California Republicans think the future with Trump in the background

After last fall transferred three seats to the state legislature and the increase in the share of the votes of President Donald Trump in almost every county, the California Republicans seek to take advantage of the inertia this year as they are trying to win the congress and exit the state of the country.

Jubilant from their November profits, their next doses are clear but not steadfast:

• Take the moment.
• Don’t blow it.

And they have a valuable little time to do so, especially in the American house, where Republicans enjoy only a subtle majority, as they are reminded of the Sacred Party Spring Convention in Sacramento this weekend. The last time Trump was in office, the party suffered steep losses in California, including half of its congressional places in 2018. The next intermediate elections were in 2026.

California will make the difference in whether Republicans in Congress have numbers to introduce Trump’s agenda, Texas representative Tony Gonzalez told party members on Saturday.

The leader of minorities in the Assembly James Galachaer of the town of Juba said Republicans can target eight Assembly regions in the central valley and southern California to turn next year. Senate’s minority leader Brian Jones of San Diego has announced that they will break the Democrats’s super -mastery in his house next year.

Republicans have to make seven places in the Assembly and four in the Senate to avoid the status of over -hair, which gives them a little in the budget and other decisions.

The way to get there? Expect a lot of the same ground game that the party has played in the last six years: showing in communities in which Republicans have traditionally neglected to develop their ranks as Latinos voters; Communications accusing Democrats of crime and the crisis of state expenditure; And a campaign on voting initiatives, where voters in the deep blue state were sometimes ready to face Republicans.

More special, the party supported Proposal 36who has raised penalties for some accusations of drugs and theft and went back to the efforts of Democrats’ MPs to protect him from the newsletter. In the end, voters approved the measure predominantly, while rejecting progressive measures to increase the minimum wage, expand the rental control and prohibit forced closed labor.

“The voters are obviously with the California Republican Party on ideas,” said outbound party chairman Jessica Milan Patterson.

She said the voters are shifting because they want improvements in school results, homelessness, accessibility of housing and crime.

Republican registration in California has slightly delayed up to 25% of registered voters in 2024, but is still far behind 46%, who support the Democratic Party. About 22% are registered as independent.

The newly elected party chairman Corinne Rankin said on Sunday that GOP will be a “continuation of the crime” and will expand its efforts to turn voters into democratic fortresses such as Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area.

The Central Challenge for the Party remains the man in the White House. Only one of three Californians approves the president’s work.

Avoid explicit associations with Trump

As the national GOP is increasingly being processed into the Trump Party, the California Republicans have achieved their constant recent profits to a large extent, avoiding apparent associations with it, said longtime GOP consultant Mike Madrid.

He warned that the association of the California Party with Trump would be even more persistent during a period of economic uncertainty, with the threat of the president by covering tariffs, leading to a reduction in the stock markets and consumer confidence. (At the Convention, the economic sentiment among party activists, GOP officials and lawmakers were predominantly those of shoulders and “waiting and see.”))

On the other hand, Patterson admitted that the party would also have to maintain Trump’s loyalists if he wanted to win any state places in the future. About two million Trump voters in California since 2020 remained home during the unsuccessful republican remembrance of governor Gavin News next year, she noted.

“We have to make sure that we motivate these Trump voters and I don’t know that someone has still found this secret sauce,” she said.

At the Convention, the newly elected GOP MPs, who did not say if they voted for the president mixed with a hard -lainer, who insisted on the party’s resolutions to announce Trump’s “Make America” ​​”The Great Movement” again. The measure failed on Sunday.

But Rankin rejected the proposals of internal party division. She tried to distinguish the California GOP from national policy, putting it more as a referendum on democratic supermaristism.

“We welcome all votes,” she said. “We are focused on California and Californians … People are desperately looking for options.”

A new California Republican chair is climbing

Rankin is the first black chairman of the party. It was supported by a large part of the party establishment and many of these new persons, including several of the younger and more diverse new GOP legislators selected in recent years.

She runs as a pragmatist against former state senator Mike Morel, who was supported by conservative conservative party activists. Rankin is proud of his own long -standing conservative powers, supporting Trump since 2015, and Morel admitted that there was little difference from her ideological. But the hardliners, disappointed with how long it would take to turn the blue state, accused the party establishment of not spending enough on the contenders for long shots.

Although party activists were excited about the opportunity to have a competitive state contender in 2026, few announced tracks.

Steve Hilton, a former news presenter at the time of books on books, is considering running for a governor, but has not made a message. Chad Bianco, The conservative sheriff of Riverside County, On Friday, they called on the hardliner activists to seize a “window of opportunities” to consolidate the support behind their governor start after voters approved firm crime policies in November.

“It’s great that we have a choice in everything else, but we have to make the choice based on what is best for the California party,” he said. “Let the nine Democrats who are there, run right now, let everyone destroy and we can sit.”

However, some employees have admitted that it is a long shot.

“I think we will be able to achieve more steps,” Galagher said. “We know there is still a little climb when it comes to the whole country, but we haven’t given up it.”