Steve Hilton Gains in California Governor Race
Left 50%
Center 0%
Right 50%
1 left · 0 center · 1 right
What happened
Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host and British political adviser, is challenging Democrat Xavier Becerra, the former U.S. health secretary, in California’s 2026 gubernatorial race. An internal survey commissioned by Hilton’s campaign and conducted October 1–2, 2026 by pollster David Wolfson among 1,020 California voters after the candidates’ first debate found Becerra leading 45.7 percent to Hilton’s 40.1 percent, with 14.1 percent undecided—narrower than a Hilton-commissioned poll a month earlier that had Becerra at 52 percent and Hilton at 37 percent. Independent public polls compiled by RealClearPolitics, which did not include that internal survey, gave Becerra an average lead of 21.8 points. Last week Hilton released a campaign video titled “Just Try It, California” depicting two young women on a bed in front of a pride flag using sexual innuendo while filling out a ballot for him; Republican candidates Sonja Shaw and Michael Gates publicly condemned the ad, and Hilton said it was meant as satire and that offending people was not his campaign’s intention.
Sourcing check · Mostly on the record · 2 articles
1 of 2 articles cite a named source for the story. It started with unnamed sources; a named source appeared 4 hours later.
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Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Left-leaning coverage never reports Hilton's new internal poll, so a reader is left believing he is a longshot still far behind. It describes him as trailing, with polls consistently showing Becerra ahead, and notes California has not elected a Republican governor in more than two decades. Right-leaning coverage instead leads with that survey, putting Becerra's advantage at 5.6 points after a prior internal had shown a much wider gap. Without those figures, the race reads as already decided. With them, it reads as newly competitive.
Right-leaning coverage never mentions the innuendo-filled campaign ad, while left-leaning coverage leads with fellow Republicans denouncing the video and warning that it drives people from the party. A GOP nominee for state superintendent called the spot "creepy, weird, disturbing garbage."
Has any poll not paid for by Hilton's campaign shown Becerra's lead shrinking into single digits?
Bottom line
You can finish the Guardian's Hilton story without ever seeing the 5.6-point internal poll. Breitbart builds its piece on that survey while also recording public averages that still show a much larger Becerra lead.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Hilton campaign internal poll shows Becerra at 45.7 percent and Hilton at 40.1 percent
- A prior Hilton internal poll showed Becerra at 52 percent and Hilton at 37 percent
- When undecided voters are forced to pick, 72.5 percent choose Becerra
- RealClearPolling average lists Becerra ahead by 21.8 percentage points
- Republican nominees Sonja Shaw and Michael Gates publicly condemned Hilton's campaign ad
The Left View
Left-leaning coverage centers the ad as a self-inflicted wound that even fellow Republicans rejected. Shaw called it “creepy, weird, disturbing garbage” and “a clear example of exactly why good people are walking away from the Republican party,” while Gates “emphatically [denounced] the use of young women as a political tool.” The Guardian frames Hilton as a longshot trailing in a state that has not elected a Republican governor since 2004, notes Becerra’s mockery (“Steve, just try it!”), and treats Hilton’s claim of largely positive reception as secondary to the offense he later acknowledged.
The Right View
Right-leaning coverage treats the internal poll as evidence the race is tightening after the debate, citing Becerra’s drop and Hilton’s gain versus the prior internal survey and arguing that 14.1 percent undecided is “more than enough to swing the race.” It highlights Hilton’s attacks that Becerra’s policies “have destroyed the California Dream” and Becerra’s counter that President Trump made California’s cost of living worse, plus a debate clash in which Becerra accused Hilton of welcoming immigrants who “look like you” but deporting those who “look like me.” Breitbart notes that when undecideds are forced to choose, 72.5 percent pick Becerra, and that the RealClearPolitics average still shows a 21.8-point Becerra lead.
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is intra-party rejection of the ad itself: Shaw’s “creepy, weird, disturbing garbage” and Gates’s denunciation of using young women as a political tool are on-the-record Republican attacks, not outsider spin, and they sit alongside public polling that still shows a double-digit Becerra lead. The right’s strongest argument is the campaign’s own before-and-after internals—Becerra falling from 52 to 45.7 percent and Hilton rising from 37 to 40.1 after the debate—plus a large undecided bloc that, on paper, could close a 5.6-point gap. The unresolved tension is whether those internals describe a genuinely competitive race that public aggregators have missed, or a campaign-commissioned snapshot that overstates Hilton’s position while his tactics are alienating even Republicans.
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