Divide and conquer is an indisputably effective strategy to defeat an adversary, and it helps a lot when said adversary is divided into warring factions without any help or encouragement from an outside opponent. Such is the dysfunction that afflicts the California Republican Party as we enter 2025 and a new election cycle.
The reason Republican failures in California have national relevance is because they are a microcosm—a very big microcosm—of what divisions persist among Republicans nationally. And while Republicans are winning overall in America today, if victory tilts again to Democrats in a future round of elections, a likely cause will be rifts within the party.
Over the next several weeks, California’s Republican Party county central committees will select their new chairmen. These positions are voted on by committee members and are significant because the county chairmen select the delegates to the state party convention, and in turn, those delegates vote for who will become the new state party chairman. That vote will happen this spring at the state convention.
Whoever leads the California State Republican Party will have a big influence on how much major donor support the party receives, alongside how much grassroots support the party receives. And herein lies the dilemma. Major donors back moderates. California’s grassroots Republicans, six million strong, do not. There is no better way to explain that. It’s not subtle. It is a bitter and ongoing struggle.
In pursuit of goals that cannot possibly be won in California, many of the state’s grassroots activists are uncompromising. The issue of abortion is the biggest example. There are pro-life but moderate activists fighting for control of county Republican central committees who argue that it is an issue where it may take decades, if ever, before a majority of California’s voters will support, for example, laws on the books in North Dakota. They are pitted against pro-life activists who don’t care if it’s a winning issue or a losing issue. It’s a matter of principle. But if they take over the state party and issue an unequivocal statement calling for strict abortion laws, donations will dry up and Republican candidates will lose.
Perhaps somewhat unique to internal party politics is the fact that money doesn’t play as critical a role in who ends up controlling a county party chairmanship. If someone with Elon Musk’s resources decided to back Republican candidates in California and establish an independent campaign operation in support of that candidate (please?), the tilted, rigged, uphill battle facing any Republican candidate in the state would get much easier. But it’s harder for money to influence the participants on a county central committee. Most volunteers running for positions on these committees are motivated by strong passions and don’t need financed campaigns. And few issues in politics excite the passions more than abortion. Hence the Republican central committees across California have voting members, in many cases majorities, who are willing to burn the party to the ground before they will moderate their position on abortion.
God bless them. Abortion is an abomination. But hell will freeze before California’s electorate will vote for a governor who makes that the centerpiece of their campaign.
The path to fitful unity on this issue among Republicans in the rest of America required the leadership of President-elect Trump. His insistence that abortion be left to each state to decide was a necessary compromise to attract undecided voters in battleground states, and it worked. It was also consistent with the Dobbs decision, which hinged on states’ rights. But Trump’s approach won’t work in California.
In California, Trump has been a godsend to Democrats whose ability to taint all Republicans as bigots was wearing thin. Suddenly all the clichés are fresh again, as Trump’s spontaneous and out-of-context quips are exploited by professional campaign strategists backed by billions in public sector union and leftist billionaire money to reinforce the negative brand. If you’re a Republican, you’re a racist.
For this reason, the Trump tide that handed Democrats a defeat they didn’t expect crested on the eastern slopes of the Sierras. And when it comes to unifying California’s Republicans, the irony is thick. Trump’s policies, notwithstanding his hyperbole, offer the fusion that California’s Republicans desperately need. They offer the moderate, nonpartisan, and unifying populist solutions that would work in California. If candidates were to come forward to express them, and major donors were to come forward to support those candidates, maybe the state’s Republicans would have a chance.
As it is, California’s Republicans gained a few seats in the state legislature in swing districts. These were victories without meaning. The Democrats still wield a 60 to 19 advantage in the state assembly and a 30 to 9 advantage in the state senate (both state chambers have one vacant seat). Meanwhile, California’s congressional delegation dwindled from a dismal 12 out of 52 to only 9 out of 52. The dysfunction and disunity of Republicans in California came perilously close to handing Democrats control of the House of Representatives.
The Democrats’ lock on California politics can be broken. The state is a mess. The litany of failures under two decades of Democrat control has enraged voters. Highest rates of poverty. Highest tax rates. Worst business climate. Ridiculous, excessive regulations. Unaffordable homes. Expensive energy and rationed water. Record homelessness. Unacceptable crime. Failing schools. Rising state and local government debt and deficits. Corruption, inefficiency, and activist bias across every agency. With even the slightest rise in Republican party competence, the state would flip.
The solutions aren’t a mystery. Deregulate housing and energy to lower costs and create good jobs. Review every regulation and every state agency and cut regulations and cut overstaffed agencies. End the disastrous “housing-first” policies and instead give homeless people safe shelter in inexpensive barracks where sobriety is a condition of entry and staying on the streets is not an option. Spend public funds on reservoirs, desalination, and wastewater recycling plants instead of on the “bullet train.” Recognize that the common road is the future of transportation, not the past, and widen California’s freeways and highways. Build nuclear power plants and develop California’s abundant natural gas reserves. Let timber companies harvest more lumber in exchange for maintaining fire roads and power line corridors. Implement school choice and make public schools compete with private schools on the basis of excellence. And not to forget the obvious: Prosecute criminals.
That’s the opportunity, but it cannot happen until new leadership emerges in California with policies and strategies that are unifying instead of polarizing. California is still a beautiful state, but if the electorate were offered choices from a unified opposition, it could once again inspire the nation. Whether or not California’s Republican Party can unite for the 2026 election cycle will in large part be decided over the next few weeks.
If the Republicans can take back California, that will almost certainly mean Republicans have secured national dominance for the foreseeable future. But the prerequisite to that also has national consequences. California’s Republican grassroots activists are as authentic and principled as any activist Republicans anywhere in America. If California’s Republican leadership can retain the support of their grassroots with a platform that nonetheless attracts a majority of all the voters in California, it will be a model that will transfer to every other state in the country.
Ending the GOP’s civil war in California has national implications. We may hope they don’t blow it.
Californian women believe that they have a right to have sex and also the right to dispose of the consequences without any GOP sponsored legislation in the way. This is so culturally ingrained that it should be apparent to the GOP that Democrats will incorporate abortion as a red herring for anything they would otherwise lose on. It is a simple strategy always looking for a sucker to take the bait. To change the culture and the dynamics the GOP has to commit to winning first. In 2022 much of the red wave was muted by the mischaracterization of the Dobb’s Decision. No one knows that better than President Trump. He needs to take the lead on this and make the GOP aware that it should always be anticipated and therefore always try and get in front of it. Ultimately education will help but, once again, you have to win first to control education.
Dedication to principle is a noble thing…unless it interferes with the objective of actually furthering that principle. Or, as the phrase goes, don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good.
Absolutists of any particular belief or strongly held conviction often lose sight of their goal in the wilderness of “maintaining principle”. Abortion purists would be wise to use their moderate Republican brethren as a means to an end. And if and when the time comes, discard the moderates when they are no longer useful.
Machiavellians and realistic pragmatists understand this.
I’m going to side with the pro life absolutists. Besides the desire for power, or at least the hope of being able to perhaps influence power, what principles do the CA GOP rest on? Would it be things like small, efficient government, lower spending and lower taxes, pro business, pro law enforcement? Those are all great, as talking points go. They don’t really get to what motivates people on a foundational level - not just how we choose to govern our lives, but protecting life itself. One has to come before the other. Experience has shown GOP voters on all levels that once Republicans gain power, all else becomes second (or third or fourth) in priority to donor concerns. I don’t have a problem with donor issues being addressed, but no longer will voters sit back and defer to the money when it takes their votes to allow any of their concerns to be addressed at all. The money plays hardball, and voters are learning to as well.
I’d say that the California GOP should be working on the Latinos: fairly conservative socially and economically interested in Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.
Don’t we see this advice playing out on another topic with Musk/Ramaswamy attempting to sustain and grow the Great Replacement (which Ring supports)? Chastising its voters to sit down and shut up like good little Party sheep is something at which the Republicans are adept, in order to elect whichever billionaire-backed Golden Boy® of the Week. The empty promises and betrayals rivalling Brutus’ betrayal of Caesar are part and parcel of the Republican Party already. Most Republican voters have awakened to typical Republican Establishment tactics and prefer to stick to principles over filthy lucre while they fervently implore the Deity to enlighten the SOBs.
There was a time in this country when real leaders with American principles such as cherishing life, defending liberty and upholding property rights cultivated the skills needed to persuade people of every income, background or educational level to support them for office. They learned how to convince those with the purse strings to loosen them by making them see that voters cast votes, far outnumbering those with the shekels, and that by getting them elected, everyone benefitted, not just the few.
In the end, we shall all be judged by what we do, not what we say. We answer to higher authorities. Republicans in every state should never deceive themselves that that is not what the base is thinking at the polls as well.