Trump acquitted 2nd time

Dems to tie exleader to recall effort, GOP candidates

The Senate’s impeachment acquittal of Donald Trump may have closed the book on his tumultuous presidential term, but he will continue to play a large role in California politics for at least the next two years — even if he never sets foot in the state.

Democrats will try to tie Trump to anyone involved in the campaign to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, as well as to any Republican candidate running in competitive House races, which could decide who controls power in Washington after next year.

Even though Trump was acquitted of inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Democrats will use the graphic footage of his supporters

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Votes for conviction

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Votes against conviction

storming the building and attacking police officers in ads against GOP candidates who never spoke out against the former president. Trump was already deeply unpopular in California, where nearly 2 of 3 voters backed Joe Biden in November. “And that was before the insurrection,” said Dave Jacobson, a Los Angeles Democratic strategist who has advised House and Senate candidates in California and nationally.

“Democrats are going to exploit his act of treason and the traitors who are Trump sympathizers who voted to essentially let him off the hook. It will be a toxic stain on the California Trump Republican brand,” Jacobson said Saturday. “If you are a member of Congress or a lawmaker who has been an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump the traitor, that is something that will be used against you, and we will hold you you accountable for the insurrection.”

Republicans counter that Democrats will invoke Trump because they don’t want to talk about the issues that California voters are most concerned about — the high cost of housing, the growing homeless population and the state’s whipsawing directions during the coronavirus pandemic. They foresee little impact from Trump’s impeachment and acquittal on California.

“It will not have any effect,” said Dave Gilliard, a longtime GOP strategist who played a leading role in the 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis and is working on the current campaign to oust Newsom.

“The recall is all about Newsom’s poor performance leading the state, especially over the last 11 months,” Gilliard said.

Nevertheless, a preview of what Democrats have in store for California can be seen now in a special election in New Mexico to replace Rep. Deb Haaland, a Democrat who is Biden’s pick to be interior secretary.

Ads for Democratic candidate Randi McGinn show images of the mob rampaging through the Capitol over the words, “This is not America,” and a photo of Trump with the caption, “This does not represent us.” This month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched a $600,000 ad campaign in English and Spanish in six major markets, including Los Angeles, that ties Republican House members to “the mob.” The organization’s internal polling shows that voters believe lawmakers’ reactions to the insurrection is “a top priority,” spokesperson Andrew Godinich said Saturday.

Similar ads are likely to target nearly every Republican in a battleground district in California. There could be several of those — Rep. David Valadao of Hanford (Kings County) was the only one of the 11 Republicans in the California congressional delegation to vote to impeach Trump last month.

Republican lawmakers’ support for Trump isn’t surprising. Many are merely reflecting the views of their core supporters. An American Enterprise Institute survey last week found that 79% of Republicans nationally “have a favorable opinion” of Trump.

More ominously, the survey found that 39% of Republicans support “Americans taking violent actions if elected leaders fail to act.” The poll found that 17% of Democrats felt that way.

“Congressional Republicans voted overwhelmingly to let (Trump) off the hook for allowing a QAnon mob to attack the Capitol,” Godinich said.

He doesn’t think people will forget the image by the time they cast their ballots next year, because the attack “is a moment that is seared into the minds of many voters.”

Republicans are dubious that tying Trump to GOP House candidates will hurt their reelection chances. After all, Democrats invoked Trump repeatedly in 2020, and Republicans flipped four House seats in California. “We welcome Democrats using the same exact strategy that lost them four California House seats,” said Torunn Sinclair of the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.

That still leaves the possible Newsom recall. The governor’s supporters will point out that many recall backers are Republicans who are aligned with Trump. Two of the GOP candidates vying to replace Newsom — former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and businessperson John Cox, who lost badly in the race for governor in 2018 — say they voted for Trump last year. Some of Trump’s top allies have weighed in on the recall. Last week, the Republican National Committee said it would spend $250,000 to help the state party gather petition signatures to recall the governor, making it the secondlargest donor to the campaign. Moments after Trump’s acquittal, the state party said it was giving $125,000. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an unflagging Trump supporter and now a talk show host, has tweeted his support for the recall.

The Republican Party “is the party of Trump,” said top Newsom strategist Dan Newman. “You can see it in the way the Republican gubernatorial candidates are trying to see which one of them is closer to Trump.”

Recall organizer Anne Dunsmore said of attempts to tie the recall to Trump: “Nice try.”

Dunsmore said that nearly 10% of the Californians who have signed recall petitions are Democrats and 22% are registered as no party preference.

“This is part of how they’re trying to politicize an organic citizen movement,” Dunsmore said. “It’s backfired time and again. It shows how tone deaf they are to what people on the ground are feeling.”