A November California election will see a television personality make a run after all.

A day after Spencer Pratt was eliminated from the L.A. mayoral race, former Fox News host Steve Hilton clinched second place in the California gubernatorial primary and will face Biden-era HHS secretary Xavier Becerra in the general election. The British-born newbie candidate held off progressive Tom Steyer, who had been nipping at Hilton’s heels as votes rolled in but could never quite close the gap.

The Republican Hilton held a lead of at least 300,000 votes and four percentage points over Steyer pretty much since the primary a week ago, even as Becerra passed him for first place several days in. On Tuesday, with a fresh vote drop of more than 600,000 ballots, Steyer closed the gap slightly. But Hilton still maintained a lead of 200,000 votes and 2.5 percentage points and the vote drop. With just 9% of votes remaining to be counted, the AP late Tuesday called the race.

The move ends the progressive billionaire Steyer’s bid to reform California with a series of activist, worker-centric, AI-regulatory and environmentally aggressive policy proposals, as well as a staunchly opposing position on the Paramount purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery. He spent a nationwide high $200 million+ on the effort, but still acquitted himself well with more than two million votes. Liberal scenarists will be left wondering what-if, though, as Congresswoman Katie Porter will end up notching more than 400,000 votes — enough, potentially, to have given Steyer the win had the fellow liberal Democrat dropped out.

A former strategist for Tory prime minister David Cameron in England, Hilton arrived in Silicon Valley with his wife Rachel Whetsone in the early 2010’s as she worked a series of high-profile comms jobs at Google, Uber and Netflix. During that time, Hilton was both an entrepreneur and also hosted a Sunday Fox News show for six years; while arguing for conservative positions, he stood out on the network for a more inclusive, less tendentious vibe than some of his colleagues.

Hilton also had a different kind of television fame back in the U.K. with the buzzword-loving political spinmeister Stewart Pearson in Armando Iannucci’s political satire In the Thick of It, based on him.

Hilton faces a tough challenge in his bid to stop Becerra — in addition to having the backing of Donald Trump in a frequently anti-Trump state, Hilton also must defy partisan gravity. A Republican has not won the governorship since Arnold Schwarzenegger last did it in 2006 — in fact, a Republican has failed to reach 41% of the vote count since that time.

Hilton will seek to build a campaign on exactly that fact, arguing that California’s challenges stem from longtime Democratic dominance; during the primary, he hit that note hard, keying in on the eight-year reign of Democrat Gavin Newsom (who is term-limited). Certainly, Hilton’s policies differ sharply even from a moderate Democrat like Becerra — he favors lowering taxes, lowering regulations and even building low-density housing to solve the state’s housing crisis.

Hilton also has distinguished himself on the Hollywood front, promising a major entertainment tax-credit program of as much as 60% per project with no annual cap and both below-the-line and postproduction eligibility. Becerra has taken a far more measured approach, though whether that will sway many Democratic entertainment workers to jump parties remains to be seen. Becerra also has a lot more electoral experience, having won 14 elections in California (many cakewalks as a Congressman).

Whoever wins can take solace in the likelihood they’ll be in the job for a while. In a California electoral peculiarity, every single governor since 1942 has served more than one term.

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