GOP governor hopefuls give closing arguments to oft-forgotten Central Valley Republicans

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CLOVIS, Calif. — In the waning days before California’s primary election, the two top Republicans running for California governor delivered closing arguments in front of a friendly Central Valley audience Friday evening.Though Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and former Fox News host Steve Hilton have attacked each other throughout the campaign, they abstained from feuding and instead focused on common enemies — Gov.Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers who control the Legislature.Hilton criticized Newsom’s new $20-million program to provide free diapers for families of newborn babies, referring to the outgoing governor as “the great loaded diaper of California himself.”Earlier this year, Hilton and Bianco topped the governor’s race polls as a packed field of Democrats split many of the state’s liberal voters.

Under California’s “jungle primary” system, where the top two candidates advance from the primary to the general election regardless of political affiliation, that led to fleeting hope among Republicans that the two candidates could shut Democratic candidates out of the November election.California A political consultant filed an application with state officials seeking to alter California’s voting system by reverting to a traditional primary with the top vote-getters from each party.“That idea was always a fantasy,” Hilton wrote in an op-ed published in the New York Post earlier this week in which he urged Bianco to drop out of the race “for the sake of the state we both love.”“Steve, it is time for you to drop out,” Bianco retorted in a video posted to social media soon after.

“In no world, no world does Steve Hilton beat a Democrat in November.”After winning an endorsement from President Trump in early April, Hilton has steadily outpaced Bianco in polls.A poll commissioned by the California Democratic Party released last we...