desantis

DeSantis Aims to Outdo Trump on Immigration

June 6, 2023 By Jean Guerrero 8 Comments

The former president’s pledge to end birthright citizenship is a new low but unlikely to be the end.

Donald Trump was the most anti-immigrant U.S. president in nearly 100 years. He oversaw a family separation policy at the border that traumatized countless children and lost track of hundreds of parents; slashed refugee admissions to record lows; gutted access to asylum; and much more.

But for some of the most influential U.S. nativists and white nationalists — people Republican presidential candidates have decided they need to court during and after the primary season — Trump’s crackdowns were not enough. Some see greater potential in his top rival for the 2024 nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Can DeSantis successfully co-opt Trump’s trademark issue? DeSantis is trying to paint the MAGA leader as soft on immigration.

At the end of May, he attacked Trump as pro-amnesty for his onetime support of a failed GOP bill that would have legalized some immigrants brought here as children in exchange for more border militarization and cuts to legal immigration. And last weekend, DeSantis met with families of victims of the 9/11 terror attacks as they criticized Trump’s decision to host a Saudi-funded golf tournament.

On Tuesday, Trump sought to reclaim his position as the No. 1 anti-immigrant crusader by reviving one of the most extreme ideas explored during his presidency: an executive order ending birthright citizenship.

The proposed order, which he promised to sign his first day in office if reelected, would face immediate legal challenges for its clear violation of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to everyone born in the U.S. His plan relies on a tortured reading of the amendment from pseudo-intellectuals at California’s Claremont Institute, such as Trump’s former lawyer John Eastman, a key player in the effort to overturn the 2020 election who also wrote an unhinged article questioning Vice President Kamala Harris’ citizenship (it led to an editors’ apology).

If the Supreme Court ruled in Trump’s favor — not impossible to imagine — it would defy more than a century of legal precedent. And it would create a shadow population of millions of U.S.-born people who could be jailed and deported. In the eyes of restrictionists, it would all be worth it for a decline in “anchor babies,” their slur for the U.S.-born children of people who lack legal immigration status.

But restrictionists are skeptical that Trump would follow through on his promise given his record of sloppy executive orders and their chaotic implementation. Past orders were often blocked by courts.

“I fear this will be one more example of him writing up an executive order and either it fizzles out or they don’t pursue it with the seriousness and professionalism it deserves,” Mark Krikorian, a lead architect of the 21st century movement to strangle legal and illegal immigration, told me. He frowns on Trump’s occasional expressions of support for legal immigration.

“He’s not even a restrictionist,” he complained to me, criticizing Trump’s failure to stop guest worker and other visa programs. Krikorian heads the Center for Immigration Studies, classified as an anti-immigrant hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center despite Krikorian’s claims to the contrary. He prefers DeSantis over Trump.

So do some open white nationalists, who cheer on his policies and rhetoric online and see them as signs that he’s more hostile toward overall immigration, which is important for those who fear demographic change.

DeSantis recently signed Senate Bill 1718, which turned Florida into the most anti-immigrant state in the nation. It makes it a felony to give undocumented people rides, jobs or shelter; requires employers to verify workers’ immigration statuses and invalidates certain out-of-state driver’s licenses for undocumented people. DeSantis also banned sanctuary cities in his state.

Some of DeSantis’ actions were on the wish list of Trump’s senior advisor Stephen Miller, whose ideas were shaped by Krikorian’s Center for Immigration Studies and other groups created by John Tanton — a well-connected white supremacist who fathered the modern nativist movement. But although Miller did push Trump in a more hardline direction on overall immigration, he wasn’t able to implement the full Tanton agenda because of his inexperience and an uphill battle in a White House with more moderate voices on the immigration issue, such as Jared Kushner.

Miller remains loyal to Trump. But DeSantis is positioning himself as more in line with Miller than Trump himself, who sometimes caved to pressure to temper his harsh positions, such as when he called off family separations at the border in response to national outrage.

Trump’s promise to end birthright citizenship seeks to correct the notion that he’s the less ruthless candidate. One shudders to imagine how DeSantis will try to one-up Trump’s threat. “Those two guys are in a white nationalist arms race,” Chris Newman, legal director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, told me.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: desantis, Donald Trump, Immigration

Gov. Ron DeSantis Flaunts Florida, Blasts California’s Left-Leaning Leaders in Simi Valley Speech

March 7, 2023 By Clara Harter 2 Comments

Though DeSantis is not yet an official GOP presidential candidate, his trip to California offered him an opportunity to rub elbows with Golden State Republican donors and tacitly point out what would set his potential presidency apart from a second term for Donald Trump.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visited Southern California on Sunday and delivered a speech that while billed as a book talk, had all the trimmings of a presidential campaign in a state that will play a key role in determining the GOP candidate.

The majority of the speech, which took place in front of a large and friendly crowd at Simi Valley’s Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, consisted of DeSantis contrasting what he sees as the manifold successes of Florida against the failures of California and liberals writ large.

The event was ostensibly a celebration for his upcoming book “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” but it also offered DeSantis an opportunity to rub elbows with the Golden State’s Republican donors and tacitly point out what would set a DeSantis presidency apart from a second term for Trump.

In the hour-long talk DeSantis lambasted the education, COVID, taxation and public safety policies in such deep-blue states as California and New York and pointed to his leadership in Florida as the perfect foil to that of left-leaning governors.

“I think we’ve gotten it right on all the key issues and I think these liberal states have gotten it wrong,” he said. “I think it all goes back to this woke mind virus that’s infected the left.”

DeSantis said that most Americans oppose “woke ideology” and have “voted with their feet” in terms of which states’ philosophy they prefer.

“If you look over the last four years, we’ve witnessed a great American exodus from states governed by leftist politicians imposing leftist ideology and delivering poor results,” he said. “And, you’ve seen massive gains in states like Florida, who are governing according to the tried and true principles that President Reagan held dear.”

The hour-long speech was met with cheers and applause from attendees at the Reagan Library, part of nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of the former president’s conservative principles and legacy.

“This was a spectacular, top-notch presidential speech, so he has definitely set the stage that he is a contender,” said Ann-Marie Villicana, an executive chairman member of the Reagan Library. “At one point I blurted out loud ‘we need to move to Florida’.”

Although DeSantis has yet to formally toss his hat in the ring as a presidential candidate, many interpreted Sunday’s speech, and his evening GOP fund-raiser down the freeway in Orange County, as early-stage campaigning.

Simultaneously, Trump amped up his campaign over the weekend, casting himself Saturday as the only Republican candidate who can build on his White House legacy but shied away from directly critiquing his potential rivals — including DeSantis.

Trump, giving the headlining address at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, told a cheering crowd that he was engaged in his “final battle” as he tries to return to the White House.

“We are going to finish what we started,” he said. “We’re going to complete the mission. We’re going to see this battle through to ultimate victory.”

While CPAC was once a must-stop for candidates mulling Republican presidential runs, DeSantis and other major likely contenders skipped this year’s gathering as the group has increasingly become aligned with Trump. Indeed, it’s the Reagan Library that has become a popular stop for potential GOP contenders, from recently announced candidate Nikki Haley to former Vice President Mike Pence, among others. Trump himself has not spoken there.

Though DeSantis, seen as Trump’s biggest potential rival, is frequently a subject of name-calling and other attacks in Trump’s social media posts and in interviews, he wasn’t mentioned directly in Trump’s address before conservative activists, who earlier in the day applauded when an old video clip of the Florida governor was shown in a montage.

He took only a veiled jab at DeSantis, calling out those who have proposed raising the age for Social Security or privatizing Medicare — positions DeSantis has expressed support for in the past, but has since abandoned. “We’re not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans,” DeSantis recently said.

Trump told the crowd, “If that’s their original thought, that’s what they always come back to.”

DeSantis, meanwhile, was on the other side of the country for his Reagan Library address and an appearance at a reception and dinner for the Republican Party of Orange County Sunday evening. Tickets for the event ranged from $500 for general admission to $1,500, which includes an autographed copy of the governor’s book and photo opportunities.

“He knows the red states are not going to be a problem, so I think he’s testing out his message to the to the blue states,” said Anngel Benoun , an executive chairman member of the Reagan Library. “He was trying out several different topics in order to see what got a good response, what got a lukewarm response and what got the standing ovation.”

DeSantis indeed succeeded in eliciting a standing ovation, not only at the end of his speech, but also in the middle when he spoke about how gender and sexuality is taught in the classroom.

“They should not be teaching a second-grader that they can choose their gender; that is wrong and that is not going to happen in the state of Florida,” he said, prompting audience members to rise to their feet.

The governor also denounced teaching critical race theory in schools, called California’s slow return to in-person learning during the pandemic a “disgrace” and said that teachers unions in California have a “pernicious influence” and are pursuing a “partisan agenda.”

Under DeSantis’s leadership Florida was one of the first states to fully resume in-person schooling in August 2020. In contrast, many California schools remained virtual for the majority of the 2020 to 2021 school year.

“He focused so much on education, so that also tells me he’s going to be trying to grab back the female vote that Trump couldn’t get,” said Benoun.

Trump won only 39% of the female vote in 2016 and 44% in 2020. DeSantis, on the other hand, snared 52% of the female vote during his 2022 gubernatorial victory– an achievement he flaunted on Sunday alongside his record-breaking margin of victory.

“We went from winning by 32,000 votes in 2018 to winning by over 1.5 million votes in 2022, he said. “It was the largest percentage of the vote that any Republican governor candidate received in Florida history.”

DeSantis also bragged about capturing over 60% of the Hispanic vote, saying he did this because he didn’t pander to particular racial groups, but treated everyone as an individual.

He did not, however, discuss his polling among Black voters.

“That could be a big problem for him,” said Benoun. “Because, remember, Trump got the highest percentage of the African American vote of any Republican candidate.”

In fact, DeSantis did not mention the word Black throughout his entire speech, even though he touched on many race related issues including summer 2020 riots.

“We saw destructive riots in the summer of 2020 that were aided and abetted by feckless leftist politicians at the local level. We saw businesses trashed we saw billions in damages. We saw dozens of people killed, all without standing up for law and order,” DeSantis said. “We let it be known that would not be tolerated in the Sunshine State.”

DeSantis also did not mention Trump directly, but did emphasize attributes of his leadership that are different from the former president’s, Benoun pointed out.

If DeSantis does declare his candidacy, Trump will be a key rival. A recent Berkeley IGS survey of registered Republicans found DeSantis to be leading a field of potential and declared 2024 presidential candidates — trailed closely by Trump.

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: desantis, President of the United States, Reagan Library

The Republican Presidential Nomination Could Run Through California. Yes, California

March 5, 2023 By Jeremy B. White 8 Comments

This weekend’s visit from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis highlights the state’s importance to GOP contenders.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is heading into hostile territory this weekend, making a campaign-like swing through California as he seeks to peel off donors and voters from former President Donald Trump in a deep blue state that could be an unusually powerful factor in next year’s Republican primary.

It’s an awkward stop for the California-bashing DeSantis, made more so by a fresh round of taunting Friday from Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“You’re going to get smoked by Trump,” Newsom said in a statement issued ahead of a planned speech by DeSantis at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

The tenor of Newsom’s statement is likely a preview of what could end up as an ugly fight if, as expected, DeSantis tries to wrest the mantle of the GOP away from Trump — with California and its 5.2 million Republican voters representing a major battleground.

A March 2024 vote and an open GOP field offer California’s beleaguered conservatives a chance to step off the statewide sidelines and into the fray of a national fight.

“I don’t remember the last time we mattered,” said Carl DeMaio, a Republican activist and former San Diego council member. “It’s an immense opportunity.”

The contours are already taking shape. DeSantis will be in California over the weekend to speak at the Reagan Presidential library and then collect cash, both opportunities to make inroads with the state’s GOP base. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Vice President Mike Pence have both stopped by the Reagan library — an indispensable proving ground for Republican hopefuls — in recent months. None of them have officially entered the 2024 presidential race but all are expected to.

Lanhee Chen, who ran for state controller in 2022 and has worked for multiple GOP presidential candidates, recounted a Republican campaign official recently seeking his input on how to navigate California’s sprawling geography and media markets.

“California is a different beast,” Chen said. “A lot of the campaigns are trying to wrap their heads around how they should think about it.”

It could feel like a sea change for California Republicans, who have been locked out of statewide office for a generation and are outnumbered two-to-one by registered Democrats. National Republicans swing through California’s red precincts to vacuum up dollars but rarely do any actual campaigning. This cycle could be different.

“There are lots of opportunities for each of these candidates to rack up delegates in California,” said California Republican Party Chair Jessica Millan Patterson, “and I think you’re going to see them coming through the state, not just to raise money but to meet people, get the vote out and make their case.”

By the time the 2016 GOP nominating contest rolled into California, former President Donald Trump had already vanquished his rivals. In early 2023, polling gives DeSantis a substantial lead over the former president. Republican candidates seeking an edge could be compelled to campaign and advertise in a solidly blue state, and not just in the typical conservative strongholds: Delegates will be available deep in the belly of the beast.

“I don’t think Republican voters are even cognizant that this is coming, because it’s just never happened before,” said Matt Shupe, a Republican political consultant. “I’ve been pretty fired up talking about this because this is going to affect the party, from the lowest levels to the highest levels, until March.”

Part of the calculus will involve California’s decentralized nominating process. Most of the state’s delegates are allocated by House district, with the top vote-getter in each district receiving three. California Republican Party officials intentionally made the change many cycles ago to open up a statewide formula that had helped catapult favorite son Ronald Reagan into the White House.

“When we were changing the party rules back in the year 2000, hoping that we might someday play a role like this — it’s certainly surreal that day has arrived,” said Jon Fleischman, who was the party’s executive director at the time. “It only took 23 years.”

That means candidates have 52 separate chances — one for each congressional seat — to pick up votes. Winning a solidly red San Diego seat will be just as valuable as carrying a plurality of San Francisco’s 29,000 Republicans.

“It creates a dynamic where a candidate could say ‘you know what, I’m going to campaign in the Central Valley and hire grassroots people in the Central Valley and just do that,’” Fleischman said.

Republican voters in California run the gamut from Orange County denizens with beachfront views to residents of northern rural counties who hope to create their own state. But Chen said the Republicans he interacted with on the trail had similar views to Republicans in other states. He said he observed bigger contrasts within California.

California Republicans have resoundingly supported Trump, voting for him in record numbers. Supporting him was a prerequisite for leadership in the state party.

But that support is wavering. A recent statewide poll found DeSantis bested Trump by double digits in a head-to-head matchup and scored markedly higher favorability ratings. Republicans around the state described a fluid situation in which some voters unflinchingly back Trump, others are ready to move on, and many are still weighing their options as the field develops.

“It varies so widely. Some people still love Trump and he’s the only one, and a lot of other people are like: ‘absolutely not, DeSantis is our person,’” said Fresno County Republican Party Chair Elizabeth Kolstad.

State Sen. Melissa Melendez was a steadfast Trump supporter who traveled to the White House to discuss immigration in 2018 and represents the Republican stronghold of Riverside County. In a recent interview, Melendez declined to commit to Trump. “Some people have their favorites already decided, but a lot of it is going to come down to what their policies are,” Melendez said, citing stances on China and immigration.

The donor class is also unlikely to unite behind the former president. Gerald Marcil, a fixture of the California Republican donor circuit, said he admired Trump’s record and voted for his re-election. But he is not backing Trump this time around. He likes DeSantis, an impression that was solidified after dining together.

“I think we have to go with Ron DeSantis on this one,” Marcil said, adding he feared a crowded field would hand the nomination to Trump because he begins with an unwavering base. “We’ve got to coalesce and get down to one or two other possibilities.”

Similarly, Orrin Heatlie — a core organizer of the failed 2021 effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom — said the grassroots Republicans he speaks with are “swinging heavily towards Ron DeSantis.”

“He has a clear message and basically aligns with their beliefs and their politics,” Heatlie said. “I think Donald Trump is a distraction.”

Some Republicans are balancing genuine admiration for Trump with other political considerations. Republican Assemblymember Devon Mathis, who is vociferously advocating for former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, said he believed Trump had done a good job but wanted someone who could serve out two terms. Mathis also warned of the down-ballot ripples.

“A lot of people want to stay loyal to the former president, and there’s a lot of people who feel like he got robbed,” Mathis said, but “as much as some people don’t like to admit it, Trump was pretty toxic for our delegation. Every single ad was tying Republicans to Trump, in every target seat in California.”

Click here to read the full article in Politico

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, desantis, Donald Trump

GOP Voters Favor DeSantis

February 25, 2023 By Seema Mehta 25 Comments

Poll of Californians has Trump trailing for 2024 nod

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has surged to a lead among California Republicans over former President Trump for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, a poll released Friday found.

About 37% of GOP voters backed DeSantis, while 29% preferred Trump, according to the new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. These numbers are a near mirror image of the support for the two in an August poll conducted by Berkeley.

Other hopefuls trailed far behind, with none receiving more than 7% in the poll.

California matters to Republican presidential contenders despite its overall Democratic majority. Nearly 2.3 million voters cast ballots for Trump in California’s March 2020 primary, the most in any state in the nation.

DeSantis has taken a particularly strong lead among Republican voters with a college degree, who back him by more than 2 to 1 over Trump. The former president has the support of Republicans who did not attend college, and the two run close to even among those who have some college experience but not a four-year degree.

Among California Republicans who voted for Trump in 2020, DeSantis leads by 11 percentage points in the new poll; he trailed Trump by 14 points among such voters six months ago.

“There is serious defection among his ranks,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll. “These voters are now on board with DeSantis more than Trump. That’s fairly significant.”

The poll results come just over a week before DeSantis is scheduled to visit Southern California, with speeches in Orange County and at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, spots where he will meet with well-heeled Republican donors and party leaders.

The survey also illuminated Californians’ complicated views about President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in a state where fellow Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1 among registered voters.

Although Biden’s approval ratings improved in recent months, with 57% of the state’s voters now praising his job performance, the same share of voters don’t want the 80-year-old to run for reelection next year.

Even with Harris’ California roots, nearly 6 in 10 of those surveyed were not enthusiastic about her running for the White House if Biden decides to not seek another term. She grew up in the Bay Area and served as San Francisco’s district attorney, the state’s attorney general and California’s U.S. senator.

“Usually, it’s the case that people in your own area are most positive about you, and people outside of your area learn more about you and eventually get on board. That hasn’t been the case for Kamala,” DiCamillo said. “In fact, looking at … the enthusiasm [voters have for her running] for president, in the Bay Area, it’s less than it is in Los Angeles. That’s telling to me. She’s never had a real strong base of support in the Bay Area, and it’s true the entire two-year period of following her as vice president.”

Regardless of those qualms, barring an unprecedented political shift, California’s 54 electoral votes will easily wind up in Democrats’ column in the November 2024 presidential election. Biden leads DeSantis by 23 points among the state’s voters in a hypothetical match-up and beats Trump by 30 points, according to the poll. In 2020, Biden bested Trump by 29% in California.

The state’s presidential primary, which will occur in March next year, could be pivotal in deciding the Republican nomination. California will once again have the largest delegation at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where the party will officially select its nominee.

In addition, the state is home to an enormous group of wealthy donors. In 2020, Trump and his supporting groups received more than $92 million from California donors, making the state the third-largest home of his financial backers, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The numbers are significant undercounts because they do not include contributions to political action committees or individual donations under $200.

This is one major reason why prominent Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley are among the White House hopefuls who have visited the state since the last presidential election.

Haley recently announced a 2024 presidential bid; Pence, Pompeo and others are believed to be eyeing a bid.

Along with Trump and DeSantis, Pence, Pompeo and Haley were among the 11 Republicans included in the potential presidential field in the Berkeley IGS poll.

DeSantis is scheduled to speak at the Reagan Library as well as at a fundraiser for the Orange County GOP on March 5. Although it’s unclear whether he is raising money for committees supporting his electoral efforts, DeSantis will meet and mingle with major GOP donors at the events, which are taking place in citadels of wealthy and well-connected conservatives, according to sources familiar with his plans.

The polling shows why such regions may be essential to the DeSantis campaign if he runs. Republican voters who are more educated and wealthier are far more likely to support the Florida governor over Trump.

GOP college graduates backed DeSantis over Trump, 39% to 21%, in the poll, while Republicans with a postgraduate education preferred DeSantis over Trump by nearly 3 to 1. By contrast, Republican voters with no more than a high school education preferred Trump over DeSantis, 45% to 30%.

There were similar disparities among voters with different incomes, with GOP voters in wealthier California households being far more likely to support DeSantis than Trump.

White voters without a college education have long been Trump’s strongest supporters, and his weakness among college-educated voters, which emerged during the 2016 election, helped Democrats win in former conservative bastions such as Orange County that year — the first time the county supported a Democrat for president since the Great Depression. That dynamic was evident in the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential contest.

The poll indicates that the college divide is splitting Republican ranks, echoing other surveys that have shown that division nationally.

That could benefit DeSantis in states such as California, in which college graduates make up a large share of the electorate. But it could boost Trump elsewhere in the nation, including parts of the South and the Midwest, where non-college-educated voters dominated GOP primaries.

Voters who stopped their education after high school or didn’t receive their high school degree account for 18% of the Republican electorate in California but made up just over 1 in 3 GOP voters nationwide in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center.

DiCamillo said GOP voters who have a high school degree or didn’t complete it have remained consistent in their support for Trump, which makes sense because they were the foundation of his base.

“But the other segments are moving,” he said. “That’s the vulnerability Trump has this time around … at least in California.”

Click here to read the full article at LA Times

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: desantis, Donald Trump, Presidential Primary

Ron DeSantis’ Trip to OC Shows GOP’s Kingmaker Power in a Deep Blue State

February 12, 2023 By Kaitlyn Schallhorn 8 Comments

California has the delegates and early primary to draw candidates. Orange County has big Republican donors.

With speculations over his 2024 political aspirations continuing to mount, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is headed to Orange County. And it shouldn’t come as a major shock.

DeSantis is slated to appear at a reception and dinner hosted by the Republican Party of Orange County on March 5 — on the heels of multiple fundraisers he is headlining for county Republican parties in Texas and after a visit earlier that day to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley.

DeSantis hasn’t formally announced a 2024 presidential bid, but former President Donald Trump launched his third run for the White House in November. Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor, is expected to announce her candidacy later this month.

DeSantis’ visit is a reminder of the role Republican voters have in determining a presidential candidate — when they may otherwise feel overlooked in such a blue state.

Start with the cash.

“Orange County is oftentimes considered an ATM machine for national candidates because millions of dollars are raised out of Orange County for national Republican candidates, including Gov. DeSantis,” said Jon Fleischman, the former executive director of the California GOP.

DeSantis, in 2022 amid his gubernatorial reelection battle on the opposite end of the country, raked in more than $6.5 million from California, according to OpenSecrets, a campaign finance tracking source.

Trump, in 2020, raised more than $92.1 million in California. Newport Beach, where he held a fundraising event that October at billionaire Palmer Luckey’s Lido Isle home, was among the top 45 ZIP codes — in the country — where he received the most money, the data shows. Trump also campaigned in Orange County in 2016.

Then there’s the timing of California’s Republican presidential primary.

California will hold its presidential primary on March 5 — considered to be Super Tuesday, the day when many states hold their elections. It’s an opportunity for a Republican candidate to nab an extraordinary amount of delegates for the nominating process.

“Because California is likely both delegate-rich and early on the calendar, it is smart for potential candidates to invest time in our state to make sure they are getting to know our voters and presenting their vision,” said California GOP Chair Jessica Millan Patterson.

In 2020, California had 172 delegates for the Republican primary election, per the rules set by the national party. That included 10 at-large delegates, three from each congressional district (or 159 overall) and three party leaders.

In comparison, Texas had 155, Florida 122 and Arizona 57. A candidate needed at least 1,276 delegates to win the party’s nomination on the first ballot in 2020.

“Republicans that live in very blue districts become very important in those seats in determining the outcome of where the delegates in their seats go,” said Rob Stutzman, a public affairs professional who worked for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“It’s an opportunity for Republican voters who would otherwise be rather voiceless where they live to have an outsized role in the presidential primary,” Stutzman said.

Matt Shupe, a Republican strategist who has worked on multiple statewide campaigns, said all of this may make California “the most important state” in the GOP primaries.

“Those who invest early and largely are going to have a strategic advantage. The people who are coming out here early and getting in front of important people, like the donors in Orange County, will make a difference,” said Shupe, principal of Praetorian Public Relations.

For next month’s event with DeSantis in Orange County, ticket prices range from $500 for general admission to $1,500, which includes an autographed copy of the governor’s book and a reception with photo opportunities. Sponsorship packages are available from $5,000 to $15,000.

The fundraiser is to support the Orange County GOP’s “2024 Victory campaign,” according to an email to supporters.

“No leader has accomplished more for his state than Governor DeSantis,” the party said, “and he is now sharing the Freedom Blueprint with the country.”

The Republican Party of Orange County said the dinner’s location would be provided upon RSVP.

Click here to read the full article at the OC Register

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: California Politics, desantis, Republican Party

Disney Is Fighting a Losing Battle

April 2, 2022 By Alexandra Desanctis 10 Comments

On the menu today: Disney continues its ineffective efforts to stop Florida from enforcing its ban on discussing sex with young children and Republicans continue to mull whether they’ll vote for Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation.

Disney’s Anti-Florida Campaign Continues

There’s no doubt about it: Disney was caught behind the eight ball. The company ought to have known that some number of its loudest employees would be outraged by Florida’s new law forbidding the discussion of sexual topics with children in kindergarten through third grade. By the accounting of these woke employees — who have been trumpeting the media-fueled misnomer “Don’t Say Gay” through bullhorns for the last two weeks — Disney failed to use its considerable influence in the state to kneecap the legislation while it could still be stopped.

Perhaps to save face after Governor Ron DeSantis essentially told the company to take a hike several times, Disney has most recently tried to claim that its lobbyists were working to block the bill behind the scenes all along. In a statement shortly after beginning to face criticism for the company’s supposed inaction, Disney CEO Bob Chapek explained that leaders “thought we could be more effective working behind-the-scenes, engaging directly with lawmakers — on both sides of the aisle.” Our own Isaac Schorr reports that Disney does not in fact appear to have been lobbying in this capacity at all:

At a press conference on Tuesday, DeSantis cast doubt on Chapek’s version of events, remarking that Chris Sprowls, the speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives, never even heard from Disney while the bill was making its way through the legislative process.

Sprowls confirmed as much in an interview with National Review. Even as the company was supposedly working to effectively push back on the legislation, it never picked up the phone to speak with the most powerful member of the House.

What’s more, Sprowls pointed out, is that there is no record of any lobbyist working on behalf of Disney ever having lobbied any member of the Florida House on the bill.

“We checked the action packets for the House Education and Employment, and Judiciary, and Senate Appropriations Committee hearings where HB 1557 was considered,” said Sprowls. “The Walt Disney Corporation did not submit any appearance cards on the bill for any of these meetings. Furthermore, the Florida House requires lobbyists to identify which bills they are lobbying on and no Disney lobbyist registered on HB 1557.”

The registry indicates that Disney had at least 19 different representatives lobbying members of the House on a number of different pieces of legislation in 2021, including the Big Tech bill from which it was granted an exemption. There is no record that a registered lobbyist advocated against HB 1557 for the company.

So Chapek and Disney are back to square one, wrestling with employees who insist that the company Do Something Right Now. One such concession to wokeism appears to be preparing to cram sexualized content into children’s programming. “If we can’t get them in the classroom, we’ll get them at the movie theater,” or something.

In several leaked videos, Disney executives pledged to depict more “transgender and gender-nonconforming” characters in their films — or “queer leads,” as one higher-up put it. In the same vein, they aim to erase all references to “ladies and gentlemen” and “boys and girls” at Disney parks.

The company, in short, finds itself engaged in a game it simply cannot win. On one side is some number of its own employees — we do not even know if it’s a majority or simply a very loud faction — berating the company for not “doing enough” to stop this law, as if Disney had been elected to run the state of Florida. On the other side is Florida’s government, its vocal governor who is insusceptible to bullies, and — important to note — some not insignificant portion of its customers.

It is hard to imagine that, even if some number of parents opposes Florida’s legislation, most parents are hoping Disney’s children’s movies will respond to the law by featuring more sexual themes and “queer leads.” What’s more, polling suggests that most American parents actually don’t oppose Florida’s law at all. When presented with the actual text of the legislation — as opposed to merely being told about it by the pollster — 61 percent of Americans say they support it.

But this seems irrelevant to Disney executives, who are intent on virtue-signaling their way into oblivion. Even the company’s former CEO, Bob Iger, felt the need to double down on the company’s stance in an interview with CNN’s Chris Wallace.

“A lot of these issues aren’t necessarily political,” Iger said. “It’s about right and wrong. To me, it wasn’t politics. It was what is right and what is wrong, and that just seemed wrong. It seemed potentially harmful to kids.”

Iger added that CEOs should be willing to accept “that they’re going to have to weigh in on issues, even if voicing an opinion on those issues potentially puts some of your business in danger. . . . Again, when you’re dealing with right and wrong, or when you’re dealing with something that does have a profound impact on your business, then I just think you have to do what is right and not worry about the potential backlash, to it.”

Let’s leave aside the silliness of the notion that Disney has some moral obligation to bully Florida’s legislators and governor into enacting the company’s preferred social agenda. Focus on what Iger is saying — and what Chapek and Disney have also said — about the law itself. This is a law, again, that forbids teaching sexual topics such as “gender identity” to children between the ages of four and nine. For all their blathering, not a single Disney executive has attempted to explain what precisely is so “harmful” and “immoral” about that.

Republicans Weigh Their Votes on Jackson’s Nomination

Earlier this week, Senator Susan Collins of Maine became the first Republican senator to say that she’ll vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Collins said she decided to vote this way because she believes that Jackson will not be “bending the law to meet a personal preference.”

“In recent years, senators on both sides of the aisle have gotten away from what I perceive to be the appropriate process for evaluating judicial nominees,” Collins said when announcing how she’ll vote. “In my view, the role under the Constitution assigned to the Senate is to look at the credentials, experience and qualifications of the nominee. It is not to assess whether a nominee reflects the individual ideology of a senator or would vote exactly as an individual senator would want.”

So far, most other Republicans have said they’ll decline to vote for Jackson, in many cases citing disagreements with her judicial philosophy. Though Jackson said during her confirmation hearing that she believes “it is appropriate to look at the original intent, original public meaning of the words,” she does not describe herself as an originalist or a textualist, and she seems to have a far more expansive view of judicial power. This appears to be the driving force behind the decision of some Republicans to oppose her nomination.

Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) noted that Jackson “refused to claim originalism as her judicial philosophy” and that she instead seems to believe that it is “just one of the tools judges use — not a genuine constraint on judicial power.”

Click here to read the full article at the National Review

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: desantis, Florida, Walt Disney

DeSantis Will NOT Bend The Knee to Trump and Says Backing Ex-President For 2024 ‘Is Too Much To Ask’

January 20, 2022 By Natasha Anderson, Matt McNulty and Geoff Earle 10 Comments

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a once-loyal member of Donald Trump‘s court, is refusing to bend a knee to the former president and says backing him in the 2024 election ‘is too much to ask’ after Trump publicly attacked his character, according to a report.

Trump reportedly said the popular governor has ‘no personal charisma’ and a ‘dull personality’ as rumors swirl the ex-president is angry DeSantis hasn’t declined to challenge him for the GOP presidential nomination.

DeSantis, however, has told his inner circle that Trump’s ‘expectation that he bend the knee is asking too much,’ the New York Times reported.

The governor also reportedly said his biggest regret in office is not having ‘been much louder’ in speaking out against Trump’s coronavirus pandemic response.

The commentary comes after Trump appeared to take direct aim at DeSantis in an interview just last week when he called politicians who refuse to disclose their booster vaccination status as ‘gutless’.

Sources close to the former president – who have recently talked to him about the governor – said Trump has grown increasingly irked by DeSantis in recent months, with Trump beginning to voice his frustrations to those in his inner circle.

The Florida governor is extremely popular in Republican circles, and is widely seen as a leader who can push policies popularized by Trump, but without the same level of drama or baggage.

‘In the context of the 2024 election, he usually gives DeSantis a pop in the nose in the middle of that type of conversation,’ a source who recently spoke to Trump about DeSantis told Axios.

The president also claims ‘there’s no way’ DeSantis would have ever been elected Florida governor without his support.

Click here to read the full article at Dailymail

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Campaign, desantis, Trump