A recent poll showed that 48% of Californians are considering voting Republican in the next election after years of failed leadership from Democrats.

In this encore episode of Morning Wire, we speak to entrepreneur and bestselling author Steve Hilton, who has just thrown his hat into the ring for California governor.

At the time of this interview, he had not yet announced his candidacy. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire, editor-in-chief

John Bickley. It's Saturday, April 26th, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

Joining us now to discuss the pent-up frustrations fueling the California political shift is entrepreneur, author, and podcast host Steve Hilton.

Steve, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you very much. Good to be with you.

So Steve, a variety of polls right now are showing that voters are not happy with Democrats, including in deep blue California.

Do you think there's a chance a conservative candidate could actually win in 2026 for the governor's

race? Yes, 100%. The poll you're talking about has been a couple actually in the last few days.

One had 50% of Californians open to voting for Republican

candidate for governor. Another one had 48%. And the feeling that we can't go on like this in

California has been building now for such a long time. You saw a real move forward in the right

direction, as I would see it, in the elections last year.

In November, 10 counties flipped from blue to red, including major counties like Fresno County in the Central Valley, the fifth biggest city in California.

So 10 counties shifting from Democrat to Republican.

We actually don't have that many counties in California.

It's 58. So that's nearly a fifth. That's a big deal. We saw a massive positive vote for

Proposition 36, which was the one that, as its supporters, including me, we used to talk about it

as making crime illegal again. Prop 36 was undoing the terrible damage of the Prop 47 that

Carmelah Harris pushed many years back, which basically legalized theft under $950 a day. You saw

defeats for George Gascon, the Soros-backed DA in Los Angeles County, the recall of the mayor

in Oakland and the DA there. You saw the defeat of the mayor of San Francisco.

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