Chad Bianco couldn’t fly to Mar-a-Lago, showered President Trump with honeyed words, presented him with the Riverside County Peace Prize and offered him his favorite dish – a Big Mac? – from 24-karat gold plate.
Security, Logistics and all that.
So California’s Republican governor did the next best thing: He forfeited hundreds of thousands of votes in last November’s special election in a bogus investigation of supposed voting irregularities. Never mind the complete lack of evidence or the fact that Proposition 50, the subject of Bianco’s investigation, was approved by a clear majority of voters.
The motive of the acting sheriff of Riverside County was as clear as a pane of glass. It’s all about trying to win the endorsement of Trump — he of the alleged fraud in the miracle election — in California’s neck-and-neck race for governor.
Bianco, fellow Republican Steve Hilton and a group of Democratic hopefuls have come together in a race that remains wide open in the weeks before voters begin receiving their mail-in ballots.
“Trump’s endorsement would be huge,” said Jon Fleischman, a conservative strategist and executive director of the state GOP.
“Actually,” he continued, “I think it could be a decider” — confirming that either Hilton or Bianco finished in the top two in the June 2 primary, putting them through the wringer in the November runoff.
If there’s an insider’s edge in the Trump Endorsement Sweepstakes, it looks like it’s going to the Hilton.
He is familiar with the president as a Fox News host. He has interviewed Trump several times and the two text and talk on the phone. Bianco has no such personal connection, which may explain his involvement in vote rigging.
Steve Hilton may have an inside track on Trump’s endorsement, given their personal relationship.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
(The worst case for the Democrats is both Republicans making a run, knocking the party out of the governor’s office for the first time since Arnold Schwarzenegger left in January 2011. More on that soon.)
Trump endorsements come in all flavors.
As Downballot recently noted, “His bag of tricks includes double endorsements, triple endorsements, early endorsements, Election Day endorsements, super endorsements… [and] which was not approved after promising to approve it.”
There was also a time when Trump endorsed “ERIC” when Republicans Eric Schmitt and Eric Greitens faced each other in the Missouri Senate primary. (Schmitt won and is now a member of the US House of Representatives.)
Trump’s support remains significant, as his approval ratings sink to record lows. The president is still popular with Republicans and, critically, the kind of GOP supporters who vote in primary contests, which is why both Hilton and Bianco would welcome the president’s handshake.
There is good reason, however, to think that Trump may move forward with a gubernatorial run, or choose to bring one of his two personal recommendations.
The GOP’s best — and perhaps only — hope for winning the governorship is a Democratic freeze-out scenario. So, tactically, Trump’s smartest move would be to bless either Hilton or Bianco. Or support both. That would avoid boosting one over the other, which would make it easier for a Democrat to finish in the top two and advance to the June primary.
“I think Trump’s people are smart enough to know there’s a reason why he might not be endorsed by a candidate,” Fleischman said. “I won’t be surprised if the intelligence is there, it’s better not to praise anyone, because we don’t want to be biased one way or the other.”
If Trump were to support Hilton or Bianco, it is not difficult to imagine that the interests of the Democrats take the president’s blessing and put significant money behind the ad promoting the president’s favorite in the hope of increasing him – and he alone – to the top two.
The move comes from a political playbook with a good thumb, seeking to elevate a popular enemy, recently used in California by Sen. Adam Schiff of the Democratic Alliance. He helped elevate Republican Steve Garvey to the November 2024 runoff to avoid facing a formidable opponent, Democrat Katie Porter. Schiff easily defeated Garvey.
In this case, Democrats will aim to consolidate one of the two Republicans most likely to lose in the fall.
That’s what happened the first time Gavin Newsom ran for governor.
In 2018, his main challenger was Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa. Two major Republicans were also in the race, John Cox and Travis Allen. There was no real concern about the two holding both seats in the June primary. Instead, Newsom and Cox were equally interested in boxing out Villaraigosa.
So the Newsom and Cox campaigns opened a private private channel, trading gossip, changing information about the race and sharing some data. One poll, showing Cox getting a bigger boost in Trump’s approval rating than Allen, went through the hands of the Democratic Alliance hoping to get to the White House and persuade the president to back Cox.
Although there is no evidence that the poll ever reached Trump, the president ended up supporting the San Diego County businessman, elevating him over Allen in the primary. Cox went on to lose to Newsom in November.
In this case, there are more than a dozen reasonable candidates and there is no obvious way to win for any one, every man and woman by themselves.
The same goes for Trump, who might do the best for himself in California, politically, by doing absolutely nothing.
If only he could resist.
