With less than two weeks until the primary, Steve Hilton and Los Angeles mayor hopeful Spencer Pratt are chasing conservative upsets in a state and city that overwhelmingly reject President Trump. Both have sought or leaned on Trump’s endorsement—yet the very
When the primary is less than two weeks away. Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt don’t have the luxury of vague appeals. Still. both are moving in the orbit of President Trump—an approach that could collide head-on with the Latino voters they’ll need if they’re going to pull off historic wins in California.
Hilton, a former Fox News commentator, is leading in the polls for governor. Pratt. a reality television figure with an early wave of attention in Los Angeles politics. is making the city’s progressive base visibly nervous. If either reaches the November general election. they would be running as conservatives in a super-blue state and city where most voters loathe President Trump.
Trump has already thrown weight behind Hilton. Last month. he posted on social media saying Hilton “is a truly fine man. one who has watched as this once great State has gone to Hell.” On Wednesday. Trump also addressed Pratt directly. saying he wants Pratt to “do well … I heard he’s a big MAGA person. ” before adding that California elections are rigged. He claimed he would have won California two years ago “if we had Jesus Christ come down and count the votes. ” and he also said. “I do great with Hispanics.”.
The political problem is that Trump’s record with Latinos is not just complicated—it’s fragile. The argument for Hilton and Pratt has always leaned on one premise: Latino voters matter. and they can be a swing bloc in local. state. and national races. But that influence. as this race approaches its final stretch. is also tied to anger and the mood of a community that has been moving.
In recent years, Latinos in California have drifted rightward as they have tired of Democratic policies, from L.A. City Hall to Sacramento. Rick Caruso captured a majority of the Latino vote in his unsuccessful bid for L.A. mayor four years ago, and there are more Latino Republicans in the state legislature than ever. The shifts were especially noticeable in some of the most Latino areas of Southern California. which moved further toward Trump from 2020 to 2024.
Even so, the numbers and the current chemistry suggest Trump is not the bridge Hilton and Pratt think he is. A New York Times/Siena poll released this month found that only 20% of Latinos support Trump—the lowest level during his two terms. A Pew Research Center survey found that only 66% of Latinos who voted for Trump now approve of him. compared to 81% of white Trump supporters.
Hilton and Pratt are still treating Trump as a political asset rather than a liability. Hilton has held town halls in small, Latino-majority cities across a state that is about 41% Latino. He frequently appears alongside lieutenant governor candidate Gloria Romero. described here as a pioneer in challenging disaffected Latinos to not always vote Democrat. Pratt. for his part. has shared AI-generated salsa and merengue songs that hail him as a savior and uses Spanglish when referring to Mayor Karen Bass as “Basura” — trash. He is also rolling out endorsements from Latino business groups and held a block party in South L.A. this week, with an Instagram post that tried to draw supporters by promising a taco truck.
The contradiction is hard to miss: if Hilton and Pratt need Latino voters to win. they are still building their campaigns partly on Trump’s approval. Hilton sought and received Trump’s endorsement. arguing that it’s better to have a friendly relationship with the White House than the antagonistic path California’s elected leaders have chosen. Yet many voters. especially Latinos. want distance from the president’s conduct—especially after years of promises and backlash that have left scars.
Trump’s relationship with Latino voters shifted dramatically over the course of his first term. Two years ago. he—described here as the most anti-Latino president since James Polk—grabbed a larger share of the Latino electorate than any Republican presidential candidate ever had. GOP leaders predicted that Latinos were finally theirs. But his “deportation deluge” is described as the turning point that annihilated that advantage. The pressure has continued to build: the piece also says Trump has started a war in Iran. which has further strained an already shaky economy.
At the ballot box, California’s voters also signaled their own resistance. Proposition 50—a direct rebuke of Trump’s gerrymandering efforts in other states—passed with more than two-thirds of the vote last fall. A CalMatters analysis found that Latino-majority precincts voted in bigger numbers for the ballot initiative than for Kamala Harris two years earlier.
Hilton can promise Latinos a “Califordable” agenda and try to connect on culture and community. But the economic reality. the piece argues. has been shaped heavily by Trump’s own decisions. including the president recently saying he thinks about Americans’ financial struggles “not even a little bit.” For Hilton to avoid decrying that cluelessness is framed as nearly absurd. paired with Hilton’s own recent boasts that he is the candidate of “legal” immigrants.
That claim is tied to California’s older political wounds. The piece points to Proposition 187. when Republicans obsessed with the state’s changing demographics turned off an entire generation of Latinos by demonizing undocumented friends and family. With the GOP emerging from political isolation with Latino voters. the argument here is that Hilton’s comfort with Trump would drag the party back toward that weak. familiar place.
Pratt. at least. is described as more cautious about his relationship to Trump—though not cautious enough to escape the shadow. The Republican said his party affiliation doesn’t matter because the mayor’s race is nonpartisan. He has portrayed himself as focused on improving Los Angeles rather than national political fights. saying in an interview with CBS News. “I don’t do national politics. I don’t do tribal politics.”.
But the question posed here is whether that focus holds when the president’s actions keep striking directly at Latino communities. The piece points to last summer’s unchecked immigration raids. and to an episode described as a temporary occupation by the Marines and the National Guard. Rather than denouncing those actions. Pratt is said to have denounced Los Angeles’s sanctuary city ordinance and vowed to work with ICE and other federal immigration agencies to target “bad hombres” if he becomes mayor—even though the piece says a majority of those rounded up in the raids had no criminal history.
In this portrait, Pratt’s understanding of Latino Los Angeles is shallow and performative. He is described as repeatedly platforming supporters who portray L.A. as a multicultural wasteland. and he is also said to have responded to a post by City Councilmember Nithya Raman—when Raman posted Trump’s praise of Pratt—by making a dismissive face snippet during a debate.
The through-line connecting these choices is blunt: for Pratt and Hilton to win. Latino voters need to believe in them. not just their slogans. Yet the piece lays out a simple moral and political dilemma. If their campaigns hitch even a little to Trump. why would Latino voters trust them when Trump’s record—on deportations. on immigration enforcement. and on the broader economy—has repeatedly collided with their lives?.
With the primary looming, the stakes aren’t abstract. Los Angeles and California are not ideological blank slates—Latino communities have been watching, reacting, and shifting. And the closer Hilton and Pratt get to Trump, the less those voters appear willing to follow.
California governor primary Steve Hilton Spencer Pratt Los Angeles mayor race President Trump Latino voters immigration raids ICE Proposition 50 sanctuary city ordinance Gloria Romero Karen Bass