SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Steve Hilton has painted California as a state bursting with potential that has lost its way under Democratic leadership in his bid to be the state's first Republican governor in more than 15 years.
“We have a responsibility to revive California so it is once again that symbol of everything that is great about our nation: energy and optimism and ambition,” he said Tuesday in an election night speech in Southern California.
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California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer speaks during an election night event Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra motions during an election night event Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks during an election night event Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Huntington Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks during an election night event Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Huntington Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks to reporters outside the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
On Wednesday, he remained optimistic he would have the chance to take that message to the general election as vote counting continued. California puts all candidates on the same ballot regardless of party and two advance to the general election.
The Associated Press had not called the primary for any candidate as of Wednesday afternoon. Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra were leading so far, with Democrat Tom Steyer running slightly further back. The state has a history of substantial vote updates after Election Day that can sometimes shift the outcome of elections as late-arriving mail and drop-off votes are counted.
Hilton, who has never held elected office, has promised to be a disruptor to the state's political order, which he said has failed Californians struggling to afford life in the notoriously expensive state. He is a relative newcomer not just to the state’s political scene, but to California itself. He migrated to the state in 2012 from the United Kingdom, where he was an adviser to Conservative Party officials including former Prime Minister David Cameron. He had a show on Fox News from 2017 to 2023 and became a U.S. citizen in 2021.
If he advances to November, Hilton faces an uphill battle in a state that hasn’t had a Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger left office in 2011, and where Democrats make up 45% of registered voters compared to Republicans’ 25%. He said he is confident he can beat those odds.
“When people say, ‘How are you going to win in California as a Republican?’ My question is, how will a Democrat win based on the record that they are putting before the people?” he told reporters outside the state Capitol on Wednesday.
He is pledging to lower prices on everything from gas to housing, reduce income taxes, create a loan program for first-time homebuyers, and freeze in-state tuition at public colleges.
He faces another obstacle to winning over voters who don't typically vote Republican: President Donald Trump's endorsement.
“I know Steve — He is a hard driving WINNER, and he will turn California around, quickly — and the Federal Government will be there, with him, to help!” Trump said in a social media post.
Hilton thanked Trump for his words, saying Wednesday on X that “change is coming.”
While that endorsement likely helped him consolidate support among Republicans in the primary, it could be a liability in November given the president's deep unpopularity in a state that he has routinely made a punching bag. On debate stages and in speeches throughout the primary, Hilton hasn't emphasized Trump's support since he won it in April. But he said he looks forward to having a friendly partner in Washington should he win.
“It's about, what does that endorsement mean for the practical things we can get?" Hilton said Wednesday, adding that he would work with the federal government to try to lower gas prices and cut wasteful spending in government so the state can reduce taxes.
The candidate's promise to return the state to an unspecified golden age when most people were better off is not dissimilar to Trump's ubiquitous pledge to “Make America Great Again.”
In the primary, Hilton fought for Republican votes against Republican Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff.
In the race's final days, Hilton warned of the possibility that Becerra and Steyer could advance to the general election, shutting out Republicans. Becerra throughout his campaign touted his decades of political experience as proof he could lead, while Steyer leaned on his history of progressive advocacy to demonstrate how he would deliver for families trying to make ends meet.
But neither candidate would disrupt the status quo after years of Democratic rule, Hilton said.
“The progressive experiment in governance — we can see the results. It’s a disappointment all around,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer we have to wait for this experiment to actually work.”
California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer speaks during an election night event Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra motions during an election night event Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks during an election night event Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Huntington Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks during an election night event Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Huntington Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks to reporters outside the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
BEIRUT (AP) — President Donald Trump acknowledged criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “crazy” in a phone call that involved expletives, saying he was “a little bit perturbed” that Israel’s fighting with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon was holding back peace talks with Iran.
But even as the U.S. president conceded the tensions in an interview released Wednesday, he insisted that his relationship with Netanyahu was solid and that they connected, in part, because they are both “wartime” leaders.
“We’ve worked very well together. I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him,” Trump told The New York Post’s “Pod Force One.”
In an interview on the American business-news channel CNBC, Netanyahu responded that he and Trump sometimes have “tactical disagreements” but have “common goals” and “agree on the main things.”
“He respects me. I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences,” the prime minister said.
The president's comments about the Monday call offered a sign of the growing pressure he faces to resolve the Iran war as higher energy prices and economic uncertainty threaten Republican prospects in the midterm elections and hamper global commerce.
Talks have dragged on for weeks and have been strained by Israel’s broadening war with the Iranian-backed militia group in Lebanon. The conflicts have become increasingly intertwined as Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon.
Israel and Lebanon agreed Wednesday to renew their fragile ceasefire and create a number of “pilot” security zones inside Lebanon from which Hezbollah militants would be banned.
In a joint statement released after a fourth round of U.S.-mediated talks at the State Department, the two sides said the ceasefire “is contingent on a complete cessation of Hezbollah fire and the evacuation of all Hezbollah operatives” from areas south of the Litani River. It was not immediately clear how the security zones would be established but the agreement calls for the Lebanese army to take full control of those areas.
“These steps will enable progress towards a comprehensive peace and security agreement,” the statement said. “All countries reaffirmed that the future of the relationship between Israel and Lebanon must be decided by the two sovereign governments. They rejected any attempt, by any state or non-state actor, to hold Lebanon’s future hostage.”
Hezbollah is not part of the Israel-Lebanon talks, which have been held at the ambassadorial level in Washington since the beginning of last month.
“All parties condemned Iran’s attacks on countries in the region, and ongoing activities that undermine stability throughout the Middle East, whether through support for proxies and all other acts of aggression,” the statement said.
A new round of discussions will be held during the week of June 22 with an eye toward “reaching a comprehensive agreement.”
Trump remained noncommittal about a timeline for settling the Iran conflict, saying the Strait of Hormuz might stay blocked through the Labor Day holiday on Sept. 7. He has insisted that Iran stop any efforts that could lead to a nuclear weapon and that the strait be reopened for shipments of oil and natural gas.
“I don’t know. I mean, I think it could be (closed through Labor Day), but I think it’s unlikely. I think that we’ll have it. I think this will resolve itself fairly quickly,” Trump said.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his late father, is “involved” in peace talks, Trump added.
“They have a lot of respect for him,” the president said in the interview.
Trump said that Khamenei is not doing well due to wounds sustained in an airstrike, but “they say he’s giving approval because that’s the way it has been for a long, long time." Khamenei's father was killed in an airstrike when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February.
Meanwhile in the Persian Gulf region, Kuwait briefly shut its main airport Wednesday after Iranian drones hit a passenger terminal building, killing one person and wounding dozens. It was the latest in the back-and-forth attacks by Tehran and Washington that have tested the ceasefire.
The path toward a lasting ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah remained unclear as hostilities continued in Lebanon.
An Israeli strike Wednesday hit a car on a busy highway just south of Beirut. The strike in Khaldeh came without warning, and it was not immediately clear if the person targeted was killed.
Israel and Lebanon on Monday reached a U.S.-brokered agreement in which Israel would not strike Beirut's southern suburbs and Hezbollah would end its attacks on northern Israel.
The agreement was made hours after Israel announced that it was going to launch strikes across the sprawling urban neighborhoods near the Lebanese capital in what would have been the most intense strikes since a nominal ceasefire went into effect on April 17.
Lebanon hopes to widen the scope of the ceasefire so it becomes comprehensive across the country. Israel wants to disarm Hezbollah immediately before the Israeli military ends its operations in Lebanon and withdraws its troops from dozens of villages and towns.
Israeli strikes over southern Lebanon continued, especially in and around the battered cities of Tyre and Nabatiyeh. Two overnight strikes near Tyre, a coastal city, killed four Syrians and two Palestinians.
Israel warned the Christian neighborhoods in Tyre that Hezbollah members were among them. Many Lebanese Shiite Muslims fled to those areas in recent days because they were spared from the aerial bombardment along the Mediterranean coast.
After the warning, the Lebanese army deployed to the Christian district of Tyre in an effort to prevent Israeli attacks there and to show that Hezbollah has no armed presence in the area.
Israel launched an invasion of southern Lebanon days after the latest war was sparked on March 2, when Iran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets toward northern Israel in solidarity with Iran. Israeli troops have pushed deeper into Lebanon over the past week, as Hezbollah continues to claim rocket and drone attacks.
The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,468 people in Lebanon and displaced 1.2 million people. According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 27 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.
Many residents of southern Lebanon remained in villages near the hostilities or returned to areas where strikes occurred after evacuation warnings.
The Al-Abdallah family returned to their home in Marwanieyh, which they left because they thought the village was unsafe following earlier strikes. A day later, two rockets hit the home, bringing down the three-story building and killing six family members, said the brother of Hassan Al-Abdallah, who was killed.
Ahmed Al-Abdallah, 13, was thrown away from the building by the force of the blasts and was the only member of his family to survive. His uncle, Eissa Al-Abdallah, said the boy has two broken legs and shrapnel wounds all over his body.
“What good is talking now? They are gone, and nothing will bring them back,” the uncle told The Associated Press in a phone call Tuesday. “This land costs blood.”
Boak and Lee reported from Washington.
This version has been updated to correct that the Iran war began at the end of February, not March.
United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, second from left, is joined by third from left: State Department Chief of Staff Dan Holler, Sr., State Department Counselor and Director, Office of Policy Planning Michael A. Needham and United States Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, as they meet with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese Ambassador to the United States Nada Hamadeh, at the State Department, Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Israeli troops gather on the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A nurse treats an injured man at the damaged Jabal Amel Hospital, following Monday's Israeli airstrike that was hit a nearby building, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A man removes debris of a building that was hit Monday in an Israeli airstrike in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Rescue workers use an excavator, as they search for victims under the rubble of a building that was hit Monday in an Israeli airstrike in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, left, is joined by second from left: State Department Chief of Staff Dan Holler, Sr., State Department Counselor and Director, Office of Policy Planning Michael A. Needham and United States Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, as they meet with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese Ambassador to the United States Nada Hamadeh, at the State Department, Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit Burj al-Shamali village near the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
