California GOP has a plan for beating Democrats, if it can unite

ANAHEIM — California Republicans may not have well-known candidates running for governor — or any candidate of note running for Senate next year. But they’re settling on a two-point game plan for trying to return to relevance in a state where they’re a super-minority in the Legislature, have no statewide officeholders and can count only 1 in 4 registered voters as being a fellow Republican.

Step 1: Lure voters to the polls with a statewide ballot measure next year with a populist call to rescind the gasoline tax intended to pay for the $50 billion in transportation improvements the Legislature passed in June.

Step 2: Convince voters that Democrats have overplayed their progressive ruling hand with moves like declaring California a sanctuary state —and then blame the majority party for how roughly 1 in 5 Californians lives in poverty.

Jim Brulte, the state GOP chairman, said it’s not going to be enough for Democrats to just be against President Trump, noting a July Washington Post/ABC News poll that found that 52 percent of adults believe the party’s main characteristic is opposition to Trump.

Echoing then-Vice President Joe Biden’s mockery of GOP candidate Rudy Giuliani’s one-note 2008 presidential campaign as being “a noun, a verb and 9/11,” Brulte said, “that’s where Democrats are now: a noun, a verb and Donald Trump.”

“In California, the reason they want to talk about Donald Trump is because they don’t want to talk about their record,” Brulte said at this weekend’s three-day California Republican Party convention in Anaheim that ends Sunday.

But this plan may be easier to list than execute. The party remains at war with itself, both nationally and internally.

Former White House adviser — and self-described Trump “wingman on the outside” — Steve Bannon ripped Arizona Sen. John McCain, former President George W. Bush and top GOP consultant Karl Rove during his keynote speech Friday. Many in the audience booed Bannon’s mention of Bush and McCain.

Without mentioning his name, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy criticized Assemblyman Chad Mayes, R-Yucca Valley (San Bernardino County), on Saturday. Mayes was the top Republican in the Assembly until he was ousted in August for voting with Democrats to extend California’s landmark climate change law.

“My advice for Assembly members in Sacramento: You will not win the majority by thinking you can be Democrat lite,” said McCarthy, a Bakersfield Republican. “You will not win a majority by voting against your own principles on a Democratic policy. You will not win a majority if you’re concerned about standing behind a podium with a Democratic governor instead of giving freedom to Californians across this entire state.”

Mayes, meanwhile, told The Chronicle that he is so frustrated with the GOP candidates for statewide office that he is considering a run for the governor’s office if he does not seek re-election to the Assembly. He chose to go fishing this weekend with his brothers rather than attend the convention.

“I do believe that it is important for us as California Republicans to differentiate ourselves from national Republicans,” said Mayes, who anticipates making a final decision on a run for governor within a couple of weeks. “And the fact is that California Republicans are different from national Republicans” — citing in particular how many West Coast GOPers are concerned about climate change.

While Mayes acknowledged that many of the party’s activists — like the 1,500 who attended the convention — wouldn’t be sympathetic to him running for the state’s top job at first, “they don’t represent most California Republicans.”

But Republican National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco attorney, said the party isn’t going to gain ground by mimicking Mayes, who she said was “practically sitting in the lap of the governor” on the climate change bill.

“We can keep moving left to the point where we’re no different than the Democrats, and then what’s the point?” Dhillon asked.

Then there is the question about what Republican candidates should do about Trump, who is wildly unpopular in California and lost the state by 4.2 million votes to Democrat Hillary Clinton last year. Only 27 percent of the state’s voters approve of the president, according to a Public Policy Institute of California survey in September.

On Saturday, McCarthy tried to make the case for Trump, lauding his “character and vision and understanding.”

But some new candidates for statewide office aren’t ready to go there. Steven Bailey, a retired El Dorado County Superior Court judge who recently announced his candidacy for state attorney general, declined to say Saturday whether he had voted for Trump, saying that his vote was private, because he cast it as a sitting judge. He said there are some places where he agrees with Trump and some where he doesn’t.

Anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, an influential national conservative thought leader as president of Americans for Tax Reform, said that’s the way Californians should handle questions about Trump. “You say, ‘I agree with him here, I don’t agree with him here, and here’s where I stand.’”

Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach (Orange County), criticized his main GOP opponent for governor, Rancho Santa Fe businessman John Cox, for voting for former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a Libertarian, last fall for president.

“Of course I voted for the Republican nominee for president,” Allen said Saturday on The Chronicle’s “It’s All Political” video podcast. “In my mind, if you didn’t vote for the Republican nominee for president, essentially that was a vote for Hillary Clinton. And that doesn’t really resonate very well with statewide Republicans.

“I think it’s incumbent for the next governor of California to have a good relationship with the White House for the benefit of all Californians. It doesn’t make sense to go poke this guy in the eye at every turn.”

Allen said he differs from Trump on “lots of things,” but he wouldn’t specify any policy differences he has with the president.

Cox said he, like many during last year’s campaign, is concerned about whether Trump is truly a conservative. But, after seeing his actions in the White House, Cox said Saturday: “I’m convinced he is a conservative, and I probably should have voted for him.”

Even Charles Munger Jr., the wealthy Palo Alto physicist who has been one of the state party’s biggest donors over the past decade, demurred when asked if he thought Trump was doing a good job as president.

“I’m a California politics boy. I pay attention to California politics a whole lot,” Munger said. “My goal in assisting the administration there is to elect a lot more Republican congressmen. It’s something that we in California can reasonably do.”

What Allen and Cox and other California Republicans do agree on is that they hope their planned initiatives to repeal the gas tax will bring the party’s base out to vote next year. Even here, though, there is a split in the party. For months, Allen has been promoting a ballot measure that would roll back the tax. But last week, Cox announced he will be pouring “six figures” into a competing gas-tax-repeal measure directed at next year’s ballot.

Where California Republicans remain unified is that they are confident they can defend the congressional seats Democrats hope to flip in 2018. Bannon, who is funding challengers to Republicans around the country he deems insufficiently loyal to his brand of economic conservatism, didn’t say he would be doing that in California.

He said not to worry about being outspent by Democrats or outside groups.

“Everything you need to win you have,” Bannon said. “You can put together a grassroots army. You haven’t done it yet in California, but you can do it.”

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli