GOP presidential candidates are bashing California, and Republicans right here find it irresistible

On Friday, Leonard Bernal stood beside a good friend amid a sea of MAGA paraphernalia and was completely buzzing.

Former President Trump had simply wrapped up a fiery speech to 1,500 paying attendees on the California Republican Get together’s fall conference in Anaheim, the place he spent the higher a part of 90 minutes trashing the Golden State, its politicians and its insurance policies.

Bernal, a 62-year-old Modesto retiree, cherished each second of it. Even when Trump was exhausting to comply with as he lambasted the state’s water insurance policies, Bernal mentioned the previous president’s speech resonated with him — he’s watched farmers battle to maintain their land fertile. Trump spoke of marauding legal gangs and known as California a “dumping floor” for prisoners, terrorists and psychological sufferers.

“The state deserves to be bashed,” Bernal mentioned. “Regardless that the nation has gone to hell, California has gone right into a deeper hell.”

Trump was not alone in flaying California. In the midst of making an attempt to loosen Trump’s grip on Republican voters, rival GOP candidates together with Sen. Tim Scott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis did the identical throughout their swings by way of the state, castigating the state as a hellhole created by the far left and overwhelmed by homelessness and immigrants who entered the nation illegally.

“Rising up in Florida I by no means remembered seeing a single California license plate in my life,” DeSantis informed the viewers Friday evening. “I by no means met anyone who had moved from California to Florida. Quick ahead 15 years later, and I change into governor and unexpectedly we see a sea of California license plates within the state of Florida.”

All of the whereas, and often behind closed doorways, the candidates held fundraisers on the properties of rich Californians. The state has lengthy been a preferred vacation spot for Republican presidential contenders trying to increase money. In 2020, Californians donated greater than $92 million to Trump’s marketing campaign and to tremendous PACs and different teams that supported his unsuccessful reelection effort, in accordance with the nonprofit Heart for Responsive Politics.

Of the $20 million DeSantis’ marketing campaign raised this 12 months since he entered the race in Could, about $2.1 million got here from California residents, in accordance with marketing campaign finance disclosures by way of June.

Polls present Trump thus far forward, he may, due to a current guidelines change, find yourself successful the entire state’s delegates and clinch the nomination in California’s March presidential major. Trump enjoys about 55% help of probably Republican voters within the state, in accordance with a recent UC Berkeley/L.A. Times poll.

Throughout his noon speech Friday, Trump falsely claimed that the state can “take kids away from their mother and father and sterilize them.” Echoing frequent assaults he made throughout his presidency, Trump additionally spoke of rampant crime and mentioned brazen thieves stealing from shops ought to be shot on sight. He advocated for vitality independence and promised to chop federal funding for colleges with vaccination mandates.

“Underneath the Trump administration we are going to deliver again regulation and order to California,” he mentioned.

Former President Trump speaks on the California GOP conference in Anaheim on Sept. 29, 2023.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Occasions)

Regardless of his massive lead in current surveys, an effort to have the California Republican Get together formally endorse Trump failed Sunday, after impassioned audio system made the case that an endorsement — unprecedented this early in a presidential major marketing campaign — may have an effect on voter turnout for down-ballot races.

“Frankly, we’ve got some Republicans who need different individuals apart from President Trump. We’d like all of them there,” mentioned Fred Whitaker, chairman of the Republican Get together of Orange County.

Broadly talking although, delegates attending the three-day confab mentioned the state had misplaced its means and lots of needed California to return to the times of the previous.

Some craved extra financial alternative and reasonably priced dwelling, whereas others expressed frustration about transgender athletes or college districts that decline to inform mother and father when their baby identifies as transgender.

Supporters of former President Trump have a good time earlier than his tackle on the state GOP conference in Anaheim on Sept. 29, 2023.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Occasions)

An upstart marketing campaign to make California’s Republican Get together extra welcoming to a broader spectrum of views on abortion and LGBTQ+ points failed by a big margin Saturday.

The conference overwhelmingly supported adopting its conventional platform, following a contentious weekend-long dialogue over a proposal to take away language from the get together platform explicitly opposing abortion and defining marriage as “between one man and one lady.”

Loud cheering accompanied the platform vote, which handed with 79%.

Committee members tasked with reforming the get together platform proposed the change over the summer time, appalling many conservative members. Exterior the resort ballroom the place the platform was mentioned, activists held indicators that learn, “Pray to finish abortion” and “God is pro-life.”

“I don’t consider within the large tent. I consider in a tent that may home like-minded individuals,” GOP delegate and Paso Robles resident Randall Jordan mentioned of the adjustments to the platform, the push to make the GOP extra inclusive and the state’s more and more liberal tilt. “When Trump assaults the state, I hear hope. I hear hope that somebody really goes to do one thing.”

For lifelong Californians Guadalupe and Hilario Gonzales, anti-California rhetoric from the presidential candidates felt validating. Guadalupe Gonzales, who attended Trump’s speech on the Anaheim conference Friday, mentioned his gripes about how the state has dealt with drought, wildfires, crime and immigration resonated together with her personal beliefs.

“I used to be like, ‘Sure, you hear me!’ As a result of we’re hurting,” she mentioned.

The couple didn’t appear to thoughts the widespread California-bashing they heard on the weekend conference.

“We’re a little bit bit embarrassed once we go to different states as a result of they go, ‘Oh, you’re from California,’” Guadalupe Gonzales mentioned. “As a result of they assume we’re nuts!”

Like Trump and Scott, DeSantis has hosted a number of fundraisers — together with one in Salinas final week — because the marketing campaign began. On the conference, at a marketing campaign cease in Lengthy Seaside and at Wednesday’s presidential debate in Simi Valley, the Florida governor’s message throughout the state was that California was adrift and Florida represented a path ahead.

GOP presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks on the Port of Lengthy Seaside on Sept. 29, 2023.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Occasions)

However earlier than DeSantis unloaded on California throughout his conference speech Friday evening, he spoke about getting back from navy responsibility to Coronado Island in San Diego and marveling on the state’s pure magnificence and “simply having the freshness of the Pacific Ocean inside you.” He additionally highlighted his televised debate with Gov. Gavin Newsom subsequent month, which he has mentioned will present Individuals the clear distinction between states run by Republicans and Democrats.

“California is admittedly the petri dish for American liberalism and American leftism,” DeSantis mentioned. “What Biden is doing are issues that California was doing a few years in the past. What California is doing now’s probably what a second Biden time period would do, or God forbid Kamala Harris, or God forbid Newsom himself, who is aware of, proper?”

He touted his fights with Disney and waded into the college district controversies over insurance policies affecting transgender college students, saying, “It’s mistaken to inform a second-grader that their gender is a alternative. It’s not true and it’s inappropriate.”

Traces like this from DeSantis, Scott and Trump drew rapturous applause from attendees at these speeches who paid a whole bunch of {dollars} to be in shut proximity to the candidates. DeSantis and Trump each ripped into Newsom — who has emerged as President Biden’s chief defender and chief of the Democratic offense this reelection season.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, proper, does an interview with discuss present host Sean Hannity after the second GOP presidential debate, held on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, on Sept. 27, 2023.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Occasions)

The California governor attended the GOP debate Wednesday as a Biden proxy and to forcefully rebut the Republican assaults on the state and the president.

“It’s so boring and so predictable. There’s this lack of originality in all this California bashing,” Newsom informed reporters earlier than the controversy, including that GDP development within the state over the past 10 years has outpaced the nation.

“We simply dominate in each class — looking jobs, fishing jobs, manufacturing jobs — extra manufacturing facility jobs right here than another state by an element of bigger than the subsequent 5 states mixed. I’m actually pleased with the state,” he mentioned.

Considerably surprisingly, presidential candidate and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy spent little time trashing the state and even actually speaking about it in any respect throughout his speech Saturday. Requested why, he informed reporters that regardless of actual issues right here, one of these rhetoric bored him.

“I’m sick and uninterested in lazily simply bashing” the place, Ramaswamy mentioned. “It’s too straightforward.”