San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Trump hobbles state GOP in races
In a rare visit to California in February, President Trump paused during a speech on water policy in Bakersfield to give a shoutout to former GOP Rep. David Valadao.
Pointing to Valadao in the VIP section of the crowd, Trump praised him as “an incredible guy . ... We really need him badly in Washington.”
Fastforward to August. Valadao, locked in a tight contest with Democratic Rep. TJ Cox of Fresno, who beat him in 2018, comes out with a TV spot highlighting his work with ... former Democratic President Barack
Obama.
“An independent problem solver, (Valadao) worked with President Obama to bring more water to the Central Valley, made health care more accessible and stood up to his own party to reform immigration and protect Dreamers,” the ad says.
In a state where Trump is wildly unpopular, Valadao and other GOP congressional candidates are being forced to try not to alienate the president and party faithful who view any disagreement as disloyalty, while still appealing to host of neverTrumpers whose votes they need.
“Trump has a loyalty test that, from Northern California to Orange County, measures the depth by which (Republican candidates) sing his praises,” said David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University. “In California, which is largely a oneparty state, candidates can’t cut that litmus test.”
It’s an even tougher challenge for candidates in the
“The top issues that people express are Trump and his leadership and style.” Pollster Adam Probolsky
seven congressional districts Republicans lost in 2018, one of which they regained in a special election this year. Hillary Clinton beat Trump in every one of the districts in 2016, and Democrats have boosted their registration numbers in all but one since then.
The numbers are daunting for the GOP. In the 49th Congressional District, which straddles Orange and San Diego counties, Republicans saw their share of registered voters move from a sevenpercentagepoint lead in 2016 and a fourpoint lead in 2018, to a 35% to 34% Democratic edge in 2020.
In the 39th District, where Democratic Rep. Gil Cisneros of Yorba Linda (Orange County) edged former GOP Assemblywoman Young Kim in 2018, Democrats now have a four-percentage-point registration advantage, up three points from 2018 and six points since 2016.
“The top issues that people express are Trump and his leadership and style,” said Adam Probolsky, an Orange County pollster. Republican candidates in Orange County and elsewhere “are going to have to break away” from Trump,” he said. “You can’t get elected with 33% of the vote.”
But getting that separation isn’t easy, as Kim learned this year.
Kim, 57, was born in South Korea and moved to California to attend the University of Southern California. Even during her unsuccessful campaign in 2018, she expressed concerns about Trump’s rhetoric and downplayed her connection with the president.
So it wasn’t a surprise when Kim came out in June against the president’s use of “kung flu” and the “Chinese virus” to describe the coronavirus, which has now killed nearly 200,000 people in the U.S.
“The President’s continued use of terms associating COVID19 with the (Asian American Pacific Islander) community is hurtful to many across our diverse nation,” she said in a tweet. “Our leaders should be working to unite Americans to defeat this unprecedented pandemic and the President’s words last night do not do this.”
Trump supporters were quick to fire back.
“Stop trying to suck up to Democrats,” read one response. “Either you are with our President or against him.”
“With Republicans like you, who needs Democrats,” responded another.
While it might make political sense in California for GOP candidates to ease away from Trump in hopes of attracting independents and conservative Democrats, for plenty of Republicans Trump is the party and candidates need to fall in line.
In a CBS News poll released during last month’s Republican National Convention, 58% of registered Republicans said being a Trump supporter was very important to their political identity, compared with 51% who said being a Republican was their priority. Asked whom they would rather support for Congress, 69% said they would back a Republican who does what Trump wants versus 26% who preferred a Republican who is independent of Trump.
“With that crowd, there’s no middle ground,” Probolsky said.
Other Republicans have had better luck with defying Trump, at least on some issues. GOP Rep. Mike Garcia of Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County), who won a May runoff election for the seat left vacant by Democrat Katie Hill’s 2019 resignation, challenged the president’s refusal to change the names of some military bases.
“It’s time for the military to rename bases, buildings, vessels and anything else that honors those who fought for the Confederacy,” he said in a July 2 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. “Proslavery secessionists who split the nation in two and killed so many of their countrymen don’t deserve such honors.”
But Garcia is a graduate of the Naval Academy who spent his career as a Navy pilot, and that makes a difference, said Jim Brulte, former chairman of the California Republican Party.
“Garcia pushed on an issue he’s very credible on,” Brulte said. “No one can challenge his national defense credentials.”
But while Republicans can pick their spots to resist against Trump, he’s still the president and the leader of their party.
“No candidate of any party can walk away from their presidential nominee and be successful,” Brulte said.
And when that nominee is as unpopular as Trump, California Democrats won’t let any Republican candidate push the president and his policies to the side.
When Valadao talked about how his bipartisan effort helped his Central Valley district, Cox, his Democratic opponent, put up his own TV ad charging that Valadao voted with Trump 99% of the time and that his “agenda is just a copy of Donald Trump’s. Valadao is just like him.”
Garcia beat Democratic Assemblywoman Christy Smith in a May runoff election that was all about Trump, who gave the Republican his “complete and total endorsement.”
Democrats, hoping the expected higher turnout on Nov. 3 flips that result, are working again to tie Garcia tightly to the president.
After Garcia joined the president to speak at a White House event in July, Democrats were on the attack.
“Mike Garcia has proven himself to be a devout and fullfledged Trump loyalist, but publicly bearhugging President Trump in the White House’s Rose Garden is next level,” said Andy Orellana, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
California GOP candidates can’t ignore Trump, whose tweets, comments, complaints and proposals are highlighted in the media all day, every day. What they can do is run their races and hope voters pay attention to the points they are making about their own issues in their own districts, said Brulte, the former state Republican chair.
“Voters don’t expect political candidates to be robots,” he said. “You just have to explain why you would be a better representative than the person you’re running against.”