State Sen. Brian Dahle, R-Bieber, speaks on a measure on the Capitol, in Sacramento in 2019. Dahle, introduced that he'll run for governor as a Republican, on Feb. 8. (AP Picture/Wealthy Pedroncelli, File)
At one degree, it makes completely no sense for state Sen. Brian Dahle or another Republican to run for governor of California.
The state’s sharp political shift from a purple state the place the GOP may usually win to one of many nation’s bluest bastions, which started a quarter-century in the past, dooms any Republican candidate for any statewide workplace.
Operating towards an incumbent Democratic governor with pretty excessive approval rankings and who has twice garnered almost two-thirds of the votes, as Dahle declared he needs to do, is a political kamikaze mission.
However, Dahle, who represents a sprawling Senate district within the state’s northeastern nook, will give it a strive, hoping towards hope that public unhappiness about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s one-man administration of the COVID-19 pandemic will give him a gap.
“I like California, this superb, lovely state that was the land of alternative,” Dahle stated as he declared his candidacy in Redding. “However its management is so poor that persons are operating for the state line … belief me, when you get 4 extra years of this dictator, it'll price you much more.”
“I'm not some smooth-talking wine salesman from San Francisco,” he added. “I’m a farmer from Bieber. You would possibly say I’m the underdog.”
He actually is. It could take some kind of cataclysmic collapse by Newsom — some act of omission or fee that turned hundreds of thousands of Californians towards him — to present Dahle or another Republican even a slight probability of prevailing.
Newsom does generally tend to fall on his face, as proven by his notorious attendance at a lobbyist’s celebration with out masks whereas exhorting Californians to mask-up. However it might take a a lot bigger screwup to show the tide this 12 months.
All of that however, by operating for governor this 12 months, Dahle may do one thing to assist the California GOP, which now claims fewer than 1 / 4 of the state’s registered voters — make it extra respectable.
Though the GOP’s decline started within the Nineties for quite a lot of political, financial and demographic causes, the arrival of Donald Trump because the social gathering’s commanding determine accelerated its descent into irrelevance. In 2018, mid-way by way of Trump’s presidency, Republicans misplaced half of their California congressional seats, and whereas the social gathering rebounded a bit in 2020, Democrats proceed to play the Trump card.
Newsom’s marketing campaign spokesman, Nathan Glick, dismissed Dahle’s candidacy as displaying a “unhappy state of affairs for the California Republican Occasion.”
“They're making an attempt to cross off the identical milque-Trump-toast that Californians soundly rejected final 12 months,” Click on stated in a press release.
Dahle has the popularity of being a mainstream conservative and a critical lawmaker, extra Reaganite than Trumpie, and would carry out a helpful service for his social gathering and the state by separating himself from Trump and his acolytes.
It could be tough, particularly since Dahle’s rural district is a hotbed of Trump cultists, as witnessed by the current recall of a Republican Shasta County supervisor accused of not being militant sufficient.
The picture of Republicans right now not solely hurts the social gathering in a state like California, however hurts California as a result of it wants a wholesome two-party political system to curb the Democrats’ loonier aspect. The state works greatest when politics are taking part in out within the reasonable center, the place consensus and compromise prevail.
A dignified, issue-oriented Republican problem to Newsom, both by Dahle or one other candidate, may start to shine the social gathering’s tarnished model and assist it regain credibility amongst no-party-preference moderates. They're as quite a few as GOP voters and a few are sad with the Democrats’ left flip and Newsom’s considerably erratic methods.
Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.