What's Behind Steve Hilton's Quick Ascension in California Politics?

Here are the morning’s top stories on Thursday, August 6, 2026

• Before he jumped into the governor’s race, Steve Hilton wasn’t exactly a household name here in California. If you had heard of him, it was probably because of his long-running Fox News show, The Next Revolution. But the Republican gubernatorial candidate has a long history of political consulting in England, and much of the messaging there can be seen in his current campaign. 
• California’s Latino Legislative Caucus is rolling out a set of bills to boost state oversight of federal immigration detention centers. 
• A person has been arrested on suspicion of starting the Gann Fire, which continues to burn in Calaveras County.

When Steve Hilton first came to live in California, the political strategist had already gone through a few rebrands. 

It was 2008 and the British Conservative Party was ascendant after a decade of losses. Hilton, a top adviser to future Prime Minister David Cameron, was a source of great curiosity for the British press; he eschewed suits, rode a bike to work, sometimes went shoeless and avoided reporters. He was also at the center of the party’s turnaround, widely credited with refreshing its image from stale and imperious to socially tolerant, environment-minded and diversity-conscious. While he was on a temporary stint in Silicon Valley, the British press couldn’t help noticing a similarity between Cameron and Hilton and the Golden State’s then-governor, moderate Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That was the last time a Republican was governor of California. Eighteen years later, Hilton is trying to pick up Schwarzenegger’s mantle in a dramatically different moment for California and American politics. After finishing second in last month’s top-two primary, he faces long odds in the November general election against Democratic former state Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Democrats have dominated the state since Schwarzenegger left office; a Republican hasn’t won a statewide seat since before Cameron became prime minister. And though anti-tax sentiments still run deep, so too does hatred of President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Hilton.

It could help Hilton that he cuts an unlikely figure for a MAGA man. A professional advertiser, Hilton spent the first half of his career softening the public images of the Conservatives, of multinational corporations accused of causing various social ills and of capitalism itself, in contrast to the bombastic politics of today. His beliefs, documented in decades of British press coverage and his own books, don’t line up neatly on the political spectrum. But they also make him hard to pin down. Over the years he’s praised several policy ideas that contradict the deregulatory campaign he’s run today and in the past. In London, he was known as a fount of eccentric ideas who also pushed to slash welfare, loosen labor laws, cut government employment, privatize government services and even floated reducing maternity leave. In 2015, from Silicon Valley, he wrote a book endorsing a higher national living wage in the U.K., generous family leave policies and forcing factory farms to pay for the environmental and health costs of their operations. “He’s quite difficult to put in a box,” said Giles Gibbons, a friend and former business partner at a firm the pair founded in the late 1990s to advise brands on social responsibility. “He challenges the orthodoxy and the process of doing things. He’s a contrarian, in many ways.”

Now, in his latest rebrand, Hilton has taken on a different tone. After moving to Silicon Valley permanently in 2012 and running a political tech startup, he landed a Fox News show, “The Next Revolution,” in 2017. Over six years on the network, he aligned himself closely with the Trump circle, calling for an audit into the 2020 election that President Joe Biden won, promoting the conspiracy theory that Dr. Anthony Fauci was responsible for the pandemic and railing against American colleges for spreading “the woke mind virus.” He also occasionally criticized key conservative figures and in 2019 endorsed “asset reparations” in the form of business and home loans for African Americans to make up for the generational economic harm of racist policies, a position anathema to Republicans.

On the campaign trail now, he’s gregarious with reporters. He has ditched the ultracasual dress of his younger years — “You’ve got to be respectful of the office, so I’ve stepped up sartorially,” he explained — and the talk of corporate social responsibility — “I don’t think it’s the priority” — in favor of a campaign more aligned with a conventional American Republican in 2026. He sports a “save girls’ sports” bracelet and has a “family first” agenda to promote adoption, prenatal care and “marriage and family formation” and discourage abortion. He’s promising steep tax cuts and business deregulation. He has vowed to overturn many of the state’s greenhouse gas reduction rules that he calls a product of the “climate agenda” — more than a decade after he advised Cameron in the so-called “greenest government ever.”

But he denies being inconsistent. “I’m not an ideologue, I’m very pragmatic in my approach,” he said. “I don’t like being told what to do myself, and I don’t want to tell anyone else what to do with their life either, and I think that’s a very Californian attitude.”

California’s Latino Legislative Caucus is rolling out a set of bills to boost state oversight of federal immigration detention centers.

At least 57 people have died in ICE custody since President Trump returned to office – six of them in California. And the state Attorney General and other watchdogs have documented medical neglect and inhumane treatment in the eight facilities in California.

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan with the California Black Caucus said protecting people in detention is not just a Latino issue, it’s everyone’s issue. “Human rights violations are happening every single day and the consequences are lethal. And that is why the legislation being introduced is so important,” he said.

One bill – for state health inspections of ICE jails – has passed the state Senate with unanimous, bipartisan support.

The Gann Fire raging east of Stockton has reached 10,374 acres as of Thursday morning. Containment stands at 26%

The fire has forced evacuation for 1,473 residents, according to a press release from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. Another 1,400 are under evacuation warnings.

Ricardo Coronado, a Cal Fire spokesperson described the terrain as “steep and rugged,” surrounded by brush and woodlands, making it difficult to contain the fire. At least seven structures have been destroyed.

Meanwhile, a person has been arrested on suspicion of starting the fire. Herbert Wayne Smith was taken into custody near where the fire is believed to have started Monday afternoon.