Did you know Democrats have controlled one or both houses of the California State Legislature for 59 of the past 65 years? But the results of the 2024 election make it clear voters have decided more than a half-century of failure is quite enough, and California Democrats have reason to worry it’s only the beginning.
There’s an ongoing debate as to how Donald Trump managed to win 43% of the Latino vote nationwide in 2024 and more of the Black and Asian-American vote than he has in two previous presidential elections, but it appears every major city in the U.S. experienced a “red shift,” of votes toward Trump from Joe Biden in 2020. In California, the counties with the highest share of Hispanic and Latino populations experienced the largest red shifts. This happened despite the former president’s pledge of “mass deportation” of illegal immigrants because polls show younger Latinos born in America actually support mass deportation and oppose the “open borders” policies of the Democratic party, and even if they don’t, they have greater concerns over higher prices as a result of inflation amplified by excessive government spending.
And where are those costs the highest? None other than California.
According to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, Californians face the highest home prices in the nation, the highest rents, and the highest costs for health care. We pay more than $1 a gallon above the national average just to fill up a tank of gas. The effect of these high costs is not only oppressive to working class families, it’s downright discriminatory. Higher costs force lower-income workers and families to look for homes farther away from jobs, imposing a form of racial and economic segregation across the Golden State. Those who choose to stay near job centers often remain in communities riddled with crime, violence, and diminished public schools and services.This is a direct result of policies pushed by Democrats that have forced businesses and workers to flee the state and thrown the consequences of their failed policies on working class families and communities that can least afford them.
Now, voters are pushing back.
In California’s 36th Assembly District, Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran Jeff Gonzalez flipped a seat in a Riverside and Imperial County district where Democrats have a 14% voter registration advantage. Just north of there in the 58th Assembly District, Latina Republican Leticia Castillo won in a district where Democrats hold a nearly 15% voter registration advantage. Unsurprisingly, both districts feature large working class Latino populations heavily impacted by crime and high living costs.
As Republicans look to the future, we have more reasons to be optimistic. Voters fed up with shoplifting and homeless-related crime delivered an overwhelming victory for Proposition 36, the bipartisan ballot measure sponsored by retailers and county district attorneys to crack down on serial shoplifting and mandate treatment for habitual drug addicts. Voters in every single county voted for Prop 36, a total rebuke of Proposition 47 just 10 years earlier. Years of so-called “criminal justice reform” have taken their toll on minority communities and the people have had quite enough of the rampant theft in their stores and overdoses on their streets.
Republicans in California should take this as vindication that we have won the public argument on crime, and recall that when lawmakers encountered resistance, they didn’t roll over, they rolled on. Republican legislators should view their role as securing small wins that allow us to stay in the larger fight for the future of our state. When Republicans stand with the people on the issues that matter most to them, we can achieve real results. And they should apply this lesson immediately as they work to tackle the next most important issue to California voters, costs.
Republicans in the legislature should take direct aim at the drivers of higher costs including heavy-handed regulations, fees, taxes, and the hidden costs of government bureaucracy. We should demand that Democrats answer for the burdens they have placed on the lowest-income earners and make legislators vote, repeatedly, against any relief. Early indications are the governor and his party haven’t learned anything from this election, doubling down on their own failed platitudes. If they won’t listen to voters, perhaps another ballot measure, styled after the “great tax revolt” that led to Proposition 13 in 1978, would drive the point home and drive higher turnout among working class voters fed up with paying more to live in a failing state.
The truth is Democrats here have survived on the politics of distraction for long enough. For decades, they virtue signal on progressive values while failing the very communities they claim to represent. They’re once again pledging to use the legislature to fight the federal government under President Trump, but it’s only because they have no strategies to fight homelessness, fentanyl overdoses, rising crime and costs. As their former colleague and the newest Republican legislator, State Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil, said when she switched her registration to the Republican Party, “if the Democrats knew how to fix any of this, they would have by now.”
It’s far too late for California Democrats to pretend they’re making the people’s priorities their priorities. Whether it’s our state’s failing schools, unreliable water supply, unaffordable energy and homes, crumbling roads, mismanaged forests, and so much more, reform around the edges simply won’t suffice. Californians are looking for an alternative, not an echo, from the past 60 years.
If California Republicans take up that challenge, we have little reason to fear the future. If we can build on their success this cycle, new opportunities await in 2026 and beyond.
After more than a half-century of failure, time’s up.
Corey Uhden is a Founding Partner of the political consulting firm Persuade Strategies and a delegate to the California Republican Party.