The California GOP: The Long Road to Relevance
As you all can see in my Medium Bio, I’m a Giants fan. Always have been and always will be. I was taken to my first Giants game at Candlestick when I was six weeks old. With this marrow deep love for the Orange & Black, there also comes the equally deep loathing for that team from Chavez Ravine. I can’t stand the Dodgers. The sheer thought of them still being in the Playoffs makes my skin crawl…but I hate when they aren’t good.
That’s right, I like it when the Dodger have a great team. The reason is that when they do, they bring out the best in the Giants. Don’t get me wrong; a good 10–0 smack down of the Blue & White always puts a smile on my face but I want it to be against their best. Not the B or C team…where is the competition in that?
This deep rooted rivalry, that lost no intensity when it moved from New York to California, is at its finest when both teams are stacked.
Who wouldn’t want to go back and watch Sandy Koufax and Willie Mays battle it out? Or McCovey vs Drysdale? Even today, who doesn’t watch Buster Posey go toe to toe against Clayton Kershaw? Or Bumgarner vs. Puig? These are moments that make this the best rivalry in baseball (that’s right, sorry Yankees-Red Sox). It’s their best vs. our best, one on one, and out of these battles come the moments that we add to the Pantheon of Baseball.
So what does all this have to do with politics? A lot actually.
Our Two Parties:
I believe having a robust Republican Party is, not only healthy for our politics, but also creates better Democrats. Much like the Giants-Dodgers, Republicans-Democrats have had some titanic battles over the decades. Kennedy-Nixon, Eisenhower-Stevenson, and Truman-Dewey to only name a few. Here in California, we are no exception. Brown-Reagan, Wilson- Feinstein, and Deukmejian- Bradley again to only name a few.
Lately, the California GOP has been in rough shape. No Republican was able to make it onto the general election ballot in the 2016 Senate race and there is a good chance there won’t be a Republican on the ballot in the 2018 Governor’s race (see my piece from last week).
The GOP’s Prop. 14 Problem
As John Wildermuth reported in Monday’s San Francisco Chronicle, members of the California GOP are feeling left out in the cold due to this lack of ballot appearances. Prop. 14, which passed in 2010, created California’s new primary system. Under Prop. 14, the top two candidates advance to the general election. The problem with this is that Republicans aren’t finishing in the top two.
Why?
There are three main reasons why this has become an issue for California Republicans:
- Voter Registration Numbers
- Political Geography
- An Uncertain Future
Now there is talk in the California GOP of reforming Prop. 14, which was supported by the GOP Governor and Lt. Governor at the time of its ballot appearance. To be fair, Democrats are also looking to change or repeal Prop. 14 as well but for different reasons. I will be exploring these reasons and the state of the California Democratic Party next week.
Reading the Chronicle article, I thought that the California GOP sounded a lot like a bunch of soar losers. They fought for a change in the rules, won that rule change, and now complain about the rules being different. To totally mix sports analogies; this would be the equivalent of the New England Patriots complaining about the tuck rule being called against them.
But Republicans need to look deeper than just Prop. 14 if they want to climb back to relevancy.
By the Numbers:
For years, voters in California have increasingly been registering as Independents and Democrats. According to the California Secretary of State’s Odd Numbered Year Report, over the last decade both Democrats and No Party Preference (Independents) have increased their numbers of registered voters. Democrats have increased their number of registered voters by roughly 2 points, bringing their total to over 8.7 million registered voters and Independents have grown by 6 points, with a total of roughly 4.7 million registered voters.
In that same time frame, Republicans have decreased by 9 points, going from 5.3 million registered voters in 2007 to 5 million registered voters in 2017.
These numbers suggests that the GOP’s problem isn’t only related to Prop. 14 because this is a problem they have had since before Prop. 14 was the law of the land.
So where is the problem for the political elephants in the Golden State?
The Political Geography:
The one of the problems lays in geography. We have spoken before about the coastal/inland divide but to illustrate this point further, let’s use voter registration data to show how the GOP finds itself behind the 8-ball when talking about geography.
For example, the county that has the highest number of registered voters in the Democratic Party is San Francisco County, with 57% of its voters registered as Democrats. On the Republican side, that would be Modoc County with 51% of its voters registered with the GOP.
When looking at those two numbers, its a six point difference. But geography makes that a huge six points.
This means that Modoc has over 2,600 registered Republicans and San Francisco has over 295,000 registered Democrats…this is obviously a big difference come Election Day.
Simply put, large numbers of Republicans don’t live in densely populated areas (or vote centers), making it harder for their ballots to pack a punch.
So if the GOP is having trouble with voter registration and their voters aren’t in the large vote centers; where else could the party grow?
An Uncertain Future:
The California GOP should use this moment to do what the national GOP did after the 2012 election; do some self-reflecting. As mentioned above, Republicans can’t blame all their problems on Prop. 14. Even if Prop. 14 gets struck down tomorrow and California reverts to its old primary system; Republicans will be on the ballot but won’t be any closer to winning statewide office.
In short, It’s the pizza, not the box.
Right now, the GOP is the party of Trump…not Reagan…not Bush 41 or even Bush 43. While Trump did get 3.9 million votes here, he lost the Golden State by about that same number. The strain of Trump will be on the national and state parties for generations to come. So how can California Republicans shape a relevant party?
In the past, among friends and colleagues, I have argued that the California GOP could take a more libertarian bent but this isn’t without some issues.
Libertarians usually argue for less government and advocate more of a free market approach. While there could be some room for party growth around the free market rhetoric, the GOP’s history of taking away government services in California isn’t a happy one.
Such rhetoric about shrinking government may conjurer up memories of Prop 187 and as the Cato Institute writes, it was Prop 187 that turned California blue, which it has largely remained in the years since.
However, there maybe some hope on the horizon. The Mayor of San Diego, Kevin Faulconer, has been seen as a rising star in the California Republican Party.
He is a different kind of Republican. He grew up in San Jose, speaks English and Spanish, and even campaigns in both languages. Being mayor of a border town, he has promoted a path to citizenship for those in the US illegally, supported building a literal bridge (not a wall) to Mexico, and generally stays away from the heated rhetoric some in his own party use on the issue.
In an August 2017 speech to the Commonwealth Club, here in San Francisco, Faulconer laid out his vision for the GOP in California. As Michael Smolens of the San Diego Union-Tribune recaps the main ideas of the speech as:
Become the “party of freedom” (“freedom of thought, of religion, of sexual orientation”).
Embrace and encourage immigrants but stand for tight enforcement of illegal immigration.
Build stronger economic, cultural and social ties with Mexico.
Advocate environmental protection and combat climate change.
With a platform like this, Faulconer has been seen as the GOP best candidate to run for statewide office. As such, his name has been tossed around as a potential candidate for the 2018 Governors race.
But as Smolens also points out, Faulconer did himself no favors before the speech when he announced that he would not be running for Governor. This led to the speech getting minimal media coverage and Faulconer now becoming an after thought for 2018.
Granted, November 2018 is still a long way away and Faulconer is still in his first term as San Diego’s mayor so his name will be one to watch down the line.
But in the meantime, California Republicans needs to look hard at themselves to figure out the kind of party they want to be going forward. Is it the Party of Trump? Or the Party of Faulconer?
Only they can answer that question but one thing is certain; the answer won’t be an easy one to find.
