The dominant narrative for most of the past decade that a Trump endorsement just about guarantees a Republican will win his primary, and that crossing the president is a political death sentence for most GOP lawmakers. And so far, that remains generally true.
But back on April 6, Trump endorsed Steve Hilton to be the GOP nominee to be governor of California. For a while, Hilton and his chief rival, Riverside County, Calif., sheriff Chad Bianco, were the two frontrunners in the state’s jungle primary; if both finished in the top two, California would be guaranteed to elect a Republican governor this year.
But this weekend, California Republicans held their convention in San Diego and… didn’t endorse either candidate.
The party faithful, many of whom sported ‘Trump 2028’ ball caps and paid more than $1,000 in hotel and flights to gather in sunny San Diego, split their votes relatively evenly between Steve Hilton, a businessman and former Fox News host who received the president’s endorsement, and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.
The final tally was 49 percent for Bianco and 44 percent for Hilton, both shy of the necessary 60 percent threshold to earn the party’s endorsement.
Hilton, a British-American who is leading all candidates in polling, entered the weekend as a relative party outsider. He called blocking Bianco’s endorsement “a major success” and said he remained “very confident” that he would secure one of the top two spots in California’s June 2 primary.
“Chad Bianco came into this convention assuming he’d got the whole thing in the bag,” Hilton said. “I think we made great progress this weekend to make it roughly even.”
Now, Hilton was likely helped by Trump’s endorsement, but the fact that he got just 44 percent at the state convention is an indication that a Trump endorsement does not always resolve a contested GOP primary, and that Republicans are sometimes unpersuaded by what the president says.
The primary will be held June 2.