By Bryan Williams

Woe the California GOP? If I had a nickel for every time someone pointed out that the last Republican to win statewide in California was in 2006 … I’d have a lot of nickels. And, at least until June 2022 (the statewide primary elections) it looks like that losing streak will hold. 

Because of our “better, more-fair,” politics here in California, a Republican isn’t even guaranteed a spot on the general election ballot next year for governor – the top two vote getters in the primary move on. There was one high-polling Democrat on last week’s recall ballot, Kevin Paffrath. Maybe it’ll be Newsom vs. Paffrath next year. 

So…did the “Republican Power Grab” recall go down in flames because of Larry Elder being a Trumpista, or because, at the end of the day, this is a state where Democrats rule? Turnout was, as of this writing, about 54%, which is low overall, but pretty good for an off-year election. His party woke up to save Gavin Newsom, who otherwise isn’t well-liked by many Democrats. But the prospect of electing a guy like Larry Elder, who sounds a lot like Donald Trump, scared them into keeping Newsom for the last 14 months of his first term.

I think Newsom could have been recalled if the men and women running to replace him had 1) more money, and 2) devoted their campaigns to offering policy on the “nuts and bolts” of governing, which in my opinion, Newsom has (and Jerry Brown before him, and maybe even Arnold Schwartzenegger before him had) failed at tremendously. 

Billions of dollars lost on fraudulent unemployment claims while the legitimately jobless have to wait on-hold for hours to try and collect before they’re hung up on, a Department of Motor Vehicles, with its ridiculously long lines, running off software from the 1970s, a state war on petroleum production resulting in foreign oil from the Middle East being shipped thousands of miles in tankers spewing tons of carbon dioxide, and massive wildfires that are now more predictable than rain (to name just a few problems, not to mention COVID shutdowns and the French Laundry hypocrisy), are all Newsom’s responsibility to fix. The fixes do not require rocket science. A populist candidate could have pounded Newsom on this and won.

Instead, we got a re-hash of 2020 where Trump was rolled out as a bogeyman, and Larry Elder was his stooge. It worked. Would this have worked if, say, California was Idaho or any other red state where Trumpism is still a winning ideology?

I don’t like it, but it wins elections. It’s also easy. It’s much harder to actually campaign on details like those listed above. It’s difficult to outline how government fails the people where they encounter it and need it the most while at the same time the candidate articulates how he or she will make it better, and then actually do it once elected. 

Can you imagine the approval ratings and re-election odds for a governor who can make filing an unemployment claim as easy as ordering from McDonald’s on UberEats? Or who can enact a jobs program with good wages, to clean up our overgrown forests so we don’t have to endure months of smoke-filled skies, destroyed homes and closed parks?

There were a few candidates, out of the 46 on the recall ballot, who were serious and probably would have tried to tackle these problems in earnest. They would have made great candidates in any state had they the money to run a campaign to get their message out. 

But on the question of whether Trump continues to be the trademark of the Republican Party? Don’t look to California for a referendum on that. Trump won without California in 2016 against a weak Democratic candidate, and, if Joe Biden (or Kamala Harris) are the (weak) Democratic candidates in 2024, he’ll win again. Without the Golden State, again.