SACRAMENTO, California — In the long-running feud between Donald Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republicans in California’s redistricting wars are quickly settling on who they want — and don’t want — on their side.
On one hand is Schwarzenegger, the former governor and movie star who, in the name of reforms he championed over a decade ago, is preparing to “terminate” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s gerrymandering campaign. He is, by one measure, the most popular Republican in the country.
On the other?
“Republicans in California aren’t talking about Trump and redistricting because it’s bad politics,” said Jon Fleischman, a political strategist and former executive director of the California GOP.
For years, Republicans in competitive races across the country have struggled with how closely to associate themselves with the polarizing president. But in this heavily Democratic state following a summer of broadsides from the administration — including immigration raids that unsettled even many Republicans — Trump-aversion is in full swing.
In a speech on the Assembly floor, James Gallagher, the chair of the Assembly Republican Caucus, said twice that Trump was “wrong” to push the Republican gerrymander in Texas that provoked California’s response.
Asked if it would be helpful for Republicans for Trump to get involved in the California campaign, Heath Flora, the Republican lawmaker who will take over Gallagher’s leadership post next month, said, “I don’t know.”
It was at Trump’s behest that Texas Republicans gerrymandered their congressional maps to favor Republicans in the midterms — provoking California Democrats to put a gerrymandered congressional map of their own on the ballot in California. But as Republicans fight that campaign here, many of them are hoping to keep him as far as possible away from the fray.
“Trump’s a 40 percent guy in California at best,” said Rob Stutzman, a veteran Republican strategist and former Schwarzenegger aide. “The politics there are obvious.”
Republicans may not be able to avoid him. Trump said in August that he was thinking about filing a lawsuit over Newsom’s plans. And for Democrats, anti-Trump messaging amounts to nearly their entire campaign so far. Newsom is aggressively framing his campaign as a referendum on the president, releasing ads that cast him as the face of the issue.
It’s a casting that comes as a liability for Republicans. Not only is Trump unpopular in California, but his gerrymandering gambit focused on red states has forced Republicans here into the awkward position of having to make the opposite argument he’s making. Rather than focusing on power politics, California Republicans have largely been confined to making the case for “good government” — contending that districts should be drawn independently. Democrats, meantime, are trying to convince voters that approval of the new maps they drew are in the hands of the people — and only as a last resort to counter Trump’s moves.
That makes appealing to Schwarzenegger, with his moderate profile and sky-high popularity, even more attractive for GOP lawmakers and dignitaries working to win over Democrats and independent voters. Unlike Trump, he’s been a stalwart critic of gerrymandering for years, in California and elsewhere.
The last Republican to be elected California governor, Schwarzenegger left office unpopular. But he has experienced something of a renaissance in recent years — cutting viral videos excoriating Trump and preaching a kind of bygone centrist politics that marries climate crusader and fiscal hawk. Schwarzenegger, a Republican once married into the Kennedy clan, has kept his distance from Sacramento, while resuming some acting projects. But late in the 2024 campaign, while expressing frustration with both political parties over their unwillingness to agree on immigration reforms and the national debt, he endorsed Kamala Harris. The sentiment goes both ways, with Trump referring to Schwarzenegger as a “really bad governor.”
How prominent a role Schwarzenegger will play in the campaign is unclear. Jim Brulte, a former California Republican Party chair and longtime legislative leader, told POLITICO he has had “a number of discussions” with the former governor in which he expressed that “he really believes that politicians shouldn’t be drawing their own lines and politicians shouldn’t pick their constituents.” And California Republicans expect him to become a primary messenger on the campaign.
“Time is incredibly forgiving,” said Jessica Millan Patterson, a former chair of the state GOP who is leading a committee opposing the ballot measure. “I look at a president like George W. Bush, who the left now touts as such an amazing human being, who was vilified by the left. This happens to a lot of politicians. Schwarzenegger has always been an independent source, even when he was a Republican governor. He brings people from every walk of life to the table, and he always feels like he’s fighting for you.”
That’s the kind of coalition Republicans are banking on in a state that Trump lost by 20 percentage points last year. While Patterson’s group, which is focused more explicitly on activating Republican base voters, has been deploying more partisan messages in the redistricting campaign — accusing Newsom by name of “scheming” — other opposition advertising has focused not on Newsom, but what Republicans cast as an effort to “destroy” fair districts and a “direct attack on democracy.”
“Voters clearly say they prefer independent redistricting and don’t want to go back to the era of political gerrymandering,” said Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley, whose seat will likely be eliminated if the new maps are approved.
It’s similar to the message Schwarzenegger is teasing early in the race.
He has been spotted in a T-shirt that he is also selling on his website for Arnold’s Pump Club – a “fitness app and community” with training programs, articles and videos – that say “Terminate Gerrymandering.”
“Schwarzenegger is already heavily engaged from the onset with his merch. The ‘F the politicians’ T-shirt. And I think it’s a very comfortable place for him,” Patterson said. “This is a man who has gone all over the country, that has been working for citizen-led redistricting commissions. You’re going to continue to see him. He’s a very credible source on this.”
Fleischman, in his Substack on California politics, made the case explicitly for bringing Schwarzenegger on board, suggesting he could help make inroads with independents and moderates.
“You take somebody with virtually 100 percent name ID and put them on television,” Fleischman said in an interview. “It would be huge.”
Rachel Bluth and Melanie Mason contributed to this report
Source link
#California #Republicans #avoiding #Donald #Trump #muscling #Arnold #Schwarzenegger