After voters across the country chose President-elect Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, California Governor Gavin Newsom offered a hot take on what went wrong for Democrats and a list of “experts.” He warned against going along with the first wave.
“This is going to come out eventually, and I think we have a responsibility to interrogate ourselves. I’m not naive about it, and that includes all of us individually,” Newsom said in a video address. spoke. “We have to look in the mirror and reflect more broadly and deeply on what happened.”
Some Democrats say California politics are part of the problem.
Former Democratic state Rep. Mike Gatto said his party’s loss to a candidate often likened to a fascist dictator shows that “something is broken in the Democratic policy and Democratic message vanguard that started in California and elsewhere. It shows that.”
“We never want to be in the position of the least among ourselves, but at the same time we have to focus on what the majority of voters care about, is affordable, and a recognition that some of the more extreme left wing of the Democratic Party has gone too far.”
The Republican Party embodies a West Coast liberalism that often appears to be more focused on identity politics than on the bread-and-butter issues that matter most to American voters: the ability to pay rent and buy groceries. For this purpose, he made good use of Harris, a native of California.
Trump’s defeat of Harris, the first black female presidential candidate from a major party, came amid a chaotic election season that included an assassination attempt and a change of candidates with 107 days left for the vice president to gain public support. It seems that there were many factors.
As a bastion of liberal thought, the Golden State and Newsom himself also play an outsized role in today’s “culture war” debate over American ideology, driven in part by the governor’s relentless campaign against Trumpism. .
While campaigning for President Biden, Harris and other Democrats across the country, Newsom demonized Republican leaders, claiming they wanted to reverse the country’s progress. California, he likes to say, is where the future happens first.
The governor touted the state’s “first-in-the-nation” research on reparations for descendants of enslaved African Americans in the United States, an issue that had very low polling in California and at the national level. The governor and legislative Democrats distanced themselves. From calls to provide relief in an election year. Democrats have touted the state’s aggressive efforts to combat climate change, including banning the sale of new gas-powered cars starting in 2035, but they haven’t solved the state’s highest gas prices.
California also has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country. Harris repeatedly mentioned owning firearms on the campaign trail to distinguish her support for gun control from the right’s false claims that she and Democrats want to abolish the Second Amendment. did.
A law Newsom signed this year that prohibits school districts from requiring teachers to notify parents if a student wants to be identified as a different gender has incited conservatives, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX This led to a pledge to relocate the city to Texas.
The 2024 Democratic Party Platform has become synonymous with abortion access, climate change, and LGBTQ+ rights, all of which are at the forefront of the modern Golden State zeitgeist. But it was rolled out in America, which is concerned about jobs, affordable housing and inflation.
David Kochel, a veteran Iowa Republican strategist who also worked on presidential campaigns, said Republicans are focusing on images of homeless camps in San Francisco and Los Angeles and stories of people leaving the state for Texas because of crime and housing costs. Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush say they have made it part of standard conversation.
Kochel noted that President Trump ran an ad during the 2019 Democratic primary campaign calling for Harris’ support for taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgery for prisoners. In the ad, Harris talks about previous efforts to provide care to inmates in transit in California prisons.
The ad, which frequently aired during college and NFL games, claimed Harris supported transgender women “competing with our girls in sports.” President Trump announced that he would ban transgender women from participating in women’s track and field.
“Kamala is for them,” the ad said. “President Trump is on your side.”
Vice President Kamala Harris at Capitol Pride DC in 2022
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
Sam Garrett, a Democratic strategist and former managing director of Equality California, an LGBTQ+ rights group, said the party should decide whether to focus on social issues or economic insecurity. He resisted the idea that he had to make a decision, arguing that both were possible.
“The second half of that ad, which says Donald Trump is on your side, is what voters are responding to,” Garrett said. “That’s what Democrats need to do a better job of explaining – we’re on your side. Ensuring that everyone, including transgender children, has access to health care is a mutually exclusive It’s not a thing.”
He added that economic issues such as housing affordability affect a wide range of voters, including members of the LGBTQ community.
“We need to expand our tents, not shrink them,” Garrett said.
But California’s emphasis on such liberal issues also pushes the envelope for many moderate voters who may be sympathetic to some progressive policies, Kocher said. he said.
Kochel warned that “virtue signaling” from Democrats could have real-world effects on vulnerable communities and lead to a revolt against California’s “ultra-progressive activism.”
“That’s the kind of thing that frustrates me as a Republican who supports LGBTQ rights and supports things like marriage equality. That backlash is going to involve a lot of people who don’t deserve to be targeted,” he said. said. “So I’m concerned about the state of marriage equality. I feel like it’s going to happen because there are a lot of things like this. [has gone] It’s too far. ”
Jennifer Horn, a former leader of the New Hampshire Republican Party who is now registered as an independent and opposes President Trump, said Republicans are “demonizing California as a dangerous liberal state” to scare the rest of the country. There is no doubt that it was extremely effective. Is it true or not?
“They’re portraying California as so liberal that if we made the rest of the country like California, the whole operation would collapse,” Horn said. Ta.
That’s what happened in Iowa, where Republican politicians were essentially opposed to the California issue, said Dr. said Jeff Link, who assisted former Vice President Al Gore in his presidential campaign in 2017.
“So that’s essentially all the Republicans in the Iowa Legislature have advertised,” he said, noting the frequency of ads about transgender youth in sports, using public restrooms, defunding the police, increasing taxes, etc. pointed out.
But Democrats didn’t just lose support with voters in battleground states and Republican strongholds. It was too liberal even for many California voters.
The California Democrat and Newsom opposed Proposition 36, a statewide ballot measure that would increase penalties for repeat theft and drug offenses. Harris declined to take a position. The measure passed with support from 69% of voters. Voters also disagreed with the state party’s support on four other policies, including a failed effort to ban involuntary forced labor in prisons.
“That was a huge disconnect with the Democratic Party, and definitely Gavin Newsom and everyone else running around trying to amplify that.” [liberal social] It doesn’t help us,” said John Sharman, a veteran Los Angeles-based Democratic consultant. “We have to refocus on bread-and-butter, middle-class issues and move away from identity politics and move away from the idea of fighting these culture wars.”
The defeat of Harris, a prominent California Democrat who has served as California attorney general and state senator, raises questions about how Newsom will compete in the presidential race if he seeks the 2028 presidential nomination. are.
Immediately after the election, Mr. Newsom appeared to adopt the same divisive strategy he had used during his first two years in office to position himself as the leader of the Democratic resistance to President Trump.
The governor announced nearly two days after the race was called to increase funding for the state to fight legal battles to protect women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and climate change against the incoming federal government. announced the holding of a symbolic special parliamentary session.
President Trump has slammed California’s cost of living and accused “newscams” of trying to kill the country’s “beautiful California.”
“It has become impossible to build affordable cars, we have an unchecked and unbalanced homeless catastrophe, and the cost of everything, especially food, is spiraling out of control,” Trump said. wrote Truth Social.
In 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on the hood of electric vehicles, requiring all new passenger cars sold in the state to be zero-emission vehicles by 2035.
(Daniel Kim/AP Pool)
Horn and others argue that California Democrats should continue to hold fast to their values. However, if parties consider themselves national party leaders, they may need to refocus their messages.
“This country needs the Democratic Party to defeat MAGA. That means Democrats need to be more honest about not just their positions, but the disconnect between those positions and the majority of Americans,” Horn said. said.
At a town hall with Mayor Karen Bass in Los Angeles on Saturday, outgoing Sen. LaFonza Butler said Democrats are pursuing economic policies that respond to the concerns of Americans, but they don’t resonate.
“What you’re seeing is a widening gap between the reality of ordinary people and the people who have good intentions and want to work for them,” she says.
Butler, the first lesbian of color in the U.S. Senate, warned California leaders against leaning too far into the culture wars.
“I don’t believe Governor Newsom was elected as a resistance governor,” Butler said. “I don’t trust the next senator.” [Adam] Schiff was elected as the next senator of the Resistance. The lesson for all of us is that we are public servants and we are here to serve the people who send us, and that the governor of California should be the governor of all of California. I hope this reminds you of that. ”
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