Jesse Marx

Palm Springs Desert Sun

Frustrated by what they see as the increasing hostility towards the Trump wing of the Republican Party in state and local politics, at least three conservative activists have left, or are planning to leave, Palm Springs for redder pastures.

After years of criticizing Democrats on their weekend Coachella Valley radio show, Bob and Elise Richmond are now headed to Tennessee, essentially voting with their feet.

Their friend and ally, Andrew Hirsch, also intends to leave town in mid-September for upstate New York, where he attended college in the 1970s. Although the Rochester area leans Democrat, it at least provides the GOP with a competitive chance, in Hirsch’s view.

The largely one-party rule in Palm Springs, where progressives control three of five seats, and in Sacramento, where Democrats enjoy a super-majority, has left him feeling “marginalized and isolated,” he said.

Between 2006 and 2016, the number of registered Republicans in the major cities of Coachella Valley shrunk by about 14 percent, or 8,200 people, according to a Desert Sun review of the voter rolls. The worst of it occurred in Palm Springs, where the GOP base shrunk by 40 percent.

Once a bastion of conservatism, the city launched the political career of Sonny Bono in the late 1980s and later his wife, Mary, who would go on to serve 14 years in Congress. She was unexpectedly toppled in 2012 by Raul Ruiz, an emergency room physician and the son of local farm workers.

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The Richmonds have not responded to messages since hitting the road last month, but their departure has been felt. The couple organized numerous letter-writing campaigns and sidewalk demonstrations over the years, galvanizing the more populous elements of the right. Mainstream, moderate Republicans were not exempt from their vitriol.

“If I didn’t have granddaughters, I’d probably be out of here, too,” said Toni Ringlein, a political consultant who worked alongside the Richmonds. “We’re being taxed to death.”

The cost of living in California is only going up, and the attempts to combat that rise seem to be exhausting the right.

Just this year alone, the state's Democrat-controlled Legislature approved multiple measures increasing the price of gasoline, vehicle fees and other fuels. Palm Springs officials also agreed to put a new sales tax increase on the November ballot as a way to ease the burden of long-term pension costs. If approved, the city will have the highest sales tax rate in Riverside County.

If Ringlein changes her mind and decides to leave after all, she could turn to Paul Chabot, a former reserve deputy who recently relocated his wife and four children from Rancho Cucamonga to McKinney, Texas. Since then, he created a website called conservativemove.com and has been marketing it back home. The site offers links to job postings and a list of real estate agents to make the transition easier.

Chabot left Riverside County shortly after losing his second congressional race against Democrat Pete Aguilar in November 2016. In defeat, Chabot said, he realized that he no longer recognized the state and no longer wanted to raise his kids here.

He's now offering his advice and services to others.

Money Magazine declared McKinney — located about 40 miles northeast of Dallas and among the fastest-growing cities in America — the best place to live in 2014. The authors considered the town’s schools, parks, home prices and low crime rate, and highlighted job opportunities with companies specializing in aviation, medical services and more.

“It reminds me of Orange County in the 1980s,” Chabot said.

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Most GOP party leaders are hoping Republicans will reconsider their plans to leave the valley.

Joy Miedecke, chair of the East Valley Republican Women Federated, said she wants people to stay put and continue working to regain positions of power in California, but she understands why they'd want to leave.

“I definitely know people who are suffering right now,” she said, citing the state’s high cost of living. “I want to help them get to a place where they’re with people who are like-minded.”

Miedecke said she recently invited Chabot to give a seminar at the Republican Headquarters in La Quinta.

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Democrats in the region have dismissed Chabot in recent months as being bitter. Hirsch expects the same criticism to be thrown his way, and he doesn't deny the charge. In July, he pulled paperwork to run for the Palm Springs City council. For years, he’d complained about the lack of fire-brand conservatives like himself — the kind who would wear a Trump t-shirt to an anti-Trump protest just for a laugh. (Hirsch did just that in April.)

But he found the support from the GOP structure lacking. He said he asked other Republicans for help gathering the necessary 80 signatures to get on the city council ballot, but help never came.

He’s an optimistic person by nature, he insisted. “But when do you stop banging your head against the wall?”

Jesse Marx covers politics. Reach him at jesse.marx@desertsun.com or @marxjesse on Twitter.