In the crowded field of mostly Democratic candidates vying to be California’s next governor, one MAGA Republican has had surprising staying power — Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.
He’s recently been in national headlines for seizing hundreds of thousands of ballots in what he’s calling a vote count discrepancy investigation, among other controversies. Bianco has built his profile on bashing the state’s Democrats and Governor Gavin Newsom.
At a campaign fundraiser at the Day Family Classic Car museum in Corona, Bianco meanders through rows and rows of restored Chevys, the actual Pontiac convertible from “I Love Lucy” and classic convertibles displayed in front of a screen like an old drive-in theater.
“The smell of an antique automobile… it makes you feel good,” Bianco says while reminiscing about the cars he drove as a teenager in Utah.
Bianco looks like an old west sheriff from the cowboy films of Hollywood’s golden era. On this late March evening he’s wearing a black cowboy hat, black cowboy boots and has a thick, salt-and-pepper walrus mustache. And he’s wearing his sheriff’s badge on his belt.
‘Liken it to the Gold Rush years’
Bianco said the classic cars remind him of a better time, and that his nostalgia will help inform his goals if he’s elected governor.
“I want government out of the way of growth in California so we can once again finally prosper,” he said. “Bring our cost of living down, build more houses so we can actually have places to live that are affordable.”
He adds: “It's going to be like … California… will be more prosperous than at any time in its history, and I will liken it to the Gold Rush years.”
Bianco blames Democrats in Sacramento for ruining the state he said he fell in love with as a kid visiting from Utah.
“Our businesses are leaving. Our workers are leaving. Our kids can't afford to live here. There's nothing good coming from the current Democrat party,” said Bianco.
Bianco’s platform relies heavily on bashing Democrats every chance he can. He also emphasizes his law enforcement background. He was a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy, working in various roles at the department for 30 years, and was elected Riverside County Sheriff in 2018.
‘They couldn’t control me’
Since Bianco became sheriff in 2018, he has leaned into his cantankerous MAGA persona. He gained national attention during the COVID pandemic for refusing to obey Governor Newsom’s lockdown orders.
“They couldn’t control me. They couldn't shut my county down,” Bianco said.
He also would not enforce a COVID vaccine mandate for his deputies.
A few years later, deaths in Riverside County jails hit a record high. In 2022, 19 people died in his jails with causes ranging from drug overdoses to suicide. In an interview with KVCR, he said he told parents whose children died that he wasn’t to blame.
“They want to blame me instead of their child for being in jail, instead of their child for overdosing on drugs while they were in jail, they want to blame me,” said Bianco.
Many of the families of those who died in Riverside County jails have sued Bianco for violations of civil rights. The jail deaths also prompted a civil rights investigation in 2023 from California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
Bianco was also a member of the far-right extremist Oath Keepers militia; he insists the group is guided by the same principles as the ACLU.
In 2024, Bianco erroneously claimed his department stopped an assasination attempt on President Donald Trump at a rally in the Coachella Valley. Vem Miller, a Trump supporter and Nevada resident, was arrested for possessing guns. He said he did not know California's gun laws and had no intention of harming Trump.
Miller filed a $100 million lawsuit in Nevada against Bianco for defamation and violation of civil rights.
Most recently, Bianco seized 650,000 ballots from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters. The move also gained national attention. The investigation was prompted by a tip from the Riverside Elections Integrity Team, a citizen’s group that alleged election fraud.
REIT alleged that some 45,000 more ballots were counted than cast in the 2025 election to redraw California’s congressional map.
Bianco’s ballot seizure led to a legal battle with Bonta, the state’s Attorney General, who petitioned a judge to stop the count. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said Bianco's actions were based on a “lack of credible evidence” and risked “undermining public confidence in elections.”
Weber also said Bianco’s deputies did not have expertise in election administration.
Weeks after the ballot seizure, a judge ordered the secret warrants Bianco used to seize the ballots be unsealed. That led elections experts to question whether the investigation was valid.
Loyola Marymount law professor Justin Levitt said probable cause must be established to get a warrant, and the warrants in the case showed that didn’t happen.
“Most disturbingly, there doesn't seem to be any indication of criminal wrongdoing,” said Levitt.
The California Supreme Court has paused Bianco’s investigation while it reviews the case.
‘Going to remove all regulation’
Bianco’s base seems to be unaffected by the recent controversy.
“I think he’s the only one that can save the state,” said supporter Julie Pizzatola, who was at a recent campaign rally for Bianco in Lake Elsinore.
Pizzatola echoes what many of Bianco’s supporters say.
“I can barely afford my mortgage. I can barely afford gas,” she said. “So, anything that we can do to lower taxes is what I'm supporting. And I think being tough on crime is great.”
Bianco says one of his top priorities as governor is to make the state more affordable, so people can continue to live here.
“I am going to remove all of the regulation that's harming our businesses, that's harming our farming community, that's harming our oil industry,” Bianco said.
He says he’ll do that by killing the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA. He said he’d also get rid of the Coastal Commission and the California Air Quality Resources Board.
“Those are the issues that cause our cost of living to go up,” said Bianco.
Bianco also wants to cut the state income tax for all Californians, which he says he’ll do, in part, by increasing the state’s oil production.
Eric Schickler with the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley said that plan doesn’t seem realistic. Schickler also says Bianco would have a hard time undoing the environmental protections.
“There's just, there's no way that that happens without passing legislation, and there's no way that legislation would pass with a Democratic Legislature,” said Schickler.
The other Republican
Bianco has one Republican opponent: Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator. He poses a challenge for Bianco, as Hilton has consistently polled in the top two. And despite Bianco's loyalty to President Donald Trump, the president endorsed Hilton in an early April Truth Social post.
“This race is about the future of California, not any one endorsement,” Bianco said in a video posted on his social media after Trump endorsed Hilton.
The California Republican Party didn’t endorse anyone at its convention because neither candidate got the necessary 60% of votes from delegates to clinch the endorsement. However, Bianco beat Hilton by 5 percentage points.
“[Bianco has] clearly drawn grassroots support from Republican activists across the state, and has been a surprisingly consistent presence in poll after poll after poll,” said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego.
Kousser said Bianco has mostly evaded attacks as the Democratic candidates fight between themselves. But he said, like Trump’s surprising win in 2016, people should not count Bianco out just yet.
“I think Bianco's chances are much slimmer than that, but this is still a remarkably wide open race,” said Kousser.
In the California jungle primary system, the top two vote-getters in June’s primary will advance to the November election.
