Is it possible that California is on the cusp of being a purple State? Ideologically, the ballot measures show we are moving to the right. We opposed ending the 2/3 vote to pass bonds in cities and counties. We stopped the increase in the minimum wage. Californians demanded, by a 70-30% margin, safe streets. We refused to call prisoners slaves and give them money for the work they do in jail.
“In the future, however, don’t write off California. The goal remains distant, but the trends are positive. The 2024 election results in California refuted one of the most profound and daunting truisms the Democrats have smugly relied upon for decades: demographics are not destiny. As an unapologetic MAGA Republican, President Trump earned 42 percent of the Latino vote—47 percent of Latino men. California is now 40 percent Latino. That demographic fact used to be claimed as the ultimate advantage favoring Democrats. No more. The right Republican candidate, with the right message, will earn just as many votes from Latinos as they earn from whites. Even in California.
Today, California remains a bastion of blue, but that’s changing. California voters have just rejected initiatives that would have imposed rent control, raised the minimum wage, and made it easier to raise taxes. At the same time, they overwhelmingly approved an initiative that—forgive the oversimplification—makes criminal behavior a crime again. So far, the belated counts coming out of California show Trump gaining 39 percent of the vote. If he maintains this percentage until 100 percent of votes are tallied, he will finish with over 7.0 million votes. This is up from 6.0 million (34 percent) in 2020 and 4.5 million (31 percent) in 2016. It’s too soon to know how California will affect control of the U.S. House of Representatives. But California’s MAGA cohort, 7 million strong, helped deliver Trump’s triumph in the popular vote.”
We can look to Trump as to how to gain support in minority, women and young voters communities. Trump showed us the way—the NEW Republican Party is one of values and principles that transcends the OLD GOP. Let us embrace the NEW GOP.
Stirrings of Realignment Even in California
Realignment has come to America. If enough people muster the resolve to stay and fight, California may not be far behind.
By Edward Ring, American Greatness, 11/13/24 https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/13/stirrings-of-realignment-even-in-california/
The stunning nationwide victory by Republicans is not shared in California. And in what is now the very unlikely event that Democrats take over the House of Representatives, the path to that upset will run through California.
Trying to get a timely indication of how Californians have ultimately voted in close races is a good indication of just how far removed the state’s election bureaucracy has drifted from the rest of the country. If you go to the election results page on the Secretary of State website for California, the first thing you see is the number of days left until voting results will be officially recognized. As of November 11, the number you see in a great big circle at the top of the page is the number 32. A small fraction of the circle’s perimeter is highlighted, indicating the amount of allotted time to count ballots consumed so far. California allows 38 days from the November 5 election until the final certification on December 13, and the ballot processors use every bit of their time.
How is this normal? Why do we accept this?
As of November 11, California still had nine uncalled seats for the U.S. Congress. Democrats have officially won 36, and Republicans won 7. In terms of potential flips among the remaining close races, five are Republican incumbents defending their seats, three are Democrat incumbents trying to get reelected, and one is an open seat previously occupied by a Democrat. A week has passed since the election, and there are nine congressional races in California that remain too close to call. Remember that number and that date. How many of them will the Democrats win?
To fully appreciate the convoluted absurdity that has become the norm in California elections, consider the Secretary of State’s “unprocessed ballots” page. Again, a week after the election, the Secretary of State reports the “cumulative total number of processed ballots” to be 10,728,985, and the “estimated total ballots remaining” to be 4,953,569. It’s a week after the election, and the state hasn’t managed to count nearly five million ballots.
The categories of unprocessed ballots are also revealing. “Vote-by-mail ballots received on or before election day” that remain “unprocessed” total 4,087,113. Included in this category are “vote-by-mail ballots received after [italics added] election day thru E+7/ballots forwarded by other counties,” totaling 243,976, along with 76,764 “provisional ballots,” 372,340 “conditional voter registration ballots,” and 45,278 “other” ballots. “Other” is defined as “unprocessed ballots that are damaged or could not be machine-read and need to be remade, or ballots diverted by optical scanners for further review.”
At the risk of spreading misinformation (or is it malinformation?), there are a lot of ways to find votes in this bizarre melange that masquerades as due process. And even if it’s all legitimate, the definition of legitimacy has been stretched. Corruption, crime, and convoluted laws designed to facilitate favorable vote counts are all “legal” if compliant legislatures and partisan judges say so. At least in other states, this time, Republicans decided to play the game. Early votes, provisional votes, same-day registration, mailed ballots received up to a week after the election—whatever. If those are the new rules, we’ll play. Across most states, the Republicans built a machine to rival the Democrats, and the results made history.
That’s harder to do in California. The odds are too stacked. Unlike in battleground states, only 25 percent of California’s voters are registered Republicans. And unlike in battleground states, almost no money is donated to support Republican candidates in California, because it’s considered a lost cause. Even big Pennsylvania, with 13 million people, is tiny compared to sprawling California, with a population of 39 million. The state’s Republicans are undermanned and underfunded. Worse still, the state’s Republican Party leadership is split between RINOs and MAGAs and largely alienated from its base, which is dominated by MAGAs. As for California’s Democrats, they have armies of public sector union operatives, led by thousands of trained professionals.
These structural disadvantages help explain why in California, where enough independents join with Republicans to reliably deliver 40 percent of the vote to Republican candidates in statewide elections, the state’s congressional caucus in 2022 only included 12 Republicans. In a less gerrymandered fight, with funds and activists available merely in proportion to the statewide support they consistently earn from voters, California’s congressional caucus would include 21 Republicans and control of the US House of Representatives would not hang in the balance.
In the future, however, don’t write off California. The goal remains distant, but the trends are positive. The 2024 election results in California refuted one of the most profound and daunting truisms the Democrats have smugly relied upon for decades: demographics are not destiny. As an unapologetic MAGA Republican, President Trump earned 42 percent of the Latino vote—47 percent of Latino men. California is now 40 percent Latino. That demographic fact used to be claimed as the ultimate advantage favoring Democrats. No more. The right Republican candidate, with the right message, will earn just as many votes from Latinos as they earn from whites. Even in California.
Today, California remains a bastion of blue, but that’s changing. California voters have just rejected initiatives that would have imposed rent control, raised the minimum wage, and made it easier to raise taxes. At the same time, they overwhelmingly approved an initiative that—forgive the oversimplification—makes criminal behavior a crime again. So far, the belated counts coming out of California show Trump gaining 39 percent of the vote. If he maintains this percentage until 100 percent of votes are tallied, he will finish with over 7.0 million votes. This is up from 6.0 million (34 percent) in 2020 and 4.5 million (31 percent) in 2016. It’s too soon to know how California will affect control of the U.S. House of Representatives. But California’s MAGA cohort, 7 million strong, helped deliver Trump’s triumph in the popular vote.
Realignment has come to America. If enough people muster the resolve to stay and fight, California may not be far behind.
