Sharing a salt-and-butter breakfast bagel with her grandson at a Newhall bakery, Republican stalwart Jill Brown said former President Trump's guilty verdict in a Manhattan courtroom won't affect her plans to vote for him in the presidential election. of November.
The former Santa Clarita resident and retired teacher, who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, suspected Biden was also guilty of unspecified crimes and did not know why prosecutors were focusing on Trump's actions.
“Silence money has been around since the beginning of time. So I don't know why they're making a big deal out of it,” Brown, 69, said Friday.
In Santa Clarita, located in a hotly contested congressional district that is expected to help determine which party controls Congress next year, Trump's guilty verdict did little to sway Brown or other staunch Republicans.
But it may nudge moderate undecided voters, and that could be critical in deciding the fate of Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Santa Clarita) in this election.
Still, it remains to be seen whether the verdict – and any the corresponding stain on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee) will affect a congressional race in which the overheated national discourse has often taken a backseat to issues affecting the daily lives of Californians.
“Those who are trying to nationalize this race and make everything super partisan fundamentally misunderstand our district,” said Charles Hughes, an Antelope Valley resident and chairman of the local Republican central committee. Hughes did not think the verdict would have any impact on Garcia's race or support.
Garcia hopes to fend off Democratic challenger George Whitesides in California's closely divided 27th Congressional District, where voters have twice re-elected their Republican congressman, despite a double-digit lead in Democratic voter registration. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden beat Trump in the district by 12 percentage points.
About an hour's drive from the solidly liberal confines of downtown Los Angeles, the Congressional district stretches from Santa Clarita to the folds and valleys of the San Gabriel Mountains and the high desert border of Lancaster and Palmdale.
This district, once staunchly red territory, has been on the front lines of partisan warfare since a millennial Democrat unseated the Republican incumbent in a nationally watched race in 2018. But its meteoric rise met an equally rapid fall. : Rep. Katie Hill resigned less than a year later amid a sex scandal. García won the seat in a special election and managed to retain it in two subsequent regular elections.
Kevin Mahan, 72, an independent voter, has not decided how he will vote in November's parliamentary elections. As a newcomer from Glendale, he doesn't know much about Santa Clarita or Garcia politics. But Mahan said he was unlikely to support Garcia, adding: “If someone is in bed with Trump, I won't vote for him.”
Trump's historic criminal conviction was a sad day for America, Mahan said.
Outside money, busloads of volunteers, and constant national attention have poured in during each of the recent election cycles. 2024 will be no different: The race for the 27th seat remains one of the most competitive congressional races in the country, and the results will undoubtedly help shape partisan control of the House. It is one of four California races rated “unlucky” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
But Trump's verdict and possible associations with Garcia, who had been endorsed by Trump in the past, could sway independent voters, who make up more than a fifth of the district's electorate.
Opinions on the trial and verdict have been shaped by voters' underlying political allegiances, and polls show that Democrats overwhelmingly considered the trial fair, while only a small fraction of Republicans agreed with that sentiment. . Independents were evenly divided on the relative fairness of the trial.
García has not yet commented on the verdict. Whitesides took the opportunity to highlight the ties between the former president and the Los Angeles-area congressman, saying in a statement that “Garcia is focused on defending Trump, rather than serving us” and noting that his opponent was one of several Republicans from California. he that he voted against the certification of the 2020 election results.
Democratic allies, such as Santa Clarita Valley Democrats Chairman and Founder Andrew Taban and former Democratic candidate Christy Smith, who ran three unsuccessful campaigns against Garcia in the past, were hopeful that the trial could push independent voters towards the Whitesides.
“The key thing to remember about CA-27 is that while the largest bloc of registered voters are Democrats, the second largest bloc are independent voters, and independent voters in this district have consistently gone for President Biden.” Smith said. With “the right kind of exposure,” she posited, Garcia's ties to Trump could affect how those independents vote in the congressional race in November.
Democratic challenger George Whitesides, photographed at a 2019 conference in Beverly Hills, noted that rival Rep. Mike Garcia was one of the California Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results.
(Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
As his group pursues Whitesides and other local Democratic candidates, Taban said he hoped the verdict would emerge in conversations with voters, particularly because he and other club members plan to underscore the fact that Garcia is “certainly a Trump loyalist.” ”.
But at the end of the day, swing voters in Congress will be much more focused on economic issues like gas and grocery prices, crime and the border, said Jon Fleischman, a Republican strategist and former state executive director of the GOP.
“I'm not saying voters' opinions on Trump don't matter,” Fleischman said. “I just don't think Thursday's verdicts will change many people's minds.”
