’s ready.”
Pratt’s campaign distinguished itself through an aggressive use of artificial intelligence, deploying AI-generated imagery and video that depicted Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom as cartoonish villains, in some cases rendering them as the Joker.
The strategy drew criticism from Bass’s camp and media commentators who called it manipulative and beneath the dignity of serious political discourse.
Bass, who initially declined to engage with her unconventional challenger, eventually pushed back by dismissing him as a “TV reality star villain.”
On the Democratic side of the governor’s race, former attorney general Xavier Becerra entered his election night celebration as the institutional frontrunner after rising from the back of the pack.
His path was partly cleared when Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell withdrew from the race following sexual-assault allegations, creating an opening Becerra moved quickly to fill.
Becerra cast himself as the son of immigrants whose parents arrived in California with little more than $12 and a green card, a construction worker and a clerical worker who faced long odds and discrimination.
“Almost immediately, I was counted out – an afterthought, overlooked by many, outspent by a ton, even called along the way to drop out and save us all the trouble,” Becerra said. “Guess what? I stayed in the fight.”
He closed his remarks by declaring “California is bigger than Trump” and delivering his final lines in both English and Spanish, a deliberate signal to the coalition he is asking to carry him to November.
Recent statewide polls indicate that 54% to 56% of California voters desire a new approach to tackle key issues like crime, homelessness, and the high cost of living.
Abel Moldanado, who served as lieutenant governor during Schwarzenegger’s time in office, questioned whether Becerra’s anti-Trump message would be sufficient for California voters in the months ahead.
“That’s not going to cut it for California voters, I don’t believe, in the next five months,” Moldanado told CNN Tuesday night. “They want to know what are you going to do to fix the state.”
