Republicans see bashing California as a powerful political weapon. Here’s why

Too many homeless people. Too much crime. Wildfires. Access to abortion.

They’re all words and ideas that Republicans have been using for years to demonize the Golden State and the Democrats who run it—a tried-and-true message they are likely to use again next week at the GOP National Convention..

“So much of the Republican party identity has become cultural. California symbolizes the left for Republicans,” said Dennis Goldford, professor emeritus of political science at Drake University in Iowa.

The California-bashing is particularly valuable to Republicans now. For the first time in decades, the state has two potential stars on the A-list of potential Democratic presidents: Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

And the California-as-cesspool chorus is led by the star of the convention and leader of the Republicans, former President Donald Trump.

He emphasized the point when he visited the California Republican convention last fall.

“We will reverse the decline of America and we will end the desecration of your once great state, California,” Trump said, adding that California “is not a great state anymore…the world is being dumped into California. Prisoners. Terrorists. Mental patients.”

Yet California continues to thrive, providing all sorts of glowing arguments for Newsom, Harris and others as they tout the state.

California has the world’s fifth largest economy. More than 18 million people are employed in the state. Silicon Valley is famous for its technological innovation. The Los Angeles area is the nation’s entertainment capital.

The state ranked second in WalletHub’s August 2023 rankings of “quality of life,” topped only by New York. The ranking by the firm that analyzes financial data considers a host of metrics, including bike and walking trails, weather, accessibility to beaches, restaurants, bars, museums, performing arts centers, movie theaters and fitness centers per capita.

For those looking for family fun, California is number one. And it’s 17th on the list of “best places to retire,” largely because of its health care system..

Why not a president from California?

No California politician has successfully run for president since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

California Sen. Alan Cranston’s bid to oppose Reagan that year fizzled quickly. Former Gov. Jerry Brown got some traction in 1992 but wound up soundly defeated by Bill Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential effort died quickly in 2019, and billionaire Tom Steyer’s bid went nowhere in 2020..

If Harris runs for president, she’ll have an identity less as a Californian than as Biden’s lieutenant. Newsom, though, could have a bigger challenge.

He’s been a favorite conservative target, mentioned often on Fox News commentary shows.

Though he’s been elected twice overwhelmingly as governor and easily survived a 2021 recall effort, he’s been losing popularity in his own state. A Berkeley-ISG poll in January found 47% disapproved of the job he was doing and 46% approved. One-third of California voters said the state was headed in the right direction – but 57% said it’s not.

The media drumbeat about California doesn’t help, in a year when the state has had to tackle a multi-billion budget deficit, combat growing homelessness and crime and deal with an unemployment rate that’s been the highest of any state.

San Francisco’s image

The image of California is largely driven by its big cities, notably San Francisco, said Darrell West, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution.

“There have been so many negative stories about San Francisco, about crime, homelessness, and housing costs,” he said.

Republicans are pouncing. Its congressional campaign committee last week sent out press releases in nine House districts blaming Democrats for local crime problems.

Their candidates “cater to criminals while leaving families defenseless against a tidal wave of violence and disorder,” said Ben Petersen, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

PPIC said the state’s violent crime rate was up 5.7% in 2022, from 468 crimes per 100,000 residents in 2021 to 495. Rates for robbery and aggravated assault rose, homicides dropped by 6.1% and rapes remained virtually the same.

But the number of property crimes per 100,000 residents was 2,314 in 2022, well below the peak of 6,881 in 1980. The violent crime rate was 495 per 100,000 in 2022, below the 1992 peak of 1,104, the California Budget & Policy Center said.

Newsom and Democrats fight back by touting all they say is good about California, particularly its economic climate. They like to point out that California has the world’s fourth largest economy, an economy that continues to grow.

While its May unemployment rate was 5.2%, higher than any other state, the state’s job market has expanded for 49 state months. In May another 43,000 jobs were added.

“We’ve got to convince folks that California is going to be part of the economic resurgence of the parts of this country that have been left out,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Fremont.

A new round of bashing

None of this California-bashing is new.

Forty years ago, even though Reagan was the presidential nominee, Republicans derisively talked about “San Francisco Democrats.” The term was understood to refer to all the cultural upheaval of the times.

They haven’t let up. At the 1992 Republican convention, Pat Buchanan, who had mounted a spirited challenge to President George H. W. Bush, spoke about the town of Hayfork, California.

He said it was “a town that is now under a sentence of death because a federal judge has set aside nine million acres for the habitat of the spotted owl, forgetting about the habitat of the men and women who live and work in Hayfork”.

At the 2020 GOP convention, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife when he was mayor of San Francisco, gave a blistering speech tearing into California.

“If you want to see the socialist Biden/Harris future for our country, just take a look at California,” she said.

Guilfoyle, who was divorced from Newsom in 2006, called the state “a land of discarded heroin needles in parks, riots in streets and blackouts in homes.”

California remains a favorite of conservatives complaining about liberal culture and policies. Last year, as San Francisco and other cities moved to ban new buildings from using gas stoves, a strategy to help improve air quality, Republicans protested.

Such policies about “about telling the American people the federal government knows best and will decide what kind of car they can drive, how they can heat their house and now how they’re allowed to cook food for their families,’’ said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.

There’s probably more such talk to come this week. California is such an easy target for so much of the message Republicans want to convey.

“Conservative Republicans bash California because it embodies social and cultural liberalism,” said John Pitney, professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College.