Hilton for Bianco? Gaming Out California’s Absurd Jungle Primary

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Somebody at some point along the way in California must have thought moving to what is known as a “jungle primary” was a good idea. 

As the name suggests, a jungle is a single primary in which all candidates for a given office compete, irrespective of party affiliation, with the top two finishers advancing to the general election in November.

The good idea behind the new primary system, which had its debut in 2012, was that by taking control of the primary spigot from the state Democratic and Republican parties — both of which were waxing increasingly extreme — moderates would have a better chance of appearing on the November ballot and winning. There’s some evidence that it’s moved the needle a titch in that direction.

It has, however, gathered its share of critics, and there have been periodic inside-baseball grumblings from both parties and from candidates who believe they would have done better under the old, party-primary system. 

But 2026 is the first time the jungle primary has been election-year front-page news.

A Fine Mess

That’s mainly because, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom term-limited out this year, the state’s Democrats got themselves into a fine mess. The kind of mess that has them wondering how they could possibly have been so crazy as not to move heaven and earth to kill the jungle primary, which took the form of 2010’s Proposition 14, in its crib.

Why the Democrats in control of state government ever got on board with what began as a Republican push for the jungle primary is a subject for another inquiry, but suffice it to say that it’s finally come back to bite them bigly.

Purportedly designed to give the voters more power of choice, the jungle primary can instead favor the party that offers voters the fewest choices — as the party fielding more candidates and splitting its own voters too many ways risks putting no candidate on the November ballot. 

The jungle has already run into some relatively minor problems, with a number of down-ballot elections winding up as November face-offs between two candidates from the same party, with the opposing party shut out. And one major problem, noted below, where the outcome was just the opposite: an orthodox interparty general election that was likely the product of a candidate’s gaming of the system.

This year, the top-of-ballot governor’s race got itself tangled up in the jungle, with a rather hilarious upshot that I’ll be getting to. With eight Democratic candidates initially entering the primary along with only two Republicans, the Democrats found themselves in grave danger of splitting their votes in such a way that the two Republicans would take first and second, shutting the Democrats out of the general election in the biggest and one of the bluest states.

Polls initially showed the two Republicans, Fox News contributor Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, ahead of the flock of Democrats, none of whom showed any interest in dropping out to give the leading Democrats a desperately needed boost. Nancy Pelosi, Newsom, and the state Democratic convention all withheld endorsements.

The situation was further complicated by the fact that the three then-leading Democrats — Rep. Eric Swalwell, former Rep. Katie Porter, and billionaire Tom Steyer — are all white, while four of the five then-also-rans are not. Pushing any of them out of the race raised the specter of pointedly noninclusive optics, anathema to a party that retains a deep commitment to DEI values.

Disaster loomed: a Trump-friendly MAGA governor for the state, a major embarrassment for the Democratic Party, and a personal political nightmare for White House-seeking Newsom. Nobody seemed to have any good ideas about what to do.

Donald ex Machina Drops In

Enter Donald “I Dare Anything I Touch Not To Die” Trump, who last month surprisingly weighed in with a hearty endorsement of Hilton. It was surprising in a couple of ways. 

First, it followed on the heels of a most Trumpian stunt by Bianco, who seized some 650,000 Riverside County ballots to perform his own “Stop the Steal” investigation of imagined fraud in the November 2025 vote to approve statewide pro-Democratic US House redistricting. Just the kind of ultra-MAGA move that normally would have won Trump’s support.

But second, and more perplexingly, Trump’s endorsement struck just about all observers as a strategic blunder of epic proportions. If the president’s embrace carried any weight at all with California MAGA voters, it would serve to pull votes to Hilton and away from the MAGA-posturing Bianco. 

The result? Hilton would win the jungle primary while Bianco would drop out of second place and off the November ballot, in favor of one or another Democrat. Who then, facing Hilton in the general election, would be odds-on to become California’s next governor.

So the Democrats’ problem was on its way to being solved. With a heartfelt Thank You to President Trump from Gov. Newsom — and the grateful Democratic voters of the Golden State!

The subsequent withdrawal of the disgraced Swalwell from the race further altered the calculus in the Democrats’ favor, by freeing up his sizable share of votes for distribution among the remaining seven Democratic candidates. Polling now suggests that the lion’s share of those votes have gone to billionaire Tom Steyer and the previously back-in-the-pack former congressman, California attorney general, and US Health and Human Services secretary, Xavier Becerra.

The fascinating result is that, according to the most recent aggregate polling average, Hilton leads with 19.1 percent, followed by Steyer at 15.6 percent, Becerra at 14.3 percent, and Bianco at 13 percent. 

Fascinating because it raises that most bizarre of political inversions: the tactical advantage of campaigning for one’s opponent.

(Steve Hilton, if you’re reading this, please stop here. The rest is just boring analysis.)

Now It Gets Weird

If you’re Hilton, the only conceivable way you become governor is if you and Bianco finish as the top two and face each other in the general. Bianco being steroidally MAGA, you’d win that race hands down.

But any Democrat finishing in the top two — the times being what they are — would be a prohibitive favorite to smoke you in November.

Between you, if the polling is to be trusted, you and Bianco capture 32.1 percent of the vote (19.1 + 13). If you were to divide that evenly, at 16 percent apiece, you’d both nose out Steyer and finish one-two. 

Given the polling at the time of Trump’s endorsement, that’s most likely where you and Bianco would be sitting now if Trump had stayed out of it.

Quietly, behind the scenes, if I were Hilton, I’d be trying to figure out how to get Bianco into second (or even first!) place, even if it meant handing him one out of every six or so of my own voters, which I could afford to lose and still make it to November.

But now Trump’s endorsement has done its work: boosted you at Bianco’s expense, and it looks like it’s going to cost you whatever chance you may have had to run California come 2027. With endorsements like that, who needs scandals?! But what can you do?

If you’re smart — tactically astute — you find a way to help Bianco! 

Of course, you can’t exactly endorse him — he is your opponent, after all! — but quietly, behind the scenes, if I were Hilton, I’d be trying to figure out how to get Bianco into second (or even first!) place, even if it meant handing him one out of every six or so of my own voters, which I could afford to lose and still make it to November. 

I’d in effect be trying my damndest to counteract the disastrous effect of Trump’s endorsement on my own and on Republican prospects in a crucial contest that the jungle primary and a flock of stubborn, undisciplined Democrats were bending over backwards to hand us.

The primary is a month away and the polls are fluid. So the picture may change, and change again, along with its logic and tactical imperatives. 

But as things stand: The Democrats made a big mess for themselves; Donald Trump (and Eric Swalwell) helped clean it up for them; and if the Republicans want to reclaim victory from the jaws of defeat, they’re going to have to think way outside the box. 

Given that dark money is all the rage, Steve Hilton’s donors should probably be writing some big, anonymous checks to Chad Bianco’s PAC.

But, hey, they wouldn’t be the first: They could take a page from Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who, as the frontrunner in the jungle primary for that Senate seat in 2024, spent millions of dollars boosting the candidacy of Republican Steve Garvey so that he could face Garvey rather than a fellow Democrat in November. 

Schiff’s support helped Garvey climb into second place and shut out Democrats Katie Porter and Barbara Lee, either of whom would have been tougher for Schiff to beat in the general. 

In that case, Schiff’s play was to avoid an all-Democratic contest in November; now, conversely, Hilton’s goal would be to bring about an all-Republican contest.

Neither play is exactly what the proponents of the jungle primary had in mind. Chalk it all up, as we await developments, to the Law of Unintended Consequences.