Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton said he would strip taxpayer-funded security from former Vice President Kamala Harris if he wins California’s governor’s race in November.
The pledge to take the “corrupt freebie” comes after backlash re-erupted this week, following reports that Harris was accompanied by California Highway Patrol officers during stops on her book tour.
Harris had previously secured an extension of federal protection when former President Joe Biden authorized continued security coverage through July after she left office. But that protection ended in September under President Donald Trump. California officials later stepped in and assigned state-provided security to the former vice president.
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Hilton has argued the arrangement forces California taxpayers to foot the bill for Harris’s protection, something he says he would end if elected governor.
“The Kamala Harris book tour is obviously part of her presidential campaign,” he told the New York Post. “Her donors — if she has any — should be paying for her security, not Californians who already pay the highest taxes in the country for the worst results.”
Los Angeles police and the California Highway Patrol are providing taxpayer-funded security for Harris, who has been flirting with the idea of running in the 2028 presidential election — a move that has infuriated some Republican lawmakers.
The use of state and local resources was likely requested by Harris and approved by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) and outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) after Trump revoked her Secret Service detail in September.
The CHP is authorized to provide security for current and former California constitutional officers when a threat assessment deems it necessary. Harris, a former state constitutional officer, is receiving protection coordinated by the agency in response to current concerns, sources told the Washington Examiner.
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Bass called Trump’s actions “another act of revenge following a long list of political retaliation in the forms of firings, the revoking of security clearances and more.”
“This puts the former Vice President in danger and I look forward to working with the Governor to make sure Vice President Harris is safe,” she said.
Calls to Hilton, who is polling among the top three candidates in an extremely crowded governor’s race, were not returned. Calls to Harris were also not returned.
The state’s gubernatorial race has finally started to show its first signs of shape for Democrats, though a new poll suggests the crowded contest is more competitive and unpredictable than many expected.
Three Democrats — former Rep. Katie Porter, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), and billionaire Tom Steyer — and two Republicans — former Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — are within 4 percentage points of one another, according to the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California survey. All five candidates are also within the 3.9% margin of error heading into the June primary, underscoring how unsettled the race remains.
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There are more than a dozen candidates in the race. Hilton drew 14% of likely voters. Porter followed at 13%, Bianco at 12%, Swalwell at 11%, and Steyer at 10%, according to the poll, which was conducted of 1,657 California residents between Feb. 3 and Feb. 11. Ten percent of voters said they didn’t know who they’d vote for, while 30% spread their support among the other candidates.
The results complicate early assumptions that a single Democratic front-runner would have emerged by now in the deep blue state. Instead, the dynamics point to a fractured field, with name recognition, ideological lane-splitting, and a primary in which the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, move on to November’s general election, which could result in a Republican advancing.
