The Golden State is a Democratic Party stronghold, but Republicans feel optimistic about the future as they pick their new state party leader.
California Republicans elected Corrin Rankin as the new state party chairwoman at their convention over the weekend, months after some down-ballot victories despite the state still heavily favoring Democrats.
In remarks after Rankin was elected the new California GOP chairwoman, she proclaimed that change was coming to the Golden State as Republicans aim to end the Democrats’ stronghold.
“The Republican Party is here for everyone,” Rankin said, per the Sacramento Bee. “We’re going to be reaching out to all Californians with our common sense solutions.”
In the 2024 elections, Democrats won all statewide contests in California, but Republicans made gains across the board. The GOP gained seats in the state Assembly and Senate and narrowed the margin in the presidential election from 2020.
Other victories for Republicans included a tough-on-crime candidate, Nathan Hochman, winning the Los Angeles district attorney race over liberal incumbent George Gascón and a tough-on-crime ballot measure, Proposition 36, handily winning.
Republicans have made cracking down on crime a key focus of their pitch nationally and in the Golden State, hoping to attract voters away from the Democratic Party. Los Angeles County GOP Chairwoman Roxanne Hoge told Politico that California’s crime problem has driven voters toward the Republican Party even in the populous and heavily Democratic county.
“We’ve seen a rightward shift even in deep blue LA,” Hoge said. “It turns out people really don’t like being mugged.”
Los Angeles County shifted 11 percentage points toward Republicans between the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections. The state shifted more toward the GOP in 2024 in all but one county.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), the top Democrat in the state, has publicly moderated his position on transgender athletes in sports, a key talking point for Republicans. Newsom’s statement that he believes it is unfair for biological men to compete in women’s sports caused division within Democratic circles.
Democrats still hold supermajorities in both state legislative chambers, but Republicans are within a few seats of breaking at least one of those supermajorities in the coming years.
Another challenge for the GOP in California is the top-two finisher primary system, which shut them out of statewide general elections in 2016 and 2018. In recent years, the GOP has gotten a candidate to the general election, avoiding a situation where two Democrats advance.
One of the major accomplishments of outgoing California GOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson was reversing many negative trends for the state party when she was elected in 2019.
The party has rebounded from third place for affiliation for voters after slipping behind no party preference in 2019, gaining roughly 1 million registered voters since then. From October 2023 to October 2024, the GOP gained more than 350,000 registered voters, while Democrats gained just over 1,500, per state data.
Millan Patterson said over the weekend that the gains have come after working on early voting, ballot harvesting, and launching efforts aimed at Latino voters, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“I don’t think it happened overnight,” she said, noting that Democrats had long held a presence in the Latino community that Republicans had not had.
Republicans made gains with Latinos nationwide in the 2024 election, continuing a trend that could help the party’s chances in states with significant Latino populations, including California.
Lisa Moreno, the outgoing GOP Central Valley regional vice chairwoman, told Politico that the “mess and the chaos on the other side” has led voters to look beyond their traditional party affiliation.
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“It’s a different environment,” Moreno told the outlet. “Now it’s OK, and it’s cool to be Republican. Dare I say, it’s OK, and it’s cool to be MAGA, whereas before, no way.”
While California remains a solidly Democratic state according to the Cook Political Report’s partisan voting index, with a Democratic plus-12 rating, it has moved rightward in that index since the 2017 rating, which had the Golden State at Democrat plus-14.