I lived in Los Angeles from 2017 until May 2020, two months into the LA shutdown, and by the end I barely recognized it. The city I had moved to for its energy and opportunity was starting to look like Gotham City. Tent cities spread across Los Angeles. Break-ins and violent crime climbed. When COVID-19 arrived, the people running California seemed far more interested in policing masks on the beach than policing the streets. So, I left for Miami because Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis governed his state with sanity.
I was blessed. I could leave. Millions of Californians can’t, and they shouldn’t have to.
Six years later, Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is giving Californians a reason to stay.
What was once a great state has turned into a hellhole for too many of its own citizens. Working families pay some of the highest gas prices in America, and have for over a decade, along with some of the highest housing costs anywhere. Small businesses are drowning in fees and regulation. Homeless encampments, open drug use and crime have become normal in a state that used to draw people from around the world. After 16 years of one-party rule in Sacramento, Californians deserve to ask a simple question: What are the results? Unfortunately, a state in decline.
Hilton has proven over and over again that he is the person voters should entrust to succeed Democrat Gavin Newsom as governor of California. I must admit, I am impressed by what he has done as a candidate. I’ve known Steve since our days together at Fox News. Even then, he wasn’t interested in cable-news shouting matches. He wanted to talk about solutions, and that’s exactly the candidate he has become.
NEWSOM UNDER FIRE AS CALIFORNIA GAS TAX HIKE SENDS PUMP PRICES EVEN HIGHER
Just look at the campaign he’s run. It has been focused and substantive. In an era when too many candidates run on slogans and grievance, Hilton has put real plans on the table. He wants no state income tax on the first $150,000 a Californian earns. He has a plan to get gas to $3 a gallon by eliminating the repealing the Low Carbon Fuel Standard and producing more of our own oil here at home.
On housing, he would streamline building codes and rein in the lawsuits under the California Environmental Quality Act that are routinely used to stop housing from ever getting built.
You can disagree with any one of those ideas. But you can’t say he hasn’t approached the issues with gravitas.
On top of that, he’s outworked his opponent. Since the June primary, Hilton has campaigned all over California, while Democrat Xavier B
