Republicans blow big opportunity by failing to win moderate voters
Republicans had a generational chance to win a governor’s race in California on Tuesday — and they blew it.
It would have been their first chance to occupy the governor’s mansion since 2006, when Arnold Schwarzenegger — elected during the recall of Democrat Gray Davis in 2003 — won a second term. Voters elected Republican Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner that year, too, and no one from the party has won statewide office here since.
A recall election held in mid-September, off the regular election calendar, was the best chance for the California GOP to catch Democrats napping or uninterested. As recently as late July, polls showed likely voters were split on recalling Newsom.
Ultimately — after California taxpayers spent $276 million to hold Tuesday’s election — that proved to be a mirage.
Which leaves a big question: Now what do California Republicans do? Their future looks largely bleak, except for a few bright spots.
There are twice as many Democratic voters in California. GOP lawmakers are in a superminority in the Legislature and the base of the
party is dominated by acolytes of Donald Trump in a state where Trump is loathed by nearly two-thirds of voters.
Newsom raised more than the field of recall candidates combined and even Trump thought so little of their chances that he didn’t weigh in until hours before the polls closed.
Republicans again failed to capture moderate voters who are frustrated by the state’s failure to do better on myriad issues including homelessness, the high cost of living, underperforming public schools, wildfires and crime. Larry Elder, the leading Republican replacement candidate, declined to participate in any debates, where he could have found a broader audience.
There is little time for Republicans to sulk. They’re going to have to start campaigning again almost immediately, as Newsom is up for re-election in November 2022 and California’s primary is next June. The next big question will be if any big-name GOP candidates run for governor next year — or for Senate against Alex Padilla, the incumbent Democrat.
If none does, that could hurt the GOP more. Without a compelling race at the top of the ticket in 2022, the party may struggle to get voters excited about down-ballot elections at a time when several swing House races in Orange County and the Central Valley will be up for grabs.
“It is a wake-up call to the Republican Party,” said Danvy Le, a professor of political science at Cal State East Bay. “The California Republican Party needs to understand that you cannot win in a blue state if you are going to take these polarizing positions.”
Most notably, the Republicans didn’t accurately read the room on the most important issue to Californians: the pandemic. Its candidates blasted Newsom’s mask and vaccine mandates, with Elder promising to overturn mask requirements “before I have my first cup of tea.”
A Public Policy Institute of California survey this month found that 78% of likely voters thought the state government had done at least a “good” job on COVID-19. That’s a big increase from January, when only 36% felt that way.
If Elder is the best the state GOP can offer, he’s way out of the California mainstream on most issues. Sure, he’s a popular talk radio host, with 1 million weekly radio listeners nationwide and 979,000 Twitter followers. But he was a mediocre candidate because he never stopped being a conservative talk radio host.
Look no further than Elder’s repeated contention that structural racism is not a problem in America or his musing in July during an interview about reparations that, in fact, slaveholders may deserve redress for the loss of their human property.
Republican consultant Matt Rexroad, who was unaffiliated with any campaign, was unsure whether Elder, who entered the race July 12, was truly interested in running for office or was “trying to build his radio audience.”
“We may have lost the battle, but we will win the war,” Elder told supporters Tuesday night in Costa Mesa after the race was called. “We are forcing them now to pay attention to the things they should have paid attention to two years ago.”
Elder has become a political force because his conservative views tapped into the core of a state party that largely supports Trump. But the recall race — much like the 2018 governor’s contest, which saw conservative San Diego businessman John Cox win only 38% of the vote to Newsom’s 62% — shows that Trumpism has a hard ceiling in California. It is not enough to win.
Roughly one-third of California voters “are no-party preferences or other. That is who the California GOP needs to really embrace, and try to appeal to, if you want to win in a blue state,” Le said.
The top Republicans in the race rightfully made Newsom’s record the focus of the recall, but were unable to offer a compelling vision of what they’d do differently.
“Given its stained brand after four years of a chaotic presidency, California’s Republican Party would be better advised to spend its time and treasure developing a message that might actually attract a majority of voters — a platform of compelling ideas, not a French Laundry list of grievances,” wrote former Republican Assembly Member Jim Cunneen, who represented Silicon Valley from 1994 to 2000.
Some Republicans like Rexroad refused to call the recall a failure. He said it galvanized the party faithful and helped the GOP build its statewide infrastructure in advance of next year’s midterm elections.
Rexroad said candidates like former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Placer County Assembly Member Kevin Kiley built name identification and broadened their fundraising bases, which could help them run for statewide office next year.
Others say the recall served its purpose by calling attention to major problems that Newsom — and the Democrats who dominate state government — have overlooked or exacerbated.
Recall organizer Anne Dunsmore said nobody would have believed her a year ago if she had predicted that Newsom would feel so threatened by the “deafening roar” of recall supporters that President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Barack Obama and three other former presidential candidates (Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders) would either travel to California to campaign to save his job or cut a commercial on his behalf.
“We’ve only just begun,” Dunsmore said. “We are not going away.”
But if they hope to win statewide elections, they’re going to have to convince more than their fellow Republicans to join them.