Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.
No presidential candidates attended despite the state’s primary taking place less than a year from now, and California offering the largest cache of delegates of any state in the nation. Orange County GOP Chairman Fred Whitaker referred to the 2024 presidential race as a “crusade” during an invocation Saturday.Laurel Rosenhall's Friday report at LAT:
Will a prominent Republican jump into next year’s race to replace California Sen. Dianne Feinstein?
It’s a question that’s top of mind as more than 1,000 members of the California Republican Party and their guests gather in Sacramento this weekend for a convention that kicks off today.
The fact that no prominent Republican has so far announced plans to seek California’s open Senate seat is another sign of the decline of a onetime GOP powerhouse that produced two presidents and four governors in the span of just over a half century, reports my colleague Seema Mehta.
The GOP is now so marginalized in California that a Republican has not won a statewide election since 2006. California hasn’t elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since Pete Wilson in 1988.
Republicans who ran in two of the last three Senate races in California did not make it past the nonpartisan primary, allowing two Democrats to advance to the general election in 2016, when then-Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris won over Rep. Loretta Sanchez, and in 2018 when Feinstein won reelection over Kevin de León, who serves on the Los Angeles City Council.
In 2022, appointed incumbent Alex Padilla easily dispatched GOP challenger Mark Meuser 61-39%
GOP registration in California dropped from 35.21% in 2002 to 23.85% in 2022.
