A Republican former Fox News host is now the leader of the pack in the run for California governor, according to a new poll.
The Emerson poll shows a very narrow lead for Steve Hilton among all the candidates for Golden State governor, with the election about a year away.
The current governor, Gavin Newsom, has reached the end of his term limit in office, but he is hinting he'll run for President.
Steve Hilton used to host a Fox News Sunday night show but quit to enter this race; he was once a strategist for conservative British Prime Minister David Cameron about 15 years ago.
Hilton came in first in the new Emerson poll with 16 percent of the vote among those asked, followed at 15 percent by U.S. Representative Katie Porter, the Democratic front-runner and current favorite among conservatives and social media trolls for her sometimes outrageous behavior in several videos.
The third-highest number of poll votes went to Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, with 11 percent, then onetime Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, both Democrats, tied for fourth at 5 percent.
There are other candidates who are polling less than 5 percent.
With a small sampling size, the poll canvassed 900 likely California voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 points.
“I say, why should we [conservatives] leave California when we’re not the ones that have destroyed the California dream and made living here so impossible? It’s the politicians, the Democrats, who have this 15 years of one party rule,” Hilton told the Daily Caller, in a example of his political stance.
In early September a Zogby poll of 1,000 voters showed that based on campaign messaging alone, though, Hilton received 29 percent of the vote while Porter garnered 23 percent, indicating his message is resonating among voters.