In a Modesto appearance last week, GOP candidate Steve Hilton acknowledged he has an uphill climb to succeed Gavin Newsom in the governor’s office. Democrats outnumber two to one in California, giving the advantage to Xavier Becerra. But Hilton also noted that polls underscore that Californians feel the state is going the wrong direction and hungering for a change which gives him a good chance to pull independents into his column and fill in the gap.

Hilton held a 90-minute standing-room-only Wednesday afternoon town hall gathering of supporters which included Harinder Toor of Ceres.

“It’s pretty simple,” said Hilton. “California isn’t working. Throw out the insiders, shake up the system and get this state back on track. That’s what this election is gonna do.”

Polls indicate that the governor’s race tightening with Hilton within eight percentage points and 9.8 percent of voters who are undecided leading up to the November election

“This is a winnable race. It is absolutely winnable.”

Hilton took gabs at his opponent, calling him corrupt and an empty suit and noting that Becerra has not called for any change to policies which have hurt the average Californian.

“There’s a majority who want change. He (Becerra) is saying more of the same. We’re saying it’s time to change. We’ve got a plan to change.

“This state is demanding change, not more of the same. Change from the high taxes and the regulations, and the castle and their bloated nanny state bureaucracy bossing us around from morning till night, telling us what to do, how to live, how to run our business, how to raise our kids, what kind of car to drive, what kind of house to live, how to cook our food, no gas stoves, no tires of your own choice. You’d think with all the problems we’ve got going on in California, all the economic problems, homelessness, crime, the school results are among the worst in the nation, you know we spend nearly the most, all these things going on and what are they focused on? Taking away tires that they don’t like. Enough is enough.”

Hilton said California could see a return to $3 per gallon gas under changes he would implement as a “common sense energy policy instead of shipping oil halfway around the world.”

“As long as we are using oil and gas in California, let’s use California oil and gas. We have abundant oil reserves right here in California. That way we can have $3 gas in California. We’ve got a fleet of natural gas-fired power stations that could generate all the electricity we need in California – more than we use in a single year. But instead, they are running them at 10 to 15 percent of their capacity in order to focus on the thing that they’re obsessed with –windmills and giant solar.”

Hilton was dismissive of farms being replaced by giant solar farms in the Central Valley and pledged to end the practice while giving farmers the water they need to grow crops.

Saying Californians are paying double the national average for electricity, the Republican candidate pledged to cut energy bills in half by using geothermal, gas fired-power stations and hydroelectric plants.

In order to make the first $150,000 of income tax free in the state, Hilton said he wants to cut spending, citing that in the last 10 years the state budget has risen from $170 billion to $354 billion.

“They more than the doubled the budget and there’s two million people who left and everything’s worse. It’s not adding up.”

He pledged to cut out waste, end financing for the stalled high-speed rail project and enact five percent across-the-board spending cuts.

“When Gavin Newsom became governor, there were 215,000 bureaucrats in Sacramento. We’re not talking about public sector workers, teachers, law enforcement, just pure bureaucracy, 215,000. You know what it is this year? 255,000 with a population that’s gone down. We’re going to slash the bureaucracy. I’m going to start with a modest 10 percent head count reduction.”

Regarding the homeless problem facing the state, Hilton pledged to end funding of what he called the unproductive “homeless industrial complex.”

He cited other examples of state waste and corruption, noting that of $1 billion allocated for solar panels on low-income apartment buildings $928 million was siphoned off into Democrat political organizations doing voter registration, ballot harvesting.

As governor, Hilton said he wants to see families begin dreaming about home ownership again, breaking the policies, regulations and costs that make the building of single-family homes unaffordable.

One audience member asked how Hilton would bring back oil refineries in the state. He noted that policies have caused the state to import 80 percent of the oil Californians use, transporting it from halfway across the globe in supertankers that spew out carbon emissions. He said the state needs to give long-term guarantees to oil producers to invest in increasing production of oil drilled in Kern County as well as increase pipeline capacity to refineries.

“I’m going to be honest with you – these are major of multi-billion dollar operations. You can’t just sort of turn it on like that and I fear that we won’t be able to do anything better than not let it get worse. I’m just being honest with you. It’s a disaster and honestly, if we don’t act now in change direction, it’s not just that the price will go much higher. You could see $8 gas. We’re actually at risk running out of port capacity and there could be shortages.”

Toor, whose development opportunities have been hamstrung by state regulations that drive up the cost of building, told Hilton that his appearance gives him hope for the future. Hilton responded that he loves getting out and doing hundreds of similar events to get a pulse for the needs of common Californians. He also claimed that Becerra isn’t doing much campaigning and expects to win without making the effort.

That segued into how folks have expressed concerns about the state’s highest in the nation vehicle registration fees.

“Most states it’s under a hundred buck,” said Hilton who was told by someone recently that registration for an electric golf cart cost $360.

“I looked into it and when you go through the actual bill that you get, it itemizes and then the first one is the basic registration fee, $71 and then it’s all these other things added on. My favorite was Transportation Improvement Fund. What are they improving? Like, we literally have the worst roads in the country.”

Hilton said fees could be capped at $71 and still generate $25 billion for roads.

He faults state environmental regulations for road construction being four times higher than in Texas and 40 percent higher to build homes and commercial buildings than other states.

When asked about the decline of the work ethic and rise of socialism in the country, Hilton said he doesn’t fault the newer generations for giving up and expecting government to give them things when the government has been shackling their opportunities to flourish in the economy. Instead he noted how “Every single day, we are seeing jobs go to other states that should be coming here.”

Hilton also pledged to give every teacher in California a $1,000 account to buy school supplies throughout the year using lottery funds.