Steve Hilton launches governor campaign in Boyle Heights

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton launched his general election campaign on Wednesday, July 22, 2026, with a rally in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, directly across from a fire-damaged food warehouse that he presented as a symbol of Democratic failure. The event marked the formal start of Hilton's long-shot bid to become California's first Republican governor in two decades, facing Democratic former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in November.

Hilton, a former adviser to ex-United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron who became a U.S. citizen in 2021, used the backdrop of the Lineage Logistics warehouse to criticize the state's Democratic leadership. The site, where a fire last month led to widespread complaints about rotting food, foul odors, and pests, was described by Hilton as representing a "rotting regime" that has abandoned working-class Californians. He argued that the prolonged cleanup, including a 45-day deadline set by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to remove millions of pounds of spoiled food, was emblematic of broader governmental incompetence.

Central to Hilton's pitch were sweeping economic promises aimed at the...