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Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican who is ranked at the top of recent California gubernatorial polls, believes that Californians finally have had enough and are ready to end Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Democratic leaders’ “sick and twisted love affair with criminals.”
A poll released Wednesday by the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies shows that Bianco ranked a close second at 16% among support for candidates running for California governor. Fellow Republican Steve Hilton was ranked first within margin of error at 17%.
Both Republicans are ahead of the two top Democratic names, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and former Rep. Katie Porter, who are each at 13%.
Bianco, who leads one of the largest sheriff’s offices in the U.S., said in an interview with Fox News Digital that the shocking poll has a simple explanation: California has been prioritizing criminals and illegal immigrants above its own citizens. And after years under Newsom and decades of one-party Democratic rule, he said California is “worse off than it ever has been.”
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Bianco and other Republicans are gaining traction in early polling as crime, cost of living and immigration policies emerge as defining issues in California’s 2026 governor’s race. The state’s handling of public safety and quality-of-life concerns could be reshaping the political landscape in a traditionally Democratic stronghold, creating an opening for GOP candidates to compete.
“We’re leading in these polls because we are offering a better California,” Bianco said. “We are offering a commonsense California, and it’s resonating with people.”
Riverside County, California, Sheriff Chad Bianco announces his 2026 Republican campaign for governor, Feb. 17, 2025. (Chad Bianco campaign)
Meanwhile, he said that Newsom and the Democrats’ “absolute refusal” to enforce the law is choking out California businesses.
“It’s no longer a cost of doing business,” he said. “It’s driving them out of business.”
“The weather only keeps you in California for so long,” he went on. “You can’t function here if you’re not safe. Our farming community is getting robbed blind, their equipment’s being stolen, their produce is being stolen … (and) our regular businesses are being robbed blind.”
Bianco granted that some statistics show crime is down. However, he asserted that this “makes it worse” because criminal classifications are being changed to obscure the true extent of crime in California.
In 2014, before Newsom’s time in the governor’s mansion, California voters voted in favor of a proposition that reduced the penalties for some crimes, such as drug possession and shoplifting, from felonies to misdemeanors.
“Things that were a crime 14 years ago are no longer a crime, so they don’t get reported,” said Bianco. “Things that used to be crimes aren’t crimes, but we’re still feeling it.”
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Riverside, California, Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is surging in recent California gubernatorial polls, accused Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats of having a “sick and twisted love affair with criminals.” (Getty Images)
From his time as Riverside sheriff and speaking with other law enforcement leaders, Bianco believes that California politicians have effectively tied law enforcement’s hands behind their backs.
“If people are not safe, if people’s kids aren’t safe at school, if they’re not safe in the park, if people aren’t safe going to the grocery store at night, they’re not going to want to live here. And that’s why for the last five years in a row, California has lost residents.”
That, Bianco said, is where California’s sanctuary policies enter.
California prohibits state and local law enforcement from using resources to enforce or investigate federal immigration violations and restricts cooperation with ICE, except in certain cases, including for individuals convicted of specified serious or qualifying offenses.
California also restricts immigration enforcement in sensitive locations like schools and hospitals by requiring a judicial warrant for access to nonpublic areas and limiting institutional cooperation with federal authorities. The state also has passed a law requiring agents to show identification and limiting the use of face coverings, though its enforcement has been challenged and remains legally contested.
“They know it’s a disaster; they refuse to stop it,” he said. “So, instead, they import illegal immigrants into the state and then give them free stuff on our backs. They take all our taxpayer money and give them free healthcare, free medical, free school, free everything, free money to live on.”
“Everyone is just tired of it,” he went on, noting, “even Democrats know, they can’t vote Democrat this time.”
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Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco (left) and business leader Steve Hilton (right), both Republicans, were ranked the top two California gubernatorial candidates in a recent poll by Berkeley IGS. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images; Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Bianco posited that the path back to sanity in California is being led by law enforcement.
He has been endorsed by a slate of 52 law enforcement leaders and groups, including the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association of San Diego County and the Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC), which is the largest law enforcement organization in the state and represents more than 86,000 public safety members and more than 960 associations.
Notably, PORAC also endorsed Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa in the race.
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“Law enforcement is completely behind me,” said Bianco.
“California is in dire, desperate search of someone that they can trust that is going to be honest and transparent with them,” he said. “They all realize, if you employ common sense, send the law guy that’s been doing it for so long, to fix the corruption and the crime.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Newsom for comment but did not receive a statement.
A rumored frontrunner for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, Newsom repeatedly has emphasized that crime in California is on the decline.
Newsom’s office recently released a statement showing that during his tenure California has invested $1.7 billion “to fight crime, help local governments hire more police, and improve public safety.”
Newsom’s office said that his 2023 allocation of $267 million to 55 communities to combat retail crime was “part of the largest-ever state investment to fight organized retail crime.”
Commenting on this investment, Newsom said in a January press release, “These operations continue to send a clear message: California will not tolerate organized crime that preys on working families, small businesses, and local communities.”
Peter Pinedo is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
