Speculation is mounting that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco will soon announce plans to run for California governor in 2026.
According to a post on the event-planning website Eventbrite, the Republican sheriff will make a “major announcement” Monday, Feb. 17, at a downtown Riverside venue.
RELATED: Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco could run for governor in 2026
It’s not clear what that announcement might be or what connection the post has to Bianco or his supporters. The sheriff and his department’s media representatives did not respond to requests for comment Friday, Feb. 7.
Bianco first said in 2024 that he was considering a gubernatorial bid. The office of governor will be an open seat in 2026, with Democratic incumbent Gavin Newsom unable to run for reelection due to term limits.
Bianco, who was first elected sheriff in 2018, can continue to lead Riverside County’s top law enforcement agency if he were to run for governor and lose. A 2022 state law that shifts sheriff’s elections to presidential election years tacked on another two years to Bianco’s term, which now ends in 2028.
A number of candidates on the Democratic side have already announced for governor, including former state Senate president Toni Atkins, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former state controller Betty Yee.
There’s also speculation that former Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, a California native, will run. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a rumored gubernatorial candidate, said this week he’s not entering the race.
A November poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley of voters’ preferences for governor found Bianco coming in second behind Democrat and former Orange County congressmember Katie Porter.
However, 52% of those polled expressed no clear preference for a particular candidate. And 46% of respondents said they’d be very likely or somewhat likely to support Harris if she ran.
If Bianco runs, he would represent a staunchly conservative candidate in a Democrat-friendly state that hasn’t elected a Republican to statewide office since 2006.
He’s also a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, a generally unpopular figure in California. Bianco endorsed Trump in 2024 — “It’s time we put a felon in the White House,” he quipped — and went to the White House in late January to watch Trump sign the Laken Riley Act aimed at cracking down on undocumented immigrants who commit certain crimes.
He also posted an Instagram video in October of part of a phone conversation he had with Trump. It’s unclear what the president and sheriff talked about.
Since becoming sheriff, Bianco, who made national headlines for defying Newsom’s COVID-19 mandates, has cultivated an image of a straight-talking, tough-on-crime critic of Sacramento’s Democratic establishment.
In an Instagram video this week, the sheriff said: “We have been infected by liberal judges appointed by a progressive, liberal governor or governors that are destroying our criminal justice system and causing what to all of us is our biggest issue in California and that is rising crime, homelessness, drugs — all of those issues.”
“I’m fed up,” he said. “I’m tired of the lies. I’m tired of the manipulation from our politicians, the lack of accountability of our politicians, the lack of accountability to our judges and then the media blaming it on law enforcement.”
He added: “You’re going to be seeing these videos from me repeatedly, telling you the truth about public safety, telling you the truth about our failed politicians, telling you the truth about our failed criminal justice system. And this is only the beginning.”
While facing an uphill battle should he run for governor, Bianco has a loyal following among California conservatives.
A website, www.biancomerch.com, already is selling “Bianco for governor” hats, T-shirts and other merchandise featuring cartoon images of Bianco in a cowboy hat with an oversized mustache and a bandana around his neck. It’s unclear if the website is connected to Bianco.
Joy Miedecke, president of the East Valley Republican Women Patriots in the Coachella Valley, is enthusiastic about the prospect of a Bianco gubernatorial run.
“If the sheriff decides to run, which I feel that he will, that is exactly what should happen,” she said Friday. “He is a law-and-order sheriff and we need law and order in our state, amongst many other things.”