John, we have our final update in the poll commissioned by the California Democratic Party. This was the poll that was commissioned to get all of the lower polling candidates to drop out. The only one that took them up on that was Ian Calderon and then he endorsed Swallowell, so that didn't work out very well. But here we go the fourth tracker. This poll started in March seventeenth, and now they finally have the last time. They will
be updating this in May sixteenth. And in first place with twenty two percent of the vote it is Steve Hilton, followed very closely in second place with twenty one percent Javier bach Area.
And then you have Tom Steyer and Chad Bianco. Correct.
Yes, but here's what's interesting. When you compare to the last poll, which was early May. Hilton had a four point bump, Bessarah had a three point bump. Steyer had a three point bump. He's now at fifteen. Bianco had a four point drop and he's been consistent at fourteen the entire time.
Okay, so if you add up the support of both Republican candidates, what number do you get?
You get thirty two.
Okay, here's why I think that poll is off. Polling is based on modeling in terms of who you think is going to turn out and vote, who is the voting electorate, And you base that decision on a bunch of different factors. First and foremost, you look at past performance in the past, what did the electorate look like? And then you also ask voters themselves. You asked a voter, are you extremely likely to vote? Are you likely to vote?
Do you think you may not vote? Those sorts of things, and they tell you, and then you ask them questions like have you voted in the last election, have you voted in three out of the last four elections? Those sorts of things, and you add it all up and you figure out just exactly who you think is going
to vote. Well, if they have the Republican slice of the pie at thirty two percent, that is out of line with what we've seen in the past, because if you go back to twenty eighteen, that's when Newsom ran against John Cox, John Cox who was essentially a warm body, not even really campaigning aggressively, and every time he would go out and campaign, I think the guy lost votes. He ended up at thirty eight percent of the vote, six points higher than what this poll is saying. In
twenty twenty two, it was Newsom versus Brian Dolly. Brian Dolly did a better job than John Cox, but not much. He really didn't raise any money, he wasn't up on TV, Knwsom at that point was almost universally known, and he still did better. He did forty one percent. That was the slice of the pie for Republicans. That was nine points higher than what this poll is showing. And then you look at ballots that have been returned so far in California, and Republicans are turning their ballots in at
a better rate than they did four years ago. In fact, even though we're a heavily democratic state. So far, of the ballots that have been collected, forty one percent of them belonged to Democrats, thirty seven percent belonged to Republicans, and twenty two percent belonged to no party preference or third party voters, which means Republicans are overperforming the slice of the pie just from the ballots that have already
been turned in. So I think Hilton will likely do better than what that poll reflects, And I think that Bianco will likely do better than what that poll reflects. That being said, maybe the pollsters have it right, maybe I have it wrong. I don't know, but based on all the evidence I've seen, I think thirty two percent is awful low.
Now when you go further down below the ten percent they have for Bianco coming in in first, second, third, fourth, fifth place is Johnny's girl kt Porter at seven percent.
Well, that may be it.
She started at ten, she dipped to seven, then she went to ten, dipped to eight, and dipped again to seven, So the debates haven't really done well for her. Matt Mayhan is also an interesting story. Matt Mayhan, who got into this race very late, started at three, then went up to four, then went up to five, then went up to seven, and now he's back at four.
Which is funny because if you look at the performance and the debates, he has probably had the best performance out of.
All of them.
It depends what you want out of those debates. But yes, Matt Mayhan has had a very strong performance. But what are people actually voting for. If they're voting for competence in government, Mayhen would be polling more than four percent.
And I just don't think well, first of all, I think Republicans are voting for Republicans, Democrats are voting for Democrats, and his message appeals to Republicans who aren't going to vote for him anyway. And there's no one in the Democratic Party who cares about any of the stuff that he's talking about.
When it comes to the former mayor of Los Aenne, Jelius Antonio Viaregosa, he went from a three to a four to a two to a two.
To a one.
Boy, the bottom just fell out for him.
Tony Thurman went from a one to less than a one to a one to a one to a one.
You're number one.
But of course, the one trend that everyone's holding on to, and it's true with this poll as it has been with many other polls, the Bakaia bump seems to be here to stay. On March seventeenth, Javier Bessera had three percent, and this is a tracker poll, so they pulled the
same people over and over again. He started three, then four, then thirteen, then eighteen, then twenty one, and this is May sixteenth, So I think that would mean that this is after the interview on KTLA, which has not damaged him significantly.
By the way, this is a profile piece. This is not a gotcha piece.
Right.
You know who has to be the maddest person in the world is Katie Porter Because her losing her temper with a reporter and a staffer knocked her out of this race, and him doing the same thing had no impact.
You're out of my shot, poor Katie. What are you gonna do, Johnny? In two weeks, She's gonna be completely irrelevant. Oh no, I'm telling you, She's going to run for something else. It's gonna be a while, though. She is going to spend the rest of her life running for office. Meanwhile, as all of this is happening, Tom Steyer has been accused of buying off online social media influencers to support
his campaign. If you're wondering why your favorite TikToker is all in for Stier, it's because he was paid to be and they're not disclosing it. For more on this, we go to ABC ten in Sacramento.
Tonight, the California Fair Political Practices Commission confirms Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Styer's campaign is under investigation. The stire campaign faces allegations of failing to properly disclose payments for campaign related social media content. Take a look at this video is in question. It features influencer Isaiah Washington, known as Zadante, who has been paid ten thousand dollars.
Zay Dante is all in for Styre. Have you ever heard of Zaidani?
I have not known as Zadante who, To be fair, I don't think zay Dante has ever heard of us.
There's a lot of famous people now.
Known people known as Zadante, who has been paid ten thousand dollars by the stire campaign, per campaign filing records.
In it.
Washington, who is also named in the FPPC complaint for not disclosing he was paid, features an interview with Styre discussing campaign points.
You don't pay to do an interview. So how does this work? Does a Dante cover California politics? Or is this just an influencer that talks about other subjects and now he's going totally out of character to weigh in on state politics.
How do you think you spell ze Dante?
I have no clue.
Let's just try Za Dante now, zydn Okay I found him, Za Dante, z Ay Why Dante This guy has got one point eight million followers on the tiktoks, and his latest tiktoks are listening to Drake's new album.
So it's a music influencer.
I think he's a whatever's popular influencer. Oh he has reaction shots to watching the roast of Kevin Hart, listening to Tea. Most of these videos are him listening to rap songs and how he feels about it. One of them is reacting to an episode of The Boys. None of this has anything to do with Tom Steyer. None of it has to do with what's going on in
California politics. He reviews the latest episode of Euphoria. So when this guy all of a sudden breaks from his usual habits to interview Tom Steyer, Yeah, that would raise a red flagger ten you think now?
The Instagram video is disclosed as a paid partnership, though the now deleted TikTok version failed to provide that disclosure. It's not clear if the disclaimer was added after the FPPC complaint, and Washington did not respond to request.
For Poor Tom Steyer. He has to pay people to talk to him.
He's a seventy year old billionaire.
Who apparently is being talked about NonStop by the rap crowd.
And Washington did not respond to request for comment on Monday. Maybe it's some political reporter. Jenny Huh didn't speak with Styer today though, here's what he had to say.
So just to be clear, Tom, you don't pay anyone for endorsements, correct, content creator wise, No, Absolutely, what do you pay them for?
Absolutely? We pay them for their time.
Okay, let me explain how this works in the world of news. Let's just take politics out of it for a second. In the world of news, everyone looks down their nose at the tabloids because the tabloids pay for stories. The National Inquirer will pay you for a story if you have something that they think is if interest to their readers. TMZ will pay you for a story if you have a photograph or a video or information that would be of interest to their readers. That's how that works.
Then you take the other shows, then you take the other publications, and they go, we are professional journalists, we have graduate degrees. We don't pay for stories. We don't pay our sources. But here's how they get around it. Let's say that you are in the middle of some kind of tabloid story and the Today Show wants you on the couch with Savannah.
They can't quote unquote pay you for the story.
But what they do is they fly you first class, they put you up at the Waldorf Astoria, and they pay you to license your photographs that they will use in the piece, and whatever it is that you gotiate as the price of those photographs is what they're.
Willing to pay you, so you can then show up on their.
Airwaves and talk about the story with the photographs running his b rule. That's how they get around it. What Tom Steyer is doing is he's doing the political equivalent of that. I'm not paying Za Dante for his endorsement. I'm paying him for his time.
This is the same kind of semantics that people say with prostitutes. I didn't pay her for sex. I paid her to leave.
And a couple of things she did before she left.
Say we are complete.
That means that we pay them.
Okay, maybe he is a cheap skate because he has worse Internet than you.
That means that we pay them for doing work. They choose what to do. They endorse us because they believe in our platform or they don't endorse us.
You have no way in on them. Did Dante and endorse you?
I'm sure say Dante follows California politics very closely.
You have no way in on the content. They are independent businesses, independent small businesses. We pay them for their time. They do whatever they want to do.
Yes, but shouldn't you have to disclose that? This is It's like, you know, whenever you're watching the local news. I have KTLA up right here, and every once in a while they'll deviate from the regular local news to like be like, check out this new restaurant that's opening, and in the little corner you can see sponsored content.
You should be able to disclose that in those two.
In twenty twenty three, California passed a law mandating content creators to disclose if they have been paid by a campaign or political committee. One Leg's out of analyst tells us at ABC ten that this investigation could determine how strictly the law will be enforced. Steyer maintains that his campaign has been trans parent and disclosing.
By the way, it'll be really funny if what the FPPC decides to do is hand Tom Styra a fine, It's wild how often this happens, though, you remember a story.
And I'm not going to go through any of the names because I don't want any of them to come after me. But there were foreign governments who were buying online social media influencers to tweet about their country or to post content about their country, because they, in this particular case, were conservative influencers, and these foreign countries believed that they might influence the administration by tweeting about their countries.
Oh, I remember all that.
He has paid Washington and multiple other influencers thousands of dollars. The two individuals who filed the complaint also content creators, argue that it's up to the stire campaign to explicitly tell influencers that they must disclosed payments. They say they noticed issues in multiple videos post tier content.
It was all very pro styre, anti Bessera. They were not disclosing on posts that they made about Tom Steyer, and they were completely they were wait, you.
Can get paid to bag on Bessara.
Oh yeah, no, you can get paid a lot of money to do that.
And they were completely they were ignoring.
Think were working cheap, Johnny, Oh, we're working very cheap compared to what these people are getting, and.
They were completely they were ignoring the law, the political reform Active count.
Now the two content creators are Javier Besara supporters, which Stier has questioned. They say that they're support.
FORUL So how much was Besarah giving them? Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if he's doing the same thing.
They say that their support for Visara is independent from their complaint against Democratic opponent Tom Steyer, and that they are not paid by Bessara's team to post pro bossera content.
You know what's funny.
And this is another one of these quirks where we're governed by the FCC because we're on the radio waves, we're on the AAM band. We have to take courses in payola to understand what is legal and what is not in this industry. If you were on the take and you're promoting a band or you're promoting a product or whatever, and you're not disclosing that they're paying you to say that, you can get in big trouble. You
can put the broadcast license in jeopardy. Typically, and this is something that used to happen a lot in the old days on the FM band. What would happen is the record labels would go to the DJs or the program directors and they would give them suitcases full of cash to play whatever songs it was that they wanted played on the radio, so they would make more money with the record sales.
Well, in the eighties it was more than cash. Sometimes they'd give you the record with a pound of cocaine on it. You want to know why certain songs got to number one?
That's how.
All right? So that's the latest in the governor's race. Who are you voting for? For governor?
Ballots are out, people are voting who is your choice to be the next leader of the state of California. Eight hundred two two two five two two two What eight hundred two two two five two two two. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. That's
Johnny don't Like show at gmail dot com. And Randy if you want to listen to a podcast of yesterday's show where I made my case on why I think that the Democratic lockout on the November ballot is the best way to go.
That's easy to do.
Just search for the John Phillips Show.
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And we're also going to be live on election Night.
Election Night from seven to nine pm on June second, two weeks from today, John and I are going to be live on the radio seven ninety KABC, eight ten KSFO, and five eighty KMJ. So if you want to hear us react to the election results when the polls close at eight o'clock, we'll be here seven to nine on June second.
All right, the ballots are in the mail. Voting is happening right now as we speak. Who are you voting for?
For?
California Governor. Let's go to the phones and welcome Jonathan in Porter Ranch.
Jonathan, Hello, Hi, good afternoon, guys.
Hi.
I'm definitely voting for Steve Hilton one hundred percent because he said he's going to deport everyone here legally, which is extremely important because I graduated high school two thousand and eight. My whole adult life been looking for like retail jobs filled with idiots, people who can't count currency, they don't know how to tell analog times. It's pretty stupid out there. So Steve Hilton one hundred percent and Pratt is where it's at, all.
Right, thank you for the call, Sar. Let's go to Mike in Hawthorne.
Mike, Hello, Hey, hey, John, how are you doing. I'm doing what you said, I'm voting for Bianco.
And you're doing it because you want you want the Republicans to be in the top two positions.
Absolutely, yeah, I think that's the way to do. I think it's a great strategy.
Here's the thing, and this is the question that every Republican voter in particular in the state has to ask themselves. If you think in the general election it is possible for the Republican candidate to get over fifty percent, then that's fine. Then you can go for a Republican versus a Democratic matchup. However, if you think the likely scenario is that the Republican candidate will do better than forty one percent but can't get over fifty, then you need
to go for the top two. And I think the likely scenario is the Republican candidate will do better than what they did in twenty twenty two, but not get over fifty percent, in which case your only play is the top two.
Good call.
All right, thank you for the call, Sirt. You know what it reminds me of.
It reminds me of twenty eighteen when the Democrats in California won a bunch of congressional districts. That's when Katie Porter won in Irvine. That's when Katie Hill won in Lancaster. That's when a lot of these candidates, these Democratic candidates were able to beat longtime Republican incumbents.
How did they do that well in that election?
Ballot harvesting made the difference in a number of those races because the laws had changed and they realized that any district, let's say, with a big university gave them an opportunity to harvest ballots, and that was the reason that Katie Porter beat Mimi Walters in Orange County. You see, Irvine was in that day, and they harvested a bunch of ballots at UC Irvine and that was the margin
of victory for Katie Porter over Mimi Walters. And Republicans screamed and yelled about all the ballot harvesting and the voter fraud and all of that. But the problem for Republicans back then was that the Democrats had changed the rules so instead of the ballot harvesting being illegal, it was perfectly legal. And they just exploited something in the law that benefited them and they were able to knock out a bunch of longtime Republican incumbents because of it.
They knew the rules better than the Republicans and they used their knowledge and this quirk in the law to be able to benefit. Right now, we have a situation where Republicans can get into the low forties. Probably, I would say the Republican candidate, if it's an R versus a D, will do somewhere between forty one and forty four percent, let's say.
But they're not going to get over fifty.
Well, there's a quirk in the law with this top two primary where you can win the election with only forty one, forty two, forty three, forty four percent of the vote if you split it up the right way.
And that's why I'm so.
Vocal about the lockout, because that's the pathway to victory.
That's the lane.
If you want to lose with dignity, that's fine. Make it an R versus a D matchup in November, and you will lose. I mean, let's just not lose our sanity here. The Democratic candidate in that scenario will win, but the Republicans won't be embarrassed because they will have a candidate on the November ballot. So you're not going to get criticism for not fielding a viable candidate that
made it to the November ballot. However, as an Angel fan, let me tell you, losing with dignity is not the way to go.
Because you still lose. What you want to do is you want to win, and that means you have to play to win, and you have to look at the at the rules as they stand.
You have to look at the horses in the race, and you have to figure out how you can use the horses in the race and the rules on the books to give you the best chance at winning. And once you identify that, you got to run with it. And right now, for Republicans, that's the top two and that's it. And we can lie to ourselves and we can make ourselves think that our candidates will be more
viable than they are, but that's not reality. One of the reasons that the Democrats lost the presidential election in twenty twenty four was that they could not be honest with each other about Joe Biden's cognitive abilities. That man was demented and he had nothing but tapioca between his ears.
But they all had to go on TV and tell us how in private, he's putting Rubik's cubes together and he's doing calculus, and he's speaking in Latin and he's doing all of this when they all knew it wasn't true. They didn't want to have the uncomfortable conversation. They didn't want to say unpleasant things to one another, and then they repeated those same mistakes with Kamala had they gone to an open convention, and they ended up with a
more electable candidate. They might have won that election. We'll never know because it didn't happen. They lied to themselves and said that Kamala was electable and that she was brilliant and she was articulate and she's so smart and she's gonna woo the country and that just wasn't reality. It wasn't reality. Then it's not reality now. California Republicans need to have honest, difficult conversations with themselves right now. If there is an R versus D matchup in November,
Republicans lose, probably by double digits. If you want to win this thing, now is your chance. Now is your opportunity. It's now or never. And this losing with dignity stuff, get over it. Stop thinking that way. If you think like a loser, that's what the result will be. Don't think how you want to lose. Try to find avenue to win. And I know people say, well Trump adores Hilton, so Trump wants us to get behind Hilton, and that way we have representation on the November ballot. Let me
tell you something. Do you think Trump looks at situations and thinks, how do I lose with dignity? No, that's not how that man sees the world. He doesn't respect losers. He respects winners. So if you want to make him happy, who cares who he endorsed win the race, and then you'll impress him because we all know he respects winners. And trying to find out the best way to lose the election. That does nothing for you, because these elections.
Are zero sum.
He who wins takes the throne. He who lose ends up with nothing. That's how it works, all right. Let's go back to the phones and welcome Carol and Irvine. Carol, Hello, oh hi, I.
Guess I will change my vote from Hilton to Dionco. But I remember that guy that you used to put on your site that would evaluate the other people, because I'm in that Katie Porter forty seven district. Of course he's not running, but we have Dave min And who they endorsed her. I haven't seen one darn thing in the forty seventh district.
And that is that Central Orange County district. Will they changed it all around?
That used to be.
That used to be the one that Scott Ball ran in that included Huntington Beach, But then they put Huntington Beach in the Long Beach district, and so I think you're in a separate district from Huntington Beach. So I don't even know who's running in that district.
That district is drawing to be you know, he's running for re election because you know Katie Porter was out, you know, running with Shift and I don't know it, says treasurer tax collector. We have Shultz and Redrook. So I have no idea. Should I just go for the counties treasure I don't know with the judges, I don't know the judges. But remember you used to put your this other guy on that would help with the judges and things.
Yeah, that was Craig Quey Craigquey dot com and he goes through and he analyzes all the judicial races.
So check him out.
H E y correct.
And then if you're looking for endorsements that could help you with the other races I didn't include on my ballot, I would check out the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
They usually do a.
Pretty good job.
Yeah, I've got their paper too. Okay, Well, let's okay, Thanks Seud, thank you for the call.
Eight hundred two two two five two two two. Easy telephone number. What eight hundred two two two five two two two. Let's go to Lynn in Placentia.
Lynn.
Hello, Well, well, hello John, thank you so much for taking my call. I wanted to let you know that, uh, I have a daughter. I've been like you, going back and forth saying I really want to see both Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton on the ballot in November, so we are guaranteed a Republican, but I've also been worried about pulling too many votes away from Steve. And you know, if we vote for Chad. Now, here's an interesting little twist.
My daughter always votes libertarian, and she sent me information that apparently the libertarian candidate has dropped out of the race and is urging his supporters to vote for Steve Hilton instead. And I said, well, there you go. That that means that my daughter's voting for Hilton, and I will vote for Bianco and then hope we pushed them both into the November ballot.
Well, and that's also part of it too, because the polls show that Hilton is doing the best with independence, so whatever number he's at with Republicans, it's going to go up because he is the highest performing candidate Republican or Democrat among the independents.
Yes, so that was, yeah, a good point. Thank you for saying that. But can I add a little aside that has nothing to do with the governor's race, but is political in Placentia. In Placentia, when they redrew those maps, Placentia's got something like fifty five thousand people. They carved us up into four separate congressional districts. So I'm in one across the street, our high school is in another.
A couple of miles down the road, they're in still another district, and then the southwest part of the city is in still another district.
Great.
Yeah, it was not very fair, to say the least.
Thank you for the call.
I appreciate it. Let's go to Amy and San Clemente.
Amy.
Hello, Hi John, how are you? Thanks for taking my call.
Definitely voted for Steve Hilden and I talked to my husband into voting for Chad because we need him both in there.
I bought Steve book about six months ago. I barely knew who he was, and boy is that informative. Was the first three chapters We.
Need him both in there and whatever you know we could do.
I mean, there's too many Democrats that just obviously didn't watch the debate and don't care, and they'll just vote for because.
They have a D in front of their names.
So that's my comment.
Let's keep our fingers crossed and get.
The word out.
All right, thank you for the call. Let's go to Tom and San Mateo.
Tom, Hello, thanks for taking my call.
John.
The key here is Republicans have to get out to vote vote for either Bianco or Hilton. If we get two Republicans in the top two, it means a lot of things are going to happen. There's a better chance that your voter idea is going to pass, it's going to be a better chance that the safe Prop thirteen is going to pass, and there's a better chance that Republicans will uh saves pick up seats and protect the
ones they have. Now we have to get over the super majority that the Democrats hold, and our best chance is getting two Republicans in the top two.
All right, Amen, thank you for the call, Sarah. Let's go to Steve and Newport Beach.
Steve, Hello, Hey, John and Raby, you got the best show on the radio. It's great, Thank you. My idea is I agree with you. If we could get Republicans one two, that's the best way. But if it's Hilton and Bessarah, maybe we look at Bessara's legal issues sometime in the fall and throw the Democratic Party in disarray.
If but Sarah is the Democrat, a lot of focus is going to be on the legal troubles involving his chief of staff and Dana Williamson and Bessara's involvement. I agree because either he was in on it, or he's the dumbest person on planet Earth and had no clue that.
He was being rob blind, or both. Thank you for the call, sir. Let's go to Tom and San Jose. Tom.
Hello, you sorry, going to take it off a speaker because I don't want any feedback here.
John.
It was very encouraging to hear some of these people's comments. I was having an issue. I'm working out here with a couple of people in a couple of groups of trying to do exactly what you were talking about. You actually gave us that idea. We were hoping to get a good vote turnout with the strong candidate and what you say makes a lot of sense.
I don't know. I'm not going to try to say it.
I would rather you say it because you're much more articulate about it.
That's why you have a talk show and I don't.
But it's not what people think. It's like, well, we could totally get it because this, you know, even though Chad Bianco's not popular, let's just go for the other guy. If we get everybody to go for the other guy. And it doesn't seem like they get it, even though you've explained it and I've tried to explain it, it doesn't seem like they seem to understand to get it. But these people that just called in were fantastic.
They know exactly all right, Well.
Thank you for the cost. We're out of time. The fix California hours next. Don't you go anywhere