Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton secured a place on the November ballot as California election officials continue counting thousands of ballots that favor Democrats more than a week after the primary.
Mr. Hilton, a businessman and former Fox News host running on an agenda to reform the state after decades of Democratic governance, made the cut despite the mail-in ballot dump of Democratic votes, multiple news agencies projected.
On Tuesday, Mr. Hilton called the state’s drawn-out election process, which he said allows ballot backdating, a “catastrophic shambles.”
The latest results from California’s secretary of state showed Mr. Hilton in second place in the nonpartisan primary with 25.0% of the vote, trailing Democrat Xavier Becerra’s 27.9%, according to the latest tally posted online.
With 89% of the ballots counted, the numbers indicate the two men will advance to the general election, while billionaire businessman and environmental activist Tom Steyer, who spent more than $200 million of his fortune running in the primary, remained in third place with 22.6% of the vote.
Mr. Steyer conceded defeat Tuesday evening and urged his voters to back Mr. Becerra.
“It would be a travesty for Steve Hilton to win the governorship, and Californians must unite behind Xavier Becerra to ensure he does not,” he said in a statement.
On Monday, insurgent Republican candidate and former reality TV star Spencer Pratt was knocked out of the Los Angeles mayor’s race despite his second-place finish on Election Day that would have guaranteed him a spot on the November ballot.
Mr. Pratt fell to third place after a postelection dump of mail-in ballots that favored a left-wing Democrat who had delivered what some characterized as a concession speech.
Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman’s share of the vote climbed from 20% on June 3, one day after the election, to 28.5% nearly a week later, after thousands of mail-in ballots were counted. She placed second to Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat who led the field with 34.3% when The Associated Press and other outlets called the race.
Ms. Bass and Ms. Raman will advance to the November general election ballot, outraging Republicans and Pratt supporters, who blamed Ms. Raman’s improbable surge on the state’s liberal election rules allowing people to harvest ballots and write the date on them, enabling backdating.
California mails ballots to every eligible voter. Ballots dropped off in person must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, and mailed ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day.
Election officials continue to count ballots that arrive up to a week after the election.
The mail-in ballots pushed Mr. Pratt out of second place, leading critics, including President Trump, to accuse California of rigging its elections.
Mr. Trump has endorsed Mr. Hilton for governor.
Mr. Hilton is a leading critic of California’s election policies, though he said he has not observed any fraud in his own race so far.
“You can backdate your ballot because it doesn’t require a postmark to be counted to prove you voted on or before Election Day,” Mr. Hilton said at a Tuesday press conference. “Backdating ballots. That is the farce of California’s election system. That needs to change.”
Mr. Hilton called the results that pushed Mr. Pratt off the mayoral ballot in Los Angeles “an outrage and a travesty.”
Other outlets that track nationwide elections, among them The Associated Press, had not projected Mr. Hilton as a winner seven days after the June 2 primary.
Decision Desk HQ teams up with websites and news outlets and has a track record of providing data and accurately calling elections. The site frequently beats AP in declaring victories.
“We’re not popping Champagne yet,” Mr. Hilton told cheering supporters at the press conference. He said he was awaiting AP’s call on the race “the old-fashioned way.”
“But we are confident that we will be in the top two to face Xavier Becerra and to give Californians a choice for change in November,” Mr. Hilton said.
Mr. Becerra, who served as health and human services secretary under President Biden and as California attorney general from 2017 to 2021, has been projected by AP and other outlets to have qualified for the November ballot.
California is facing Republican criticism over its slow tallying and is now under a federal investigation.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles said Friday that it had opened “multiple election fraud investigations” related to California’s elections and sent a prosecutor to the county’s vote-counting center.
Democrats have scoffed at the scrutiny. They outnumber Republicans in the state by nearly 2-to-1, and most vote by mail.
Still, some critics question how Mr. Pratt could have been ahead by more than 40,000 votes a day after the election, only to have a net swing of 43,000 votes to Ms. Raman in the following days.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a term-limited Democrat considering a 2028 presidential run, brushed off the concerns. His press team posted on social media that California “is a big state and mail can take some time.” He was responding to criticism by Bill Wells, the Republican mayor of El Cajon, California, who said ballots received after the election “should not be counted.”
Mr. Hilton’s share of support shrank in postelection ballot counting, but he appears poised to survive after a race that showed him consistently at or near the top of most polls.
Mr. Hilton pledges to lower taxes, reduce government spending and slash burdensome regulations.
He told The Washington Times that Californians are “sick of it and they want change” after one-party Democratic rule has led to higher costs, higher unemployment, a massive homelessness crisis, terrible schools, increasing poverty and a housing shortage.
Mr. Becerra promised to declare California’s housing shortage “a state of emergency” and to steer the state, now $497 billion in debt, toward a universal healthcare system.
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