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The 1960s pop classic “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine in” played Tuesday when Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton walked into his election night party.
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That same soulful anthem rang out 20 years earlier in Beverly Hills when then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won reelection. That triumph marked the last time the GOP held the state’s top position and the final year a Republican captured a statewide office in California.
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On Tuesday, the classic served as a funeral dirge for the roughly 800 people present who backed Hilton.
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Michael Steel traveled from Ventura County hoping for an upset victory Tuesday, believing his candidate struck enough of a bipartisan tone to win. Steel, in the midst of his disappointment, asked: What will it take for a Republican to win a California gubernatorial race?
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Essential California posed that question to Christian Grose, USC political science professor and director of the USC Democracy and Fair Elections Lab.
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Let’s jump into some numbers first and check in with Grose.
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What the numbers say
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Hilton had claimed 35.1% of the vote with about 67% of all ballots cast counted as of Friday afternoon. That put him at roughly 3.23 million votes. However, that number trails the 4 million-plus of the Republican gubernatorial candidates of 2018 (4.7 million), 2022 (4.4 million) and 2010 (4.13 million).
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Maybe more alarming for state Republicans is the percentage, though; no GOP candidate has finished with a number that low since 1914.
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Many voters saw the president and Republicans as their chief concern
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Californians often list affordable housing and the high cost of living, gasoline and utilities as important concerns. Hilton centered a large portion of his campaign on affordability issues such as bringing gas down to $3 a gallon and cutting annual car registration fees to $73.
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Yet that was not the most decisive issue for most Californians.
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Grose and his lab ran polling on voter attitudes in four congressional districts: two in Northern California, one in Central California and one in Southern California.
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The No. 1 issue motivating voters in these districts was opposition to President Trump and the Republican Party (16%). That concern outranked affordability (10%), the economy (10%) and corruption (7%).
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Grose said California voters ultimately may have tied economic concerns more to Trump and the Republican party than to Democrats.
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“If people are blaming the economy on the national elected officials, which it’s easier to do in this election with tariffs and the war in Iran and a lot of national and international events ...” he said, “it’s easier for the governor or statewide officials to say, ‘Hey I didn’t really do this.’”
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Republicans just aren’t that popular
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Digging a bit deeper, a look at Sacramento County’s 6th District showed that no party was seen favorably, but Republicans were particularly unpopular.
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Poll participants were asked if they had a positive or negative opinion of a specific party, with answers ranging from strongly positive to somewhat positive, neither, somewhat negative, strongly negative and don’t know out of a 100% scale.
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Democrats were underwater, with 38% of voters seeing the party as either strongly or somewhat positive versus 46% seeing the party as somewhat or strongly negative.
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Democratic Socialists also struggled, with 23% of voters seeing the party as positive versus 44% holding a somewhat or strongly negative view.
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Yet while both had issues, Republicans and MAGA were worse.
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Only 26% of those polled thought of Republicans positively, while MAGA was at 21%. Those numbers far trailed the 63% and 67% negative views of each, respectively.
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“The Democrats are persisting in the state despite negative opinions about the Democratic Party because the Republican Party is just so negatively perceived,” Grose said.
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A direction for Republicans
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Grose said that perhaps the first step for Republicans on a comeback tour would be to “boost their favorability numbers.”
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“I don’t think the Republican Party is in a good state in California to even launch a serious candidate for governor,” he said. “They are a minority in the state Legislature, which is often the place where candidates actually emerge, not people like Steve Hilton.”
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Breaking the Democratic Party’s supermajority and winning more seats in the Legislature should be an important and long-term goal, Grose said.
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“It would need to be a multiyear process,” he said. “Right now, the party mindset seems to be thinking ‘how can we run someone acceptable’ and it’s not working.”
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The week’s biggest stories
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(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
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Los Angeles mayoral election
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- Mayor-elect Nithya Raman will remake L.A. City Hall.
- Raman is expected to push the city left on public safety, while also advancing urbanist policies that favor public transit, greater housing production and the redesign of city streets.
- How did your neighborhood vote for L.A. mayor?
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The GOP tries to understand and move forward from the election
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Transportation
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Crime, courts and policing
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More news
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Editor’s pick
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Angel City FC goalkeeper Angelina Anderson has overcome adversity to become a formidable defensive force for her team as it opens the NWSL playoffs.
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More picks
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Keep up with California
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Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times.
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Things to do
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(The National Gallery, London)
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Today’s recipe
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(Glenn Koenig/Los Angeles Times)
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Former L.A. Times Test Kitchen director Noelle Carter used to rave that “nothing beats the simplicity of a tender, moist piece of chicken, delicately seasoned and lightly dredged with a dusting of flour, and then baptized in a pool of sizzling fat to crisp, golden perfection.” Fortunately for us, Carter’s recipe delivers on her vision while leaving options for changing the texture or adding seasoning.
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Photo of the day
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Mayoral candidate Nithya Raman speaks at the University of California at Los Angeles on Monday. Raman made a campaign stop at Bruin Plaza ahead of the election. (Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
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Games
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Here’s today’s mini crossword, plus our other free, daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and jigsaw games.
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Have a great day, from the Essential California team
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Jack Dolan, investigative reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, Fast Break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
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How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.
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