Is there room in the party for a pro-choice moderate who disavows Donald Trump?
are being spent. He laments the “policy sclerosis” he believes has gripped the state under Democratic control. Californians are intrigued. He was the top vote-getter in the nonpartisan primary in June. If Mr Chen is victorious on November 8th, he would be the first Republican to win state-wide office since 2006, and the first Republican controller since Ronald Reagan was governor.
But it is unclear whether Mr Chen’s campaign is a relic of the Republican Party’s past or a glimpse of its possible future. Many California Republicans once commonly held positions to the left of the national party. Democrats still laud Arnold Schwarzenegger for championing climate-change legislation when he was governor.
Most of the state party’s official platform is national Republicanism distilled: marriage should be between a man and a woman, abortion is immoral and gun control is totalitarian. “California is a cultural vanguard of the country, for better or for worse,” says Mr Madrid, suggesting that Republicans ignore Californian values at their peril. Democrats have controlled both chambers of the state legislature since 1997. Republicans hold just 11 of California’s 53 congressional seats.
Some soul searching is taking place in the party’s top ranks. Jessica Millan Patterson, its chairwoman, bemoans the fact that her predecessors “neglected” black, Hispanic and Asian voters. She envisions a “comeback” focused on broadening her party’s appeal. But as long as Mr Trump remains the party’s standard-bearer, California’s Republicans will find it hard to compete. Some 47% of Californians are registered Democrats.
Mr Chen says he feels at home in the Republican Party. But he chuckles when asked which of his fellow Republicans he admires. Eventually he names Mr Romney and Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia. Controller is among the least partisan jobs in Californian politics. Still, a victory for Mr Chen may signal to voters like Mr Barrot, who got whiplash from the party’s hard-right turn, that the fever dream of big-tent Republicanism is not dead yet—at least in liberal California.
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