You can have the right resume, an excellent pedigree, a great record of accomplishment, and you still don’t get elected. Politics isn’t fair. Oftentimes, it isn’t moral. The outcomes come and go depending on the place, time, candidate, or the other opponent making one more mistake than the winner.
Sometimes, though, a candidate doesn’t make any mistakes. Public sentiment drifts in a different direction.
I still remember the student council election for my senior year. A young lady, beautiful in spirit and form, let’s call her Patty, had served on the student council for our class for three years in a row. She did the hard work when no one was looking. She fundraised for the class programs. She attended the high school sports events. She was a good student, too.
When the race for senior class president rolled out, she was the lead contender. Then stepped in a relative nobody named Jenny. She was a nice girl, someone I had known from elementary school. She was quiet and unassuming, and she had never done anything major on campus. She never participated in extracurricular activities and never worked for any school cause. Come student council election day, Jenny won the Senior Class President. Patty quietly rushed to the student library (where I was studying at the time), and she just sobbed, “It’s not fair!” and crashed into her friend’s arms.
All her work meant nothing to the rest of the student body. Her pain still sticks out in my memory, and it underscores clearly how politics isn’t fair.
At the end of it all, campaigning is an amoral quest to get the most votes. Sadly, sometimes the contenders lie, cheat, and steal to win. Even setting aside outright fraud, elections can turn up winners who don’t deserve the win on many levels.
That’s a lesson I wasn’t happy to relearn following last week’s California primary.
From the moment he announced, I supported Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco for governor.
He was already an effective elected executive. He had served 33 years in law enforcement, having defeated a corrupt incumbent to lead one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the country.
He made national news when he revolted against California Governor Gavin Newsom’s lockdown orders and mask mandates in 2020. Most elected officials were biding their time, wondering when the worst of the lockdown madness would blow over.
Bianco didn’t wait. He told the Riverside County Board of Supervisors plainly that he would not enforce those mandates. No one was going to jail for refusing to wear a mask or choosing to keep his business open.
In early January 2021, I attended a “Stop the Steal” rally in Murrieta, and I enjoyed visiting the department stores and eating at the local restaurants—and without having to wear a mask or show proof of vaccination. I live in Los Angeles County, and the most I could get away with was not wearing a mask outside. Businesses and government buildings insisted on the mask mandate, even when I voted in the recall to get rid of Newsom in August 2021 which crashed and burned by a worse margin than expected.
Sheriff Bianco set the standard for resistance to medical tyranny. He set the standard that other sheriffs would follow, even the Democratic Sheriff of Los Angeles County, Alex Villanueva, who announced in July, 2021 his refusal to enforce the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors’ reinstatement of the indoor mask mandate.
For years, I have been fighting illegal immigration at the local and state levels in California. Many of the city council and county supervisor meetings I attended had to do with immigration: partner with ICE, work with the federal government, reject California’s sanctuary state policies.
The health freedom fight replaced my activism against illegal immigration. Rallies and protests erupted across Los Angeles and Orange Counties. More Californians found out that they can—they must—reject COVID-19 tyranny.
And Bianco represented that courage, a red-blooded American sheriff in a blue state standing strong for the United States Constitution.
And not just for health freedom.
Bianco bucked the gun-control trends of the Golden State, setting up a one-stop shop for concealed carry weapons permits. While most sheriffs rarely issued CCWs to law-abiding citizens, Riverside County boasted 60,000 permits. That’s a tsunami of Second Amendment support compared to other more conservative counties like Orange, Placer, or San Bernardino counties!
That’s leadership, and you cannot manufacture that.
Bianco worked with federal law enforcement to deport as many illegals as possible from county jails. He didn’t send deputies to accompany ICE raids (that is illegal under SB 54), but Bianco did everything he could within the law to ensure a safer county.
I have many friends in Riverside County, and they love their sheriff. They came out in droves to support him in two elections for the top law enforcement job. Democrats, Independents, and Republicans supported him, too.
Sheriff Bianco didn’t sit on the sidelines when it came to parents' rights in education. He endorsed conservative candidates, including outspoken mama bear Sonja Shaw, who is in the running for the State Superintendent of Schools this fall.
Bianco is pro-life, pro-family, and unafraid to share his Christian faith in public. He also openly endorsed President Trump in 2024, declaring half-jokingly: “It’s time to elect a felon for the White House.”
In February 2025, Bianco announced his bid for governor. I thought he was a shoo-in for the general election.
Then Steve Hilton launched a campaign for governor two months later.
Hilton had never been elected to office. He served as a campaign strategist for the UK Conservative Party under David Cameron for two years. He dragged the center-right party to the left on abortion, LGBT issues, climate change, and guns.
He was a Fox News anchor who advocated for lockdowns during the first months of the COVID-19 outbreak. He talked about asset reparations for black Americans. On “The Young Turks,” he openly admitted that he was to the left of socialist US Senator Bernie Sanders on economic issues.
This guy was no conservative, and he had admitted that he was not a Republican at one time, too!
Conservative activists in California were not impressed. We gathered at the California Republican Assembly convention in February 2026, and during the endorsement process, Bianco was far ahead of the other Republican challengers. In the end, Bianco received the endorsement with 71 percent of the vote compared to 29 percent for Hilton.
It was a shut-out!
Then came Easter 2026—and President Trump issued his endorsement for Steve Hilton.
Despite an incredible resume and record of accomplishment, Bianco lost traction. Hilton surged ahead and backed Bianco into fourth place. His supporters believed that the polls were wrong and that Trump’s endorsement wouldn’t matter come election day. We were wrong, and Hilton won.
The sheriff had leadership experience, skill, and an enviable record. Yet the news commentator had the anti-establishment (?) Trump endorsement, and voters went along.
It’s not fair. I don’t think it’s right, and I think it jeopardizes an otherwise winnable governor’s race for November. Will some Democrats and Independent voters look past Hilton’s Trump endorsement and his tenure on Fox News to elect him governor? I doubt it.
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