Obama: State must fight GOP’s ‘anger and division’
Former President Obama urged Californians on Saturday to rise up against the “anger and division” of President Trump’s Washington and replace more than a half-dozen Republicans in the U.S. House.
In the first stop of a national tour to promote Democrats as they try to seize control of Congress, Obama told hundreds of campaign volunteers in Anaheim that “things can get worse” if too many of the party’s voters fail to cast ballots in the November midterm.
“When we’re not stepping up, other voices fill the void,” he said. “But the good news is in two months we have a chance to restore some sanity in our politics. We have a chance to flip the House of Representatives and make sure that we have checks and balances in Washington.”
The rally came a day after Obama’s blistering attack on Trump in an Illinois speech outlining his rationale for a Democratic takeover of the House. He cast Trump as a shameless demagogue who protects the powerful while exploiting racial, ethnic and religious divisions.
The Orange County event underscored California’s pivotal role in determining which party will control the House for the second half of Trump’s term.
It also highlighted Orange County’s demise as one of the nation’s most reliable Republican strongholds, part of the state’s drift away from the GOP as California’s population has diversified.
Joining Obama on stage at the end of his remarks were six Democrats running to replace House Republicans from California. Voters in all of their districts favored Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016.
Four of them are running to represent at least part of Orange County: Gil Cisneros, who is running to replace retiring Rep. Ed Royce of Fullerton; Katie Porter, who is trying to unseat Rep. Mimi Walters of Laguna Beach; Harley Rouda, who’s challenging Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa; and Mike Levin, who’s running for the seat that Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista is giving up.
Obama heaped praise on each them, as well as T.J. Cox, an engineer running against Rep. David Valadao of Hanford, and Josh Harder, a former venture capitalist challenging Rep. Jeff Denham.
“Josh and T.J. may be running in different districts, but they’re running for the same reasons, to make sure every Central Valley kid has the same kind of opportunities that they had,” he said. Obama said the Democrats were reaching out “not just to trueblue die-hard” party loyalists, but to independents as well.
Republicans, however, cast doubt on the breadth of his influence, even as they acknowledged the tough election climate that the GOP faces with a president as unpopular as Trump.