Republicans see hatred of California as a powerful political weapon

Too many homeless people. Too much crime. Forest fires. Access to abortion.

They’re all words and ideas Republicans have used for years to demonize the Golden State and the Democrats who run it — a tried-and-true message they’ll likely use again next week at the GOP National Convention.

“So much of the Republican Party’s identity has become cultural. California epitomizes the left for Republicans,” said Dennis Goldford, professor emeritus of political science at Drake University in Iowa.

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The conviction in California is especially valuable to Republicans now. For the first time in decades, the state has two potential stars on the A-list of Democratic presidential hopefuls: Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

And the California-as-cesspool chorus is led by convention star and Republican leader former President Donald Trump.

He made the point when he visited the Republican convention in California last fall.

“We will reverse the decline of America and end the desecration of your once great state, California,” Trump said, adding that California “is no longer a great state … the world is thrown into California. Prisoners. Terrorists. Mental patients.”

Yet California continues to thrive, providing all sorts of brilliant arguments for Newsom, Harris and others as they promote the state.

California has the fifth largest economy in the world. More than 18 million people are employed in the state. Silicon Valley is famous for its technological innovation. The Los Angeles area is the entertainment capital of the nation.

The state ranked second in WalletHub’s August 2023 ranking for “quality of life,” behind only New York. The financial data firm’s ranking takes into account a number of metrics, including bike and walking trails, weather, accessibility to beaches, restaurants, bars, museums, performing arts centers, movie theaters and fitness centers per capita .

For those looking for family fun, California is number one. And it ranks 17th on the “best places to retire” list, thanks in large part to its health care system.

Why not a president from California?

No politician from California has successfully run for president since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

California Senator Alan Cranston’s bid to oppose Reagan that year quickly fizzled out. Former Gov. Jerry Brown narrowly won in 1992, but was defeated by Bill Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid died quickly in 2019, and billionaire Tom Steyer’s bid went nowhere in 2020.

If Harris runs for president, she will have an identity less as a Californian than as a Biden lieutenant. Newsom, however, may have a bigger challenge.

He was a favorite conservative target, often mentioned on Fox News commentary shows.

Although he was twice overwhelmingly elected governor and easily survived a 2021 recall effort, he lost popularity in his own state. A January Berkeley-ISG poll found 47 percent disapproved of the work he was doing and 46 percent approved. A third of California voters said the state was headed in the right direction — but 57 percent said it wasn’t.

The media bashing of California doesn’t help in a year when the state has had to tackle a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, combat rising homelessness and crime, and deal with an unemployment rate that was the highest largest of all states.

Image of San Francisco

California’s image is largely driven by its big cities, particularly San Francisco, said Darrell West, a policy analyst at the Brookings Institution.

“There have been so many negative stories about San Francisco, about crime, homelessness and housing costs,” he said.

Republicans pounce. The Congressional Campaign Committee sent out press releases in nine House districts last week blaming Democrats for local crime problems.

Their candidates “target criminals while leaving families defenseless against a wave of violence and disorder,” said Ben Petersen, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

PPIC said the state’s violent crime rate rose 5.7 percent in 2022, from 468 crimes per 100,000 residents in 2021 to 495. Rates for robbery and aggravated assault rose, homicides fell 6.1 percent and the rapes remained basically the same.

But the number of property crimes per 100,000 residents was 2,314 in 2022, well below the peak of 6,881 in 1980. The violent crime rate was 495 per 100,000 residents in 2022, below the 1992 peak of 1,104, the California Budget said & Policy Center.

Newsom and the Democrats are fighting back with everything they say is good about California, especially its economic climate. They like to point out that California has the fourth largest economy in the world, and one that continues to grow.

While the unemployment rate in May was 5.2 percent, higher than any other state, the state’s labor market has expanded for 49 straight months. Another 43,000 jobs were added in May.

“We need to convince people that California is going to be part of the economic renaissance of the parts of this country that have been left out,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Fremont.

Another round of strikes

Nothing in this California denouement is new.

Forty years ago, even though Reagan was the presidential candidate, Republicans spoke derisively of “San Francisco Democrats.” The term was understood to refer to all the cultural upheavals of the times.

They didn’t let up. At the 1992 Republican convention, Pat Buchanan, who launched a spirited challenge to President George HW Bush, spoke about the town of Hayfork, California.

He said it was “a city that is now on death row because a federal judge set aside nine million acres for spotted owl habitat, forgetting about the habitat of the men and women who live and work in Hayfork.”

At the 2020 GOP convention, Kimberly Guilfoyle, the wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom when he was mayor of San Francisco, gave a blistering speech that tore through California.

“If you want to see the future Biden/Harris socialist for our country, take a look at California,” she said.

Guilfoyle, who divorced Newsom in 2006, called the state “a land of heroin needles thrown in parks, riots in the streets and blackouts in homes.”

California remains a favorite of conservatives who complain about liberal culture and policies. Last year, when San Francisco and other cities moved to ban new buildings from using gas stoves, a strategy to help improve air quality, Republicans protested.

Such policies are about “telling the American people that the federal government knows best and will decide what kind of car they can drive, how they can heat their house and now how they are allowed to cook food for their families,” the representative said. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.

More such discussions are likely to follow this week. California is such an easy target for so much of the message Republicans want to get across.

“Conservative Republicans are knocking California because it embodies social and cultural liberalism,” said John Pitney, professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College.