Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt need Latinos, not Trump

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Ideas expressed in the piece

• The column argues that Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt face a basic strategic contradiction: they are running as conservatives in overwhelmingly Democratic jurisdictions where most voters, and especially Latinos, strongly dislike President Trump, yet they are not distancing themselves from the White House.
• It emphasizes that Latino voters are now a pivotal, highly volatile bloc in California politics, capable of swinging local and statewide races when mobilized by anger, and notes that 2026 is a banner year for such anger because many Latinos feel failed by Democratic leadership on issues from City Hall to Sacramento.
• The piece contends that recent history shows Latinos drifting rightward on some issues and candidates — pointing to Rick Caruso’s majority support among Latino voters in the 2022 L.A. mayor’s race and a growing number of Latino Republicans in the Legislature — but insists that this movement does not translate into loyalty to Trump himself.
• It highlights polling that depicts a dramatic collapse in Latino support for Trump after mass deportation crackdowns, a war in Iran, and a shaky economy, with a New York Times/Siena survey showing only 20% Latino support and a Pew study finding that a notably smaller share of Latinos who voted for Trump still approve of the president compared with white Trump voters.
• The article maintains that Hilton has badly misread this landscape by actively seeking Trump’s endorsement and framing a cooperative relationship with the White House as an asset, even though California voters overwhelmingly rebuked Trump’s agenda by passing Proposition 50, an anti-gerrymandering measure that Latino-majority precincts backed in especially high numbers.
• It further argues that Hilton’s refusal to criticize Trump’s role in California’s economic malaise, coupled with branding as the champion of “legal” immigrants despite a personal biography that does not reflect typical immigrant experiences in the state, resurrects memories of Proposition 187-style Republican politics that alienated a generation of Latino Californians.
• The column suggests that Hilton’s economic message — marketed as a “Califordable” agenda and accessorized with cultural outreach like taco-eating photo-ops — cannot overcome the damage of embracing a president who recently said he thinks about Americans’ financial struggles “not even a little bit.”
• Turning to Pratt, the piece notes that the candidate has been more guarded in public comments about Trump and insists that the mayor’s race is nonpartisan, yet still benefits from Trump’s praise while declining to condemn federal actions that hit Latino Angelenos hardest.
• It criticizes Pratt for pledging to work closely with ICE and federal immigration agencies and for attacking Los Angeles’ sanctuary city ordinance, even after highly publicized immigration raids and a temporary military “occupation” of the region swept up many residents with no criminal records.
• The column portrays Pratt’s Latino outreach — AI-generated salsa and merengue songs, Spanglish insults of Mayor Karen Bass as “Basura,” and events promoted with taco trucks — as shallow cultural pandering that ignores the lived impact of Trump-era enforcement and paints Latino Los Angeles as a prop rather than a constituency to be taken seriously.
• Ultimately, the piece concludes that Hilton and Pratt cannot credibly ask Latinos to power their “historic upsets” while aligning themselves, even implicitly, with a president whose policies and rhetoric have repeatedly targeted Latino communities; the column suggests that unless they decisively break with Trump, Latino voters have little reason to trust their promises.

Different views on the topic

• In contrast, coverage of the governor’s race in The Times reports that Trump’s endorsement has the potential to be a major asset for Hilton in a volatile primary, noting that recent UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies polling shows Hilton and fellow Republican Chad Bianco as leading contenders in a crowded field despite California’s Democratic tilt^[2].
• A separate analysis in Governing quotes political strategist Dan Schnur arguing that Trump’s backing has “all but guaranteed” Hilton a place in the two-candidate runoff, suggesting that alignment with the president may be helping Hilton consolidate conservative voters and secure a top-two primary slot, even if it complicates a broader general-election appeal^[3].
• CalMatters’ voter guide underscores that a fragmented Democratic field has allowed two Republicans, Hilton and Bianco, to consistently poll near the top in the governor’s race, framing their rise as driven by voter frustration over crime, homelessness and affordability rather than solely by attitudes toward Trump; the guide notes that two Republicans advancing is a plausible outcome under California’s top-two system^[5].
• Reporting on the Los Angeles mayoral race complicates the idea that Trump’s shadow makes Pratt unelectable with Latinos: a UC Berkeley IGS poll co-sponsored by The Times finds Karen Bass leading among Latino voters but shows Pratt running a strong second and ahead of progressive City Councilmember Nithya Raman, indicating that a sizable share of Latino Angelenos is open to Pratt despite his conservative branding and Trump’s public praise^[1].
• That same Times coverage stresses that Latinos make up roughly 37% of the city’s electorate and that candidates across the spectrum — including Bass, Pratt and Raman — are aggressively courting this bloc through Spanish-language advertising, community events and endorsements, reinforcing the view that Latino voters are pragmatic and willing to consider a range of candidates rather than uniformly rejecting Republicans or Trump-adjacent figures^[1].
• Broader analyses of the 2026 landscape note that Latino voting patterns in California have already shown fluidity: CalMatters and other outlets have pointed out that some heavily Latino areas shifted toward Trump between 2020 and 2024 and that Republicans have made down-ballot gains, which these reports interpret as evidence that dissatisfaction with Democratic governance can outweigh national partisan labels in certain communities^[5].
• On the policy front, Hilton’s appearances on platforms such as “The Adam Carolla Show” present a campaign primarily focused on state-level economic issues — including high living costs, regulatory burdens and what is described as “economic chaos” — rather than on Trump himself, positioning Hilton as a candidate whose appeal to disaffected voters, including Latinos, may rest on a concrete critique of Sacramento rather than on presidential loyalty^[4].
• Statewide surveys by the Public Policy Institute of California show that many Californians support downsizing the federal government and are open to cutting certain foreign expenditures, viewpoints commonly associated with conservative or Trump-era politics; analysts note that this indicates an appetite, among some voters, for elements of the policy agenda linked to Trump even when personal favorability for the president is low^[6].
• Additionally, The Times’ coverage of Latino outreach in the mayor’s race notes that Pratt, Bass and other contenders are investing heavily in community-specific engagement — from small-business endorsements to neighborhood events — and portrays Latino voters as responsive to concrete local proposals on housing, public safety and services, not just national ideological alignments^[1].
• Taken together, these reports suggest a countervailing perspective: while Trump remains deeply polarizing, especially in California, his endorsement can still provide strategic advantages in Republican-dominated segments of the electorate, and candidates like Hilton and Pratt may find pathways to Latino and broader voter support if their local and economic messages resonate more strongly than their perceived proximity to the president^{[1][2][3][5][6]}.