Steve Hilton Flipped Multiple Farmland And Wealthy Coastal Counties Red In CA Governor Race
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The June 2 gubernatorial race in California has Republican candidate Steve Hilton exceeding pre-election polls and headed to the November general election to face the top Democrat pick, former Biden Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. As of this writing 94 percent of the vote has been counted and that tally puts Hilton in the top two, earning 24.8 percent of the vote while Becerra won 28 percent. Pre-election polls had Hilton trailing Becerra by eight points. When you compare Hilton’s performance to previous Republican attempts to oust a Democrat, the results get interesting. The last gubernatorial primary took place in June 2022 when incumbent Gov. Gavin Newsom was challenged by Republican Brian Dahle in the primary. Becerra fell over a million votes short of Gavin Newsom’s numbers in 2022, winning just over 2.4 million votes compared to Newsom’s over 3.8 million. Of course, Newsom was running as an incumbent with wide name recognition but nonetheless the numbers stand. Hilton has amassed over 2.1 million votes, beating Republican Brian Dahle’s numbers by close to a million votes. Dahle won just over 1.2 million in 2022. Comparing Hilton’s ability to make inroads with new swing voters to Dahle’s path in 2022 it is clear that Hilton is eating into Democrat territory, often by wide margins. While Becerra hung onto most of the blue coastal counties that Newsom won four years ago, Hilton turned multiple inland farming and ranching counties red and flipped several wealthy coastal counties.