Sacramento – A caravan with Pickup trucks was floating the California Republican Party California this weekend. The drivers occasionally jumped to dance to the song “Ymca” to the village of People, a popular melody at the rallies of the president.
Inside, the delegates posed glittering golden jackets with huge Trump cutouts, which were decorated with “Trump the Golden era”, and snapped “Maga” steel jewelry.
The Republicans will take part in the Safe Credit Union Convention Center in Sacramento on Sunday at the Cagop Spring Organizing Convention.
(Lezlie Sterling/Tns)
Once dominated by Republicans of the Reagan era, which preferred traditional conservative politics, including the Soviet Union led by Russia, and free trade, the California GOP is redesigned by Trump's populism.
“Just as Reagan was transforming in the political world, Donald Trump is a transformation figure,” said Jim Brute, the former GOP chairman of the state.
For a party that has long been largely irrelevant in California politics – after having recently chosen a nationwide candidate almost two decades ago – there were some light spots in the November elections. The Republicans increased their representation in both houses of the state legislature. The first time that the GOP has done this in a previous year's election year since 1980.
Although Trump lost the state by 20 points against former Vice President Kamala Harris, the democratic presidential candidate and Californian, the Republican received more votes in November than in the last two presidential elections.
Trump also made Latinos better across the country and, according to The Associated Press, won 43% of her votes. In California, the Republicans also increased their support from this voting block, according to the impartial cooking report and the GOP officers.
“Here is the secret sauce. Are you ready for it? “The MP Tony Gonzalez (R-Texas) told the California Republican at the party lunch.” You have to appear. Step one, show yourself. Farming. Often show up. Do not speak a bit broken Spanish. Do not advertise a display and then call it well for two weeks at the end of the choice. “
Gonzalez, whose district has the most gross miles of a congress district in the nation, said that the Latino voters take care of the same questions as most voters – the economy, the security and upbringing of their children.
“Be real,” he added. “You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to tell you what you think you want to hear. “
The meeting woman Leticia Castillo, a Republican elected in November, to represent a democratic district that includes the counties Riverside and San Bernardino, said that in addition to constant tapping of doors, she turned to Latinos in an unconventional manner. She applied to the roots of her parents and her priorities in popular local Spanish -speaking magazines that concentrate on football and Quinceañeras.
“We talk of values and the beliefs that are their beliefs. And it was not that difficult to bring people on board. You want the message, but you don't know that there is a message you need to bring you to you, ”she said.
According to GOP leaders, such legislative profits were triggered by structural changes, including the registration of 1 million additional republican voters in the past six years and the concentration on early voting, ballot papers and other tactics for election day, which have long been accepted by Democrats. The party also started concerted efforts to address the Latino voters more consistently and aggressively than in earlier decades.
“I don't think it happened overnight,” said Jessica Millan Patterson, Chair of the State Republican Party, whose term of office was currently ending, reporters on Saturday.
She described Latinos as a community that had previously been “neglected” by the party, and added: “In 2019 we went to farms and spoke to land workers, and we talked about the things that were important for my community, and that was that they had a good job. It was ensured that their children have great training so that they could have a better life than they. It was ensured that they had safe roads. “
Although she argued that the Democrats had failed in such questions, she admitted that they had been a presence in Latino congregations for a long time. “Democrats appeared and the Democrats took care of their problems,” said Millar Patterson.
Trump also did better among the Latino and black voters than others recently in the Republican presidential candidate.
Millan Patterson can bring Trump voters to voter turnout in elections if he is not on the ballot. This became clear during the failed recall against democratic governor Gavin Newsom, she said. Over a million more Californians voted for Trump in the 2020 presidential election than in 2021 for Newsom.
Trump's influence and the impression on the current Republican party in California were clear during the three -day congress in Sacramento.
Panels during the three -day meeting in the Hyatt Regency and in the congress center in Sacramento focused on topics such as “right guidance”. A practice Trump supporter argued the legal system against him and his goals. The Republicans also advertised a potential ballot paper in California in order to oblige the voters -id and the proof of citizenship for everyone who asked for the state in which Trump asked for the state Exchange against federal disaster relief After the fatal forest fires in Los Angeles start of this year.
The most prominent spokesman was Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer who led against transgender athletes in women's sports, a focus during the second election campaign from Trump.
“I think the problem of allowing men in women's sports, it was the sleeper problem of choice,” she told the Republican crowd. “Of course, I believe that people to hug Donald Trump to hug the first agenda of America … but I believe that people have rejected the surveys to reject absurdity, and that is what the democratic party has become.”
The Republicans Robin Ellis, left, Sharie Abajian, Center and Barbara Moore will take selfies on Sunday at the Cagop Spring Convention in Sacramento.
(Lezlie Sterling/Tns)
The changing voting dynamics in the state could have an impact in the intermediate elections of the next year, in which the Californians play an important role in the decision as to which party is gaining control of the house.
The intermediate elections are likely to be rocky for the Republicans because the party that the White House wins is frequently beaten in the congression elections two years later. And in 2024, congress races were a weak point for the GOP, although the party in the house races in large parts of the country was victorious.
Millar Patterson said that the loss of three Republican congress companies in 2024 was triggered by the competitiveness of their districts and a lack of resources. The former spokesman for the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), who was one of the most amazing fundraisers in the congress and distributed money for California Republicans for California Republican, left office in 2023.
This speaks for a broader fundraising problem for the party. Millan-Patterson was a McCarthy protégé. The last party chairman, the former legislative chairman, had a rolodex with donors. The party's future fundraising prospects are uncertain.
But the party's face changes significantly, as a celebration of the party leaders on Friday evening shows. Eight former chairs, all older white men, entered the stage to thin Lizzy's “The Boys Are Back in Cown”. They welcomed Millan-Patterson, the first Latina, female and a thousand-year-old leader of the party, who left the stage to Billy Joels “Uptown Girl”.
The party chose its new guide Corrin Rankin on Sunday. She is the first black leader of the state party.
“Change comes to California. It is time to end the Democrats One Party Rule and make California great again, ”she told the delegates after winning the Leadership Post. “We go on the offensive. We have to expand the battlefield and bring the fight to every corner of our state. ”