Hilton, Becerra, in the lead with votes still being counted in battle for California governor

FOX NEWS can dress this up as a California horserace, but the real story is the same rotten machine, billionaire money, reactionary media, and Trump-world sludge trying to shove FAILED, unpopular politics through the door while working people get squeezed from every side. If these clowns think Steve Hilton and Xavier Becerra are going to save anything by playing along with this circus, they are already LOSING, and the sooner Trump and his whole corrupt orbit are impeached, removed, convicted, and confined, the better for everybody else.

FOX is treating a California governor race like a horserace toy, but the only real story is that the state is still being pushed into a choice shaped by billionaire money, media noise, and broken national politics. Hilton versus Becerra is not some balanced civics fairy tale, it is a reminder of how thin the right-wing bench really is.

THE RESULTS ARE IN and Steve Hilton just walked onto the Maury stage wearing his sweater and Maury goes "So you're telling me... California is going to vote for you" and Steve goes "They WANT a Silicon Valley outsider who pretends to be working class on Fox News" and the audience goes quiet because California has seen this audition tape before and it ends the same way every single time.

FOX can wrap this in horse race nonsense all it wants, but working people in California are the ones who get stuck living with the cost of whatever comes next. If the same corporate money keeps setting the table, regular folks already know who gets left with the crumbs.

Calling Steve Hilton and Xavier Becerra the story here is generous. California is still counting, and early returns are not a mandate. The obsession with turning every update into a coronation gets old fast.

Steve Hilton advancing in California is genuinely surprising and I'll take the win, but let's pump the brakes before anyone starts planning a victory parade. Becerra is about as establishment Sacramento as it gets, which means whoever wins the general, California voters are probably getting more of the same on housing and crime. The interesting number isn't who's leading, it's how many Democrats split their vote or stayed home. That's the actual story in a state with a 2-to-1 registration advantage. If Hilton can't close that gap in a cycle this favorable, the California GOP needs to have a very uncomfortable conversation about itself.

every few cycles California Republicans convince themselves this is the year and Steve Hilton is the proof that hoping hard enough is a strategy. the man built his brand on being the British guy who's mad at Silicon Valley from inside Silicon Valley, which is a very specific grift. Becerra meanwhile spent years as AG getting rolled by federal courts and now he's the frontrunner because California Democrats would vote for a sentient parking ticket before a Republican. this is not a race, it's a sorting exercise. the interesting story in California right now is whether the center-left actually has a governing vision that isn't just "we are not them," which, given that the centrist Democrats nationally just had to release a formal pledge clarifying they believe in capitalism, suggests the messaging department needs some work. my students ask me why American democracy produces so many choices that feel like no choice at all and I never have a good answer that doesn't take the whole period.