Sacramento – A caravan of trucks that stirred the great flags of President Trump surrounded the Convention of the California Republican Party this weekend, with the drivers occasionally jumping to dance to the song of the people of the village “YMCA”, a favorite melody in the president's demonstrations.
Inside, the delegates posed with giant clippings of Trump, wore bright jackets of gold stamped with “Trump The Golden was” and took diamond jewelry of “magician diamonds.”
Republicans attend the Spring Organization Convention at the Safe Credit Union Convention Center in Sacramento on Sunday.
(Lezlie Sterling/TNS)
Once dominated by the Republicans of the Reagan era that favored traditional conservative policies, including the opposition of the Soviet Union led by Russia and favoring free trade, the California Republican Party is being remodeled by Trump's populism.
“Like Reagan, it was a transformative figure in the political world, Donald Trump is a transformative figure,” said the former president of the State Republican Party Jim Brulte.
For a party that has long been irrelevant for a long time in California's policy, after having chosen a state candidate almost two decades ago, there were some brilliant points in the November elections. Republicans increased their representation in both cameras of the state legislature, the first time that the Republican party has done so in a presidential election year since 1980.
Although Trump lost the State by 20 points against former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic and Californian presidential candidate, the Republican received more votes in November here than in the last two presidential elections.
Trump was also better with Latinos throughout the country, winning 43% of their votes, according to Associated Press. In California, the Republicans also increased their support from this voting block, according to the non -partisan Cook's political report, as well as the officials of the Republican party.
“Here is the secret sauce. Are you ready for it? The representative Tony González (R-Texas) told the Republicans of California at the Lunch on Saturday of the match. “You have to appear. Step one, presents. Appear early. Appear often. Don't talk a little broken Spanish. Do not go an ad and then call it well two weeks at the end of the choice. “
González, whose district has the greatest amount of borders of any district of the Congress in the Nation, said that Latin voters care about the same problems as most voters: the economy, security and education of their children.
“Be genuine,” he added. “You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to tell you what you think they want to listen. “
Assemblyman Leticia Castillo, a Republican chosen in November to represent a Democratic District with which it includes stripes of the counties of Riverside and San Bernardino, in addition to a constant courtyard of the doors, he approached Latinos in an unconventional way. She announced about the immigrant roots of her parents and their priorities in the popular local magazines in Spanish in Spanish that focus on football and quinceañeras.
“We are talking about values and we are talking about what their beliefs are. And it was not so difficult to take people on board. They want the message, but they don't know that there is a message that they need until you bring it to it, ”he said.
The state leaders of the Republican party said that such legislative profits were promoted by structural changes, including the record of 1 million additional republican voters in the last six years and focused on early vote, voting collection and other tactics of the day of the election for a long time accepted by the Democrats. The party also launched a concerted effort to attract Latin voters more consistently and aggressively than the previous decades.
“I don't think it happened overnight,” the president of the State Republican Party, Jessica Millan Patterson, whose mandate has just finished, just finished on Saturday, told reporters.
When describing Latinos as a community that had been “careless” previously for the party, he added: “In 2019 we began to go to the farms and to speak with agricultural workers, and we were talking about the things that were important for my community, and that was to make sure that it had a good job. He made sure that his children had a great education so that they could have a better life than you.
Although he argued that the Democrats had failed in such issues, he acknowledged that for a long time they had been a presence in Latin communities. “The Democrats appeared, and the Democrats made them feel as if they worried about their problems,” said Millan Patterson.
Trump was also better among Latin and black voters than other recent Republican presidential nominees, so it is not clear if the best performance of California Republicans is part of a fundamental realignment of the basis of political parties or if it is specific to Trump and evaporate once he leaves the position.
Make Trump voters in the elections when it is not on the ballot can be a challenge, added Millan Patterson. That became evident during the failed election of retirement against Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, he said. More than one million Californians voted for Trump in the 2020 presidential elections they voted to remember Newsom in 2021.
Trump's influence and imprint in the current Republican Party of California was clear during the three -day convention in Sacramento.
The panels in the Hyatt Regency and the Convention Center in Sacramento focused on issues such as the “Law of Laws”, argue that Trump's supporters argue the legal system against him and his objectives. Republicans also promoted a possible Voting measure of California 2026 to require voter identification and citizenship test for any person who cast tickets, which Trump demanded that the State adopt in exchange for a federal disaster relief after mortal forest fires in the Los Angeles area this year.
The most prominent speaker was Riley Gaines, a former university swimmer who has criticized the transgender athletes competing in women's sports, an approach during Trump's second electoral campaign.
“I think the problem of allowing men to enter women's sports, was the sleeping issue of elections,” he told the Republican crowd. “I think, of course, that people appeared in the surveys to hug Donald Trump, to embrace the first agenda of the United States … But even more, I think people went to surveys to reject the absurdity, and that is what the Democratic Party has become.”
Republicans Robin Ellis, on the left, Sharie Abajian, Center and Barbara Moore take selfies at the Spring Cagop Convention in Sacramento on Sunday.
(Lezlie Sterling/TNS)
The changing voting dynamics in the state could have ramifications in the middle of the period of the next year, where the Californians are expected to play an important role in the decision of which party wins the camera control.
It is likely that the mid -period elections are difficult for Republicans because the party that wins the White House frequently receives a beating in the Congress elections two years later. And in 2024, Congress races were a weak point for the Republican party, even when the party was victorious in domestic careers in much of the country.
Millan Patterson said that the loss of three Republican headlines from Congress in 2024 was promoted by the competitiveness of its districts and the lack of resources. The former president of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), who was one of the most prodigious fund collectors in Congress and lavished money to the Republicans of California, left office in 2023.
This speaks of a broader fundraising problem that faces the party. Millan Patterson was a protégé of McCarthy. The last president of the party, the former Legislative leader Brulte, had a rolodex full of donors. The future perspectives for collection of party funds are uncertain.
But the face of the party is changing clearly, as evidenced in a celebration of the party leaders on Friday night. Eight former chairs, all major white men, took the stage to lose weight “The boys are back in the city” of Lizzy. They salused Millan Patterson, the first Latin, female and millennium leader of the party, who left the stage to the “Girl Uptown” by Billy Joel.
On Sunday, the party elected its new president, Corrin Rankin. She is the first black leader of the state party.
“The change is arriving in California. It is time to put an end to the rule of a Democrats party and make California great again, ”he told the delegates after winning the leadership post. “We are offensive. We need to expand the battlefield and bring the fight to every corner of our state. ”
