GOP canvassers behind enemy lines
Closeted conservatives seek more of their kind in Bay Area
It can be a lonely experience, knocking on doors in the Bay Area on behalf of the most conservative Republican among the six major candidates for governor. It’s especially depressing when the liberals who answer one door after another have never even heard of your guy, Orange County Assemblyman Travis Allen.
The good news for Allen’s volunteers is that most haven’t heard of the other candidates, either.
“Isn’t Newsom running for something?” a retired union worker asked the three Allen supporters on his Concord doorstep the other morning.
Yes, he is. Gavin Newsom, the Democratic lieutenant governor and former San Francisco mayor, is the antiAllen. It’s a comparison that both men would take as a compliment — particularly Allen, who brags that he’s the only candidate in the race who voted for President Trump.
He can’t stop talking about Newsom — usually to say, “Bay Area liberals like Gavin Newsom” have ruined California. Or, “The streets in Gavin Newsom’s San Francisco glitter — with glass from all the car break-ins.”
Conservatives love Allen because nobody rips liberals like he does. With his short spiky hair and perpetually open collar, he may look every bit the OC surfer he is. But he attacks like a barroom brawler.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf “should be arrested” for issuing a public warning of federal immigration raids in February, Allen says. Attorney General Xavier Becerra is “the criminal attorney general” for his support of a state law limiting employer cooperation with immigration authorities. University of California President Janet Napolitano “should be out of job” for allowing so many students to be homeless.
He’s not just out of step with most Californians politically, said former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democratic rival in the race. He “is from another planet.”
Allen’s more immediate problem is that most people haven’t heard of his message or his swipes at Democrats. He’s in the middle of the pack in most polls, drawing 10 percent in a nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California survey this month. And unlike fellow Republican John Cox, a San Diego County businessman who has put $4 million of his own money into his race, Allen’s campaign is checking under the sofa cushions for quarters and dimes.
So supporting Allen in the Bay Area is a leap of political faith. Those who take the extra step of seeking out converts are part cultural support group, part guerrilla fighters behind enemy lines.
The Allen campaign has tapped into the 4.4 million Californians who voted for Trump to harvest what they say is a network of 40,000 volunteers statewide. Yet most of the dozen canvassers who fanned out in a Concord neighborhood of teachers and factory workers and middle managers came to the campaign not through their love of Trump, but through their frustration with California.
Many, like Allen, are native Californians whose families and friends have left the state — the candidate’s parents moved to Oregon. Several of the canvassers said they, too, will join the exodus if Allen isn’t elected. The taxes are too high. The schools are a mess. Their gun rights are being threatened. And California’s sanctuary laws make them feel like their police officers can’t do their jobs.
Family aside, “there’s less and less keeping us here,” said Brandon Wood, a canvassing organizer who lives in Oakley, a small town in the former farmlands of eastern Contra Costa County.
Wood, a father of three with a fourth on the way, runs a small cabinet refinishing business. He and his employees haul cabinetry to and from customers all over the Bay Area in three diesel-powered vehicles.
But a 20-cent-per-gallon state tax on diesel fuel that went into effect in November is going to cost him $3,000 a year or more, Wood said, “and it is probably going to come out of raises for everybody.” Allen is pushing a proposed November ballot measure that would repeal the tax, which the state is using to pay for road improvements.
Wood’s parents grew up in Contra Costa and still live there, but they’re looking at states where life is cheaper and simpler. “And I’m looking at Idaho or Montana,” he said.
Michele Guerra hears the same thing from family and friends. Her dad, a lifelong Californian, is ready to move. Another relative has already left and opened up a gun shop in another state.
“I found out about Travis in December, after I saw a clip of him on Facebook,” said Guerra, a Vacaville resident. She said this is her first involvement in politics.
Allen “is just saying what so many of us feel,” Guerra said.
One Allen volunteer asked to be identified only by her first name, Jennifer. “I’m in sales — it could kill me” if her Bay Area customers knew her politics, she said.
She was having dinner with friends a couple of weeks ago when one said, “‘Oh, don’t listen to her. She voted for Trump.’
“It’s like I don’t count around here,” Jennifer said.
The Concord canvassers did find a few receptive listeners — and like Jennifer, some are worried about what their acquaintances will think.
“Some people don’t want to hear what I have to say,” said one woman, who wanted to be identified only as Laura. And Laura has plenty to say.
“When are we going to get rid of these teachers who aren’t teaching?” she asked, rhetorically, to the canvassers on her doorstep. “And welfare? It’s two years and you’re done. And only one kid. If you get pregnant again before that — you’re done.”
Guerra nodded and assured her that Allen has never voted for a tax increase in the Assembly. “And he’s got a zero percent rating from Planned Parenthood — they don’t like him at all,” Guerra said. “So, do you think Travis can count on your vote?”
Laura grabbed an inch-high stack of Allen flyers. “I’ve got a bunch of people at my church who would be interested in reading these,” she said.
Without much money for TV commercials, that’s one way Allen can gain traction in California’s liberal territory: word-of-mouth from one closeted conservative to another.