Win or lose, Steve Hilton is blazing a trail California Republicans should follow.
The Republican media-personality-turned-gubernatorial-candidate is doing what many of his predecessors failed to do: communicate an economic agenda to working class Latinos.
Hilton’s campaign has repeatedly tied the consequences of far-left Democratic Party policies, like those on the environment, taxes, regulations and leftwing ideology in schools, to the voters’ lived experience. But he’s followed it with a long list of simple kitchen table solutions.
“Who really is being hammered the most by that,” Hilton said last year. “Working-class Latinos, the biggest demographic group effectively in California now.”
Working class Latinos are the new soccer mom: The swing voter coveted by both parties. Win them and win the election. This is traditionally a key voting bloc for Democrats, but years of neglect and bad policymaking created an opportunity exploited by President Donald Trump in 2024.
Trump won 43% of Latinos in California, a modern high, during his campaign for a second term by focusing on public safety and economics, lifting Republicans to modest, but noticeable, gains in the Legislature. Trump’s standing slipped once in office, but the campaign themes that moved these voters were real.
Hilton has run the most competent, and idea-rich, Republican gubernatorial campaign in recent memory. He’s campaigned in places Republicans have traditionally not gone, like Boyle Heights. And he is doing so while campaigning with former Democratic lawmaker Gloria Romero, who is running for lieutenant governor as Hilton’s running mate.
Doubters might say Hilton will have a tough time winning Latinos against a Democrat, Xavier Becerra, who is Latino, and that Republicans in the primary underperformed expectations.
While valid, those objections are beside the point. Hilton doesn’t need to win a majority of Latinos to show success; he just needs to make lasting inroads. Barry Goldwater got destroyed in his run for president, but he inspired a conservative movement that dominated American politics for decades.
“This is the first time a Republican candidate for governor is saying what we all know to be true,” said political consultant Mike Madrid. “Will it work? I don’t know, but it’s undeniably the path forward. It’s an opportunity to not just criticize Democrats but offer an alternative.”
Democrats have taken working-class Latinos for granted. Increasingly, their policies have appealed to rich, white, coastal liberals (you know, those who can afford them). Despite California Democrats campaigning on affordability, the results have been remarkably unaffordable.
The state is spending more money than ever, but the housing crisis persists and it’s fueling the nation’s highest poverty rate. California has the most homeless residents, has among the worst unemployment, and the public K-12 education system is failing generations of students. The state’s anti-business climate is one of the worst.
Californians know it’s not working, but Republicans statewide have struggled to help them connect the dots. This is where Hilton’s strong economic, aspirational agenda can reach Latino voters.
Whatever anyone thinks of Hilton’s chances, he is noteworthy for openly acknowledging that the people hammered hardest by this state’s far-left experiment are working-class Latinos, one of the largest demographic groups.
Hilton’s focus on the fallout of California policies isn’t a Republican talking point. Earlier this month, liberal commentator Fareed Zakaria made a similar case in the Washington Post, posing the question liberals rarely ask out loud. “Why does a state with so much money, talent and promise make life for ordinary people so hard,” Zakaria asked.
It’s not that Democrats never campaign on ideas that might actually make things affordable, but they’re often shot down eventually by Democratic constituencies who like the status quo or crowded out by counterproductive, woke messages.
For years Democrats were fixated on terms like “Latinx,” a label most Latinos find strange, and were so busy sorting people into identity categories that they missed those same voters drifting toward Trump over the economy, crime, and the border.
I don’t want to overstate the case. A recent poll showed Hilton at just 28 percent of Latino voters in the state. But 20 percent were undecided, meaning there’s plenty of room for growth.
More than anything, California is still heavily Democratic, and Republican candidates statewide will have a very tough time overcoming that. But with any luck it won’t always be that way.
California grew into the envy of the world as a politically competitive state, with mostly Republican governors and a Legislature run by Democrats with a governing, but not overwhelming, majority.
The value of what Hilton is doing isn’t in this year’s vote total, it’s in pointing at the door the California GOP has to walk through eventually, and in finally giving a long-ignored voter a reason to listen rather than just a reason to be angry.
Matt Fleming is a columnist for the Southern California News Group.