Steve Hilton, the Trump-backed British immigrant, shakes up the California gubernatorial debate

The stage at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles was at near capacity Wednesday night. Just 24 hours earlier, the seven leading candidates to succeed California Gov. Gavin Newsom had faced off in a debate on CNN. Now, in a second showdown hosted by NBC4 and Telemundo 52, they crossed paths again, confirming what polls have been showing for weeks: Steve Hilton, the British-born U.S. citizen backed by President Donald Trump, is running a competitive campaign. And he made that clear in Wednesday's debate.

When several Democrats on stage tried to hold the Trump administration accountable for the cost-of-living crisis in California, Hilton took the opportunity to question the blue party's policies in the Golden State.

"Donald Trump is the president in all the other states of America, where the cost of living is way lower than in California," he said. "It's not Donald Trump who's given us gas prices $2 higher than the rest of the country. It's Democrat policies, which all the Democrats here support."

That sentence was the preamble to the debate strategy adopted by the Fox News host throughout the night: turning every question on housing, insurance, homelessness or immigration into a referendum on the last 16 years of uninterrupted Democratic rule.

"Obviously, it is way past time for change in California," he declared throughout the evening.

Hostile territory for Republicans

However, Hilton's task is titanic. Barely a quarter of California are Republicans, and the last time the state elected a GOP governor was when actor Arnold Schwarzenegger won re-election in 2006, a milestone that today seems unthinkable. Despite the challenge, the June 2 open primary—where the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to November—is opening a real window for Hilton, thanks to the Democratic split.

The polls, for now, go like this: according to the latest CBS poll conducted April 23-27, Hilton leads the primary with 16% of the voting intention, followed by billionaire Tom Steyer with 15% and former federal Health Secretary Xavier Becerra with 13%.

A later Survey USA poll between April 28 and May 1 put him in a more favorable position: Hilton 20%, Steyer 18%, Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco 12%, Becerra 10%, former Congresswoman Katie Porter 8%, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan 7% and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa 5%.

Democrats attack each other

While Hilton had the ease of focusing on a common opponent, the five Democrats on stage had to brandish their arguments and, inevitably, attack each other.

Mahan, the youngest of the Democratic group, launched a tough opening statement, "We don't need the leadership of a billionaire who is now against everything he made his money in, or a career politician who has failed again and again to deliver results."

The dart was aimed directly at Steyer and Becerra. Hilton, meanwhile, shot back from the sidelines, "He's trying to remember his lines."

Becerra, considered a Democratic favorite, failed to shine above his party colleagues. When he did manage to weigh in, he proposed a rate freeze to address the insurance crisis that is leaving thousands of Californians without coverage after last year's devastating Altadena and Pacific Palisades fires. The idea was quickly debunked by the Democrats themselves on stage. "One, the governor can't freeze rates. Two, it's just going to make it worse," Villaraigosa responded.

Porter, who became known in Congress for her white-board questioning, promised free college tuition and no-cost child care, though without specifying how she would get it funded.

When Steyer claimed that Californiais the richest state in the richest country in the world, she snidely retorted, "You're the richest person on this stage."

Quite a bit of tension

The exchange that generated the most reaction from the audience pitted Bianco against Porter over immigration. The Republican sheriff argued that immigrants had committed numerous violent crimes and, when Porter tried to retort, asked her to tell the victims' mothers. "I don't need a lecture from you about being a mother," the candidate said. Bianco insisted, "You might."

On homelessness, Bianco rejected the idea that the homeless in California have more rights than those who live indoors, calling them the "pawns in the homeless industrial complex." 

Steyer, for his part, surprised by declaring himself the only one on stage willing to vote for the 5% estate tax proposal on billionaires that could make it to the November ballot. His words, however, seemed a contradiction, since in the previous debate he had called the proposal "flawed." He also moved further to the left than other Democrats by stating his desire to "abolish ICE," a stance that many moderate Democrats see as risky.

How's the race shaping up?

Voting by mail has already begun, and Voting Centers open for in-person suffrage on May 23 in counties such as Santa Clara, San Mateo and Alameda. The last day to register is May 18.

For months, the Democratic Party feared a dire scenario because of the split candidates: that two Republicans would advance to November. That fear, however, has dissipated with the polls. Now, the only fear is whether Hilton will manage to sustain his lead in polls. Still, it's hard to believe that the Democrat who makes it to the second round won't be able to coalesce the votes of the other candidates.