California’s Woeful Republicans

Both candidates to succeed Barbara Boxer in the U.S. Senate are Democrats. This is thanks to California’s Prop. 14, passed in 2010, which makes the general election in any statewide race a contest between the top two vote-getters in the primaries, regardless of party. This election is the first time a Republican has been shut out of a Senate race in the state. That presented Rep. Loretta Sanchez—the second of the top two—with a challenge and an opportunity.

Kamala Harris, the state’s attorney general, is the frontrunner, the Democratic establishment’s candidate with superior fundraising and statewide name recognition. Sanchez knew that if she was to have a shot at winning, she would have to appeal to a broad coalition of Latinos, Democrats bucking the establishment, independents, and, yes, Republicans, who in California have been dwindling in numbers and relevance for years.

Sanchez’s strategy could serve as the playbook for future statewide Latino candidates, who need Republicans to win, according to Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who specializes in Latino issues. He points to demographic and geographic trends as proof that this “tenuous coalition” is the only way forward for both groups.

Compared with the Democrat party’s liberal wing that dominates California politics, Latinos “have much more centrist views, especially on the economy and the environment,” Madrid says. Their best hope to win statewide offices is to “work in coalition with Republicans.”

California is a majority-minority state: Those who identify as Hispanic or Latino overtook whites in 2015 as the largest ethnic group. A majority of both Latinos and the state’s overall population call Southern California home. Despite that, Latinos and Southern Californians alike have difficulty winning statewide office. Currently only two of eight elected statewide office-holders are from Southern California; only one—California secretary of state Alex Padilla—is Latino.

Latinos haven’t amassed the power they could in state politics because they don’t turn out to vote in the numbers they could. (Both Democratic leaders in the state legislature are Southern California Latinos, but they are chosen by other lawmakers.) In the 2014 gubernatorial elections, only 28 percent of registered Latino voters went to the polls, compared with 49 percent of white registered voters. Los Angeles County is nearly half Latino or Hispanic, and is home to a quarter of the state’s population. Registered-voter turnout there is anemic, just 31 percent in the 2014 general election, compared with 42 percent statewide.

The San Francisco Bay Area is substantially whiter, wealthier, more liberal, and more likely to vote. It has three million fewer people than L.A. County, but cast some 270,000 more votes in 2014. If Latino candidates hope to get elected as Democrats in statewide races, they need Bay Area liberals to support them. But as Madrid points out, liberal groups often embrace the non-Latino candidate.

This year’s U.S. Senate race is a good example. Harris, a Bay Area native of Indian and Jamaican descent, has been endorsed by liberals everywhere—from President Barack Obama, to the Sierra Club, to Emily’s List, to the Brady Campaign, to the editorial boards of the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Sacramento Bee.

Sanchez’s endorsements have been rather more provincial, but ideologically broader, including Republicans such as Representative Darrell Issa, radio host Hugh Hewitt, former representative Buck McKeon, former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan, and the Orange County Register, Sanchez’s libertarian-leaning hometown paper.

Can a Democrat win by looking for Republicans to tip the scales? The GOP isn’t exactly a political powerhouse in California: Only 27 percent of voters in the state are registered Republican. Still, combine them with the Latino vote, and Sanchez could theoretically put together a winning combination.

Sanchez was first elected to Congress in 1996, when she knocked off right-wing flamethrower “B-1” Bob Dornan to represent part of Orange County—once a Republican stronghold that turns bluer by the day. Relatively conservative on some fiscal issues, she serves on the House Armed Services Committee. Congressional Quarterly calls her a “debate shaper and swing vote,” even though, as a House Democrat, she has spent most of her congressional career in the minority.

That said, Sanchez hasn’t shied away from liberal stances on issues, especially immigration and health care. A Sanchez spokesman says the candidate won’t abandon liberal issues just to win over Republicans, but adds she is looking for common ground with Republicans.

Alas, the outreach hasn’t gotten her very far. Sanchez’s campaign has suffered from weak fundraising and gaffes. And, no surprise, Harris has made a point of condemning her for wooing Republicans. In a recent fundraising email, the Harris campaign called Sanchez “desperate” for “standing with Republicans,” adding: “people are sick of the politics of division that define candidates like Donald Trump.”

Sanchez, in turn, has suggested that Harris—the state attorney general, it will be remembered—failed to join in lawsuits against Trump University because she had accepted campaign contributions from the Trumps. (Harris later gave the Trump donations to charity.)

For all the convoluted politics of the race, one of the most vigorously contested issues between the candidates has been the number of debates. (There will be just one, limiting Sanchez’s opportunities to close the gap with Harris.) Absent an October surprise, the debate will likely be Sanchez’s last stand.

Even if it doesn’t work in this election, Sanchez’s counterintuitive strategy of uniting Latinos and Republicans in California may yet be the best hope either group has for success in statewide politics.

Matthew Fleming is a reporter for CalWatchdog in Sacramento.