The National Republican Congressional Committee has opened an annex in Southern California as the vulnerable GOP majority in the House girds for a midterm fight with the Democrats in more than half-dozen battleground districts.
The NRCC leased 10,000 square feet of office space in Irvine, Calif. — the heart of Orange County. For decades deep red territory, Republicans there are under siege as the Democratic Party makes inroads in upscale suburbs turning away from the GOP because of dissatisfaction with President Trump.
The committee is deploying permanent staff to Irvine this spring, with expertise in field organizing, political strategy, and fundraising. The plan is to bolster Republicans in targeted campaigns, from the Central Valley to San Diego, in a bid to withstand an expected Democratic wave.
“This move allows us to harness and grow what’s already a strong base of support in Southern California. Our long-term physical presence in the area signifies how important our California members are to our conference. We believe this will help supplement their strong campaigns in 2018 and beyond,” Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio, chairman of the NRCC, said in a statement shared with the Washington Examiner.
House Democrats opened a California field office last year. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee employs seven staff members at a WeWork facility, also in the upscale, leafy Orange County community of Irvine. A DCCC spokesman cited the NRCC’s move into Southern California as poof of the GOP’s midterm problems.
“This purely defensive move is an indication that national Republicans are slowly realizing that their incumbents in California are in deep trouble—which Democrats have known, and invested in, for over a year,” said Drew Godinich, the committee’s west coast press secretary. “Strong Democratic challengers combined with grassroots energy in Southern California pose a real threat to Republicans’ control of Washington in 2018 and the GOP is scrambling.”
House Republicans are defending a 23-seat majority, and Democrats could gain nearly a third of the districts they need just in California. The GOP is defending seven seats that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won in the state in 2016. Three of them are suburban Orange County districts that are rarely, if ever, vulnerable in congressional contests:
Rep. Mimi Walters in the 45th District; Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in the 48th District, and the 39th District, being vacated by House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce. Others facing a code blue: Rep. Jeff Denham in the 10th District and Rep. David Valadeo in the 21st District — both in the Central Valley; Rep. Steve Knight in northern Los Angeles County’s 25th District; and the San Diego-area 49th District, being vacated by Rep. Darrell Issa.
To compensate, the NRCC decided more than a year ago to open a satellite office in California to function as the committee’s West Coast headquarters. To run it, the committee hired Nat Serslev, most recently Walters’ district director. Serslev, a past employee of the Republican National Committee, is a veteran of local California campaigns.
The NRCC’s lease on the Irvine space runs through 2020, signaling that House Republicans plan a longer-term presence in California than just the midterm campaign. The location isn’t happenstance. The committee is keen on holding the three Orange County seats, and believes a local presence will allow it to better coordinate campaign operations there.
The Republicans’ problems in California are being driven by Trump. His job approval ratings, poor nationally, are even worse in the Golden State, a bastion of liberalism. But Bill Whalen, a political analyst at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University, cautions that Democrats could face hurdles in their effort to capitalize on GOP woes.
“Trump may not be as much of a factor as you think,” Whalen said. “California is a very complicated state in terms of House elections, because of the top-two primary.”
Under California’s system, the top two finishers in the June primary advance to the November general election, regardless of party affiliation.
Democrats in the state, energized to vote against Republicans in the midterm and send a message of disapproval to Trump, have crowded primary contests, and risk cannibalizing their vote and allowing Republicans to block them from winning a spot on the 2018 ballot. Whalen said it could happen in the 39th, 48th and 49th districts.
On the flip side, the GOP could be shut out of the U.S. Senate race and the gubernatorial contest, depressing the party’s turnout, especially since there doesn’t appear to be any ballot initiatives that would motivate conservatives to show up and vote.
