But it’s not unheard of for a conservative outsider to win: Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger served as governor twice, from 2003 to 2011.
Gove said Hilton has “the policy acumen” and the drive to take on the job. “It’s a Democratic state, of course, but this is a different race for governor, and I don’t think anyone can deny that the deep-rooted problems that California has — housing affordability, traffic, crime, drug problems, homelessness — have not been solved under Gavin Newsom,” he said.
Others have described Hilton as an ardent anti-leftist, owing to his parents’ experience in communist Hungary before they fled to Britain in 1956, which may have positioned him well to take on the Democratic Party.
But some see Hilton’s unorthodox style as a problem going forward. “Even if you’re the governor of California, you can’t just wave a magic wand,” Baiji said. “You have to work with people. You have to work with the system.”
A third former associate and follower of Hilton’s argued that, like Trump, he was better at “identifying the root of all the world’s ills—the Democrats and the elites—than he was at coming up with solutions.” Others pointed out that Trump’s perceived tendency to blame others for his failures rather than find solutions has not deterred him.
“Let me put it this way,” Osborne said. “If you wake up one morning and hear that the new governor of California is Steve Hilton, it won’t surprise you at all.”
