The California GOP expects the state to cement a difficult year

from Nadia Lathan and Maya S. MillerCalMatters

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This weekend’s California GOP convention was poised to be a drama-filled event. The party had little hope that its two gubernatorial candidates, if they played well enough, can block Democrats in the November election and win back the statewide office for the first time in 20 years.

But then President Donald Trump stepped in, endorsing former Fox News host Steve Hilton against Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.

Party-state endorsement is now much less consistent.

“He screwed over the California Republicans again,” Rob Stutzman, a Republican political consultant, said of Trump. “It’s just political malpractice not to have double-approved,” he added. “People have informed the White House of the situation.”

The weekend festivities in San Diego marked the first gathering since the GOP’s crushing loss last November on the Proposition 50the Democrats’ gerrymandering plan designed to drive five Republicans out of Congress in the midterm elections. This loss only increased the state the growing irrelevance of the party after the impeachment and resignation of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the Bakersfield congressman who made sure the national GOP didn’t forget about its members in California.

The gubernatorial race, as well as legislative contests, had become new focal points for a party seeking a way out of the political wilderness. Trump’s endorsement likely dashed any hope for a Republican governor, leaving the Legislature as the Republicans’ best chance to win.

“He screwed the California Republicans again.”

Republican consultant Rob Stutzman on President Donald Trump’s endorsement in the governor’s race.

Bianco, who recently made headlines for seized hundreds of thousands of ballots amid allegations of alleged voter fraud, is still expected to struggle for the 60% of delegate votes needed to win the party’s support. Hilton is likely to consolidate GOP support as loyal core voters rally behind Trump. Even without the party’s support, Hilton is well positioned to finish in the top two in June.

But the president’s nod is effectively the kiss of death for a general election candidate in deep-blue California, a state where even some Republicans are touting criticism of the president as a campaign talking point.

“The big battle if you’re trying to get elected governor is actually having broad appeal in California,” said Matt Rexroad, a Republican campaign consultant who has worked for Bianco. “President Trump is not providing that.”

Without the drama of the governor’s endorsement, Rexroad decided the convention was no longer worth attending. He canceled his flight from Sacramento and his hotel reservation in San Diego, choosing instead to submit a proxy ballot with another fellow delegate. Rexroad plans to support Bianco.

Trump’s popularity has plummeted nationally since the Iran war began and gas prices have soared, worsening his already poor standing among California Democratic voters. Both Bianco and Hilton tried to minimize their support for Trump, as nearly three-quarters of Californians disapprove of him and many strategists believed the party’s best chance for the governorship was to keep the president away from him.

“The party matters in some areas of the state. But on a statewide basis, the Republican Party is like the Utah Democratic Party,” said Mike Murphy, a former Republican consultant.

“You can’t imagine a worse brand than Donald Trump in California,” Murphy said. “If they cancel the Republican state convention, as far as state policy is concerned, it won’t matter to the outcome.”

In the end, Republicans hope to hold onto and perhaps even pick up additional seats in the state legislature.

GOP looks down on opening vote

With the brand irrevocably associated with Trump, one strategy to recoup Republican losses is to focus on more conservative, inland parts of the state in local races. That includes parts of Southern California, where Latino voters turned strongly to Trump in 2024 and the party won three seats in the House.

“What’s really going to make the difference for Republicans in California is really focusing the game on the areas that matter,” and fundraising, said John Fleischman, a longtime Republican consultant. “If we can hold the seats that we’re capable of holding in what looks like a wave year for Democrats, then Republicans are going to do really well.”

First-time GOP Assembly members Jeff Gonzalez of Coachella and Leticia Castillo of Corona are examples. Each campaigned successfully in their predominantly Latino and slightly left-leaning districts in 2024.

Seeking revenge, a handful of Democrats lined up to oust Gonzalez. Meanwhile, Castillo will face an old challenger. Both Republicans will come this weekend with the party’s endorsement already in place.

Castillo won the seat by less than 600 votes two years ago, defeating Riverside City Councilwoman Clarissa Cervantes, who had more money and a bigger name. But Cervantes, who is seeking to replace his sister, a Riverside Democratic state Senator Sabrina Cervantesran a campaign that was tarnished by the Clarissa Cervantes revelations two DUI convictions.

Gonzalez, a retired Marine, flipped his district in the 2024 Coachella Valley, which swung for Trump by less than two percentage points. He is up against three other Democrats, including Indio City Councilman Oscar Ortiz, and has so far amassed a bigger military coffers than any of them.

Some Republicans also worry about whether the party is headed in the right direction. In San Diego, local battles over whether moderate or far-right candidate would be best positioned to succeed term-limited Senate minority leader Brian Jones hinders the party’s ability to support a candidate.

Jones and the party superintendent endorsed San Marcos City Councilman Ed Musgrove, while Assemblyman Carl DeMaio and his group Reform California are pushing for twice-failed candidate Christy Bruce-Lane.

Republicans could also flip a newly competitive San Diego district represented by a first-term Democratic lawmaker Katherine Blakespear. The county has been moving left since the 2020 redistricting drew more parts of liberal San Diego County and dropped parts of more conservative Orange County. Blakespear significantly outperformed her two GOP rivals, Laura Bassett and Armen Kurdian, one of whom could be endorsed this weekend.

The incumbent Republican senator Roger Niello of Roseville may also face a tougher-than-usual path to re-election in the midterms, where moderate Republicans in liberal districts will have to fight anti-Trump momentum.

Challenging picture in the US House

Post-Prop. 50, the remaining five current Republican members of the California House face a bleak road to re-election. Districts were so drastically redrawn that several members chose to vacate their original seats and seek re-election in different districts.

Congressman Kevin Kiley, a Roseville resident whose current district covers much of the California-Nevada border, has left the Republican Party entirely and is running as an independent for a Sacramento-area seat that Prop. 50 made more conservative. Rather than risk her political future by challenging Congressman Tom McClintock, a powerful party member, Kylie settled on the 6th Congressional District after months of deliberation.

“I think this is probably an attempt to salvage something of a career later down the road by giving it the old college try,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican anti-Trump strategist and co-founder of The Lincoln Project.

Longtime Rep. Darrell Issa, whose San Diego County district went from a Republican fortress for the drawannounced his retirement shortly before the deadline to submit ballot papers. He reportedly explored moving to Texas to seek re-election there, but abandoned that plan when he failed to win Trump’s endorsement.

And instead of retiring as the longest-serving congressional Republican in California history, incumbent Congressman Ken Calvert is seeking to unseat his colleague, Congressman Young Kim, in pursuit of an 18th term after his Inland Empire district was dramatically transformed into a liberal stronghold. Everyone has raised millions of dollars which they will undoubtedly deploy as they fight for one of the only remaining solidly Republican seats in California.

One bright spot for Republicans could be Congressman David Valadao’s campaign in the Central Valley. The six-term congressman has worked to distance himself from Trump over the years, voting in favor of the president’s second impeachment since the Jan. 6 attacks. He has lost re-election only once, in 2018 as part of the anti-Trump blue wave. He won his seat again in 2020 in the same election in which former President Joe Biden won his district by double digits.

But Valadao faces one of his toughest re-elections yet, as Democrats try to saddle him with his vote for the GOP megabudget bill that stripped hundreds of thousands of his own constituents of their health insurance through Medi-Cal.

If California Republicans want to win races like Valadao’s, they know they need to motivate their voters to turn out in November for what is expected to be a tough election for GOP candidates up and down the line.

The weekend gathering in San Diego should provide a good pulse check. Trump’s support in the gubernatorial race could energize the base. Or it could convince enough GOP voters that the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.