John H. Cox

On June 5, 2018, Cox finished second in the top-two nonpartisan blanket primary for Governor of California. On November 6, 2018, he lost to Democratic nominee and incumbent Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, whom easily won the general election by a 24 point margin.

In January 2018, Cox stated he was opposed to the construction of a border wall. Rival GOP gubernatorial candidate Travis Allen has commented that Cox has "flip-flopped" on his position. Cox has since stated that he supports a southern border wall.

In 2018, Cox submitted approximately 811,000 signatures in an effort to repeal the 2017 fuel tax increase.

In February 2018, Cox drew criticism for comments he made in 2007 linking gay rights with transvestism, polygamy, and bestiality. He has said that his views have changed and that he is "looking forward to engaging the LGBTQ community and all Californians to revive the California Dream."

Cox did not support Donald Trump during the 2016 United States presidential election, voting for Libertarian Gary Johnson instead. By January 2018, Cox characterized his vote for Johnson as "a mistake". Cox was endorsed by Trump on May 18, 2018, and he has been portrayed as Trump's protégé in advertising from Gavin Newsom.

President Trump endorsed John Cox on May 19, 2018, via Twitter stating "California finally deserves a great Governor, one who understands borders, crime and lowering taxes". The president's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, has also endorsed him. On May 28, 2018, Trump tweeted a further endorsement of Cox as "...a really good and highly competent man".

On March 7, 2017, Cox announced his candidacy for Governor of California in the 2018 election. He garnered the support of 55% of Republican delegates at the spring 2018 California Republican Convention; however, he fell short of the 60% needed for the party's endorsement. Cox has obtained Newt Gingrich's endorsement and the endorsements of eight Republican members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Devin Nunes, Jeff Denham, and Mimi Walters. He is also endorsed by the National Right to Life Committee.

The tax was approved as SB 1 in April 2017 by the Democratic-controlled Legislature and signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown. The tax took effect November 1, 2017, increasing gasoline by 12 cents a gallon and diesel by 20 cents.

In 2016, Cox proposed an initiative statute that would require legislators to wear the logos of their top 10 donors on their suits when advocating for policies on the Senate or Assembly floor, much like NASCAR drivers wear sponsors on their race suits. Due to insufficient signatures, it failed to qualify for the general election that year. While the initiative was probably not legal due to a 1940s federal legal finding that politicians could not be forced to publicly reveal or display their donors, the intention was to get the voters to be concerned about who the legislators were beholden to, and, thereby, just like the Neighborhood Legislature measure, reduce the power of special interest money.

Early in his gubernatorial Campaign, Cox attempted to distance himself from Donald Trump and the Trump administration. When asked about Trump, he stated to Politico "...no comment. Was that fast enough for you?" While Cox would later reveal he voted for Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson in 2016, he declined to state whether he had supported Trump during the 2016 election, commenting:

Cox's support for the Libertarian ticket in 2016 and his ambivalence toward President Trump has drawn criticism of his views as aligning with the Never Trumper movement.

Cox authored different versions of the Neighborhood Legislature constitutional amendment initiative but failed to qualify it due to lack of signatures for each of the four consecutive general ballots from 2012 to 2018. The final version was called 'The Low-Cost, New Hampshire-Style Neighborhood Legislature Act.' It was inspired by the part-time, 'non-careerist' 400-member New Hampshire Assembly. It would have shrunk each legislator's budget by a third, and imposed a cap on their salaries.

During a campaign event in 2008, Cox proclaimed: "There is no separation of church and state in the Constitution." While he has changed his position on this issue, it has allowed Cox's opponents to paint his past views as radical and strange in nature.

On March 9, 2006, Cox announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2008, becoming the first Republican to formally enter the 2008 presidential race. He dropped out of the race later in the year, but did appear on several primary ballots. Cox became a part-time resident of California in 2007, and in 2011 he became a full-time resident of Rancho Santa Fe.

Although his perspective has evolved, Cox stated in 2006: "abortion is murder--plain and simple--and that should be regulated by state law."

During the Values Voter presidential debate in 2006, Cox said that he would nominate only judges who are committed to reversing prior court decision where allegedly activist judges "strayed from the judicial role and legislated from the bench." Since embarking on his gubernatorial campaign, Cox has admitted his social policy – at the time – was misguided.

Originally a Democrat, Cox became a Republican later on, serving on Jack Kemp's steering committee in 1987. At the 2006 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Cox debated the issue of capital punishment. He opposes the death penalty.

In 1981, he founded a law firm specializing in corporate law and tax planning, John H. Cox and Associates. In 1985, he founded Cox Financial Group Ltd., which specializes in investment counseling, income tax planning, retirement planning, and asset protection. Although Cox takes credit for the financial turnaround of the Japp family Chicago potato-chip firm, its owners sued Cox in 1998, alleging financial misconduct, a case that led to Cox paying a $1.7-million settlement in 1999. They claimed that Cox had "engaged in self-dealing; charged excessive and unnecessary fees; misappropriated partnership funds; and violated the partnership agreements and Illinois law," with regard to their investments in apartment buildings and condos. Cox who had been their financial and legal adviser, as well as the company CEO, characterized it as a "frivolous lawsuit," an attempt by the family to get a more favorable deal in a real estate transaction. He said, "a few investors demanded to be bought out of real estate holdings for an outrageous price, $10 million." He had supplied details of the non-disclosure settlement agreement with the family during divorce proceedings with his former wife, admitting to having compensated the family in exchange for certain limited partnership interests. The majority of the allegations in the suit concerned the more than $2.2 million invested by the family in Illinois real estate partnerships. Cox controlled those ventures, either directly or through his firms, plus providing the partnerships with tax consulting and legal services. By 1997, those investments returned just below 3%, and were worth $1.6 million. The plaintiffs said they received just total of $291,300 in cash distributions over five years and hired a corporate accounting expert, Lee A. Gould, to review the financial records of the real estate partnerships. In a 1998 court affidavit Gould contended that between 1993 and 1996, Cox and his firms charged "unanticipated and undisclosed" fees for management and servicing, far exceeding what had been projected in the partnership agreements: $380,000. Cox "purportedly made approximately $4,000,000 in loans to the limited partnerships," 40% of which did "not have any independent corroboration or verification of any sort to indicate that they were in fact made." Gould contended, "The pattern of self-dealing has caused economic damage to the limited partnerships."

Cox ran for a position as a delegate to the 1976 Democratic National Convention. In 2000, Cox ran for Congress in Illinois's 10th congressional district to replace retiring Congressman John Edward Porter, finishing fifth in the Republican primary race, with 6,339 votes, 10.09%, to former Porter aide Mark Kirk, despite spending half a million dollars on his campaign. In 2002, Cox ran for U.S. Senate in Illinois on a conservative platform, aligning himself with Reagan Republicans. He lost the Republican primary with 23%, placing third behind Jim Durkin and Jim Oberweis. Cox later served as president of the Cook County Republican Party. In 2004, Cox garnered 29.26% of the votes against incumbent Democrat Eugene Moore in the Cook County Recorder of Deeds race. Cox said he decided to run for the office to eliminate the position; he saw the office as an unnecessary duplication of services that had become a "model of waste and corruption".

John Herman Cox (né Kaplan; born July 15, 1955) is an American accountant, attorney, businessman, broadcaster, and politician. He became a California resident in 2011, and was the Republican candidate in the 2018 California gubernatorial election, after placing second in the state's June 5 nonpartisan blanket primary. On November 6, 2018, he lost to Democrat Gavin Newsom.

Cox hosted The Progressive Conservative, a twice-weekly bought-time radio talk show on low-wattage WJJG 1530 AM in Chicago. Featuring guests like Michael Moriarty, its themes included criticism of trial lawyers and creation of a website in March 2003 that nominated public figures (such as Janeane Garofalo, Martin Sheen, and Jacques Chirac) as "Friends of Saddam".