Steve Hilton will sit down with a panel of Los Angeles journalists Tuesday to make his case for becoming California's first Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger, just as county election officials begin mailing vote-by-mail ballots to every active registered voter in the state for the November 3 general election. The timing puts Hilton in front of voters at the exact moment many of them will be filling out their ballots at home.
The forum, co-hosted by the Los Angeles Times and LAist, will be livestreamed starting at 4 p.m. Tuesday and rebroadcast at 7 p.m. on LAist 89.3 FM, according to the outlet's own reporting. The roughly hour-long conversation will be moderated by a trio of journalists — David Wagner, Mark Z. Barabak and Seema Mehta — and will take questions submitted by readers and listeners alongside topics including housing affordability, homelessness, climate change and California's relationship with the federal government.
Hilton's Democratic rival, Xavier Becerra, was invited to join the forum but his team has not responded to that invitation, per the same report. The invitation remains open to Becerra, leaving open the question of whether voters will get to see both men on the same stage before ballots are due.
A Trump-Backed Bid Against Two Decades of GOP Losses
President Donald Trump has endorsed Hilton's campaign, a fact the station notes alongside Hilton's broader positioning as a reform-minded outsider. But the numbers remain daunting: no Republican has won a statewide election in California since Schwarzenegger's re-election in 2006, when he captured nearly 56% of the vote before term limits ended his tenure in 2011, according to Wikipedia. Official data from the California Secretary of State published in May showed Democrats holding a 20-point registration edge over Republicans statewide, with 44.9% of voters registered as Democrats compared to 25.0% as Republicans and 22.8% with no party preference.
That structural disadvantage shows up in the horse race, too. A Public Policy Institute of California survey published September 23 found Becerra leading Hilton 60% to 38% among likely voters, a 22-point gap that Hoodline covered in September. The two candidates advanced out of a crowded primary field in June, with Becerra taking 28% of the vote and Hilton finishing second at 25%, per Ballotpedia — a top-two format made possible by Proposition 14, which California voters approved in 2010 to eliminate separate party primaries, according to the California Legislative Analyst's Office.
Fundraising Gap and a Controversial Ad Still Looming
Becerra also holds a financial edge heading into the final stretch, having raised $35.2 million to Hilton's $28.0 million, according to figures published by CAGovTracker in September. The fundraising disparity comes as Hilton's campaign navigates fallout from a sexually suggestive ad titled Just Try It, California, which the Los Angeles Times reported drew condemnation from fellow Republicans including state superintendent nominee Sonja Shaw and attorney general nominee Michael Gates after racking up millions of views online.
Hilton, who moved to California in 2012 and became a U.S. citizen in 2021, founded the policy initiative Golden Together in 2023 after serving as strategy director for former British Prime Minister David Cameron and hosting a Fox News program from 2017 to 2023, according to Golden Together's own account. Becerra, meanwhile, spent 24 years representing Los Angeles in the U.S. House before serving as California's Attorney General from 2017 to 2021 and later becoming the first Latino U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, per CalMatters.
Public Media Funding Cuts Shape the Forum's Backdrop
Tuesday's event also arrives against a backdrop of financial strain for public media. Congress voted in 2025 to defund public media, eliminating $1.7 million from LAist's annual budget, and the outlet now describes itself as 100% community funded. That context underscores the stakes for LAist and the Los Angeles Times as they attempt to stage a high-profile forum during the first week of mail balloting.
For Hilton, the hour on stage represents a chance to reach undecided and moderate voters directly through a format Becerra has so far declined to confirm. Whether an empty chair becomes part of the story, or whether Becerra's team reverses course before Tuesday afternoon, will shape how Los Angeles voters remember the forum as they begin returning their ballots.
