The California Republican Party’s newly elected chair says the party can make inroads in some of the state’s bluest areas. But the party has a long way to go before it can be truly competitive statewide, experts said, and Democrats aren’t sweating it.
“The California GOP is irrelevant statewide,” Rep. Robert Garcia told NOTUS. “They can continue to do what they want, they’re not gonna get anywhere.”
As California Republicans gear up for a difficult governor’s race in 2026, chair Corrin Rankin said they will “make investments into communities that Republicans haven’t typically made investments into,” specifically precincts and demographics that might have warmed up to President Donald Trump during last year’s election.
This approach reflects an “underlying change” in California politics, one that expects the Trump administration to help bring more Republican party registrations, Rankin told Fox News. (She did not respond to a request for comment from NOTUS.)
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It’s an incredibly heavy lift: Democrats outnumber Republicans by over 5 million registered voters. But Republican lawmakers said they think the idea has merit. Republican voter registration has increased by over 1 million registered Republicans since Gavin Newsom took office in 2019 and young voters have also registered as Republicans at an increased rate in recent years, giving GOP lawmakers some hope.
Rep. Doug LaMalfa pointed to an increase in Republican voter registrations and a turnout increase among young and Latino voters in California during the last presidential elections as both a sign of discontent against California’s ruling supermajority and an indication that people in the state are warming up to Trump’s policies.
“We should always be on offense,” LaMalfa said. “We have made inroads with different groups we haven’t been as far with before.”
State-level Republicans in California are also buying into this strategy.
“I think the key is going to places where usually Republicans don’t go,” state Sen. Tony Strickland told NOTUS. “There’s a lot of Republicans in Los Angeles, but there’s also a lot of disenfranchised voters out there.”
While Rankin has already gained some buy-in from Republicans both in Congress and the state, pollsters said the reality is more complicated. Though on paper Republicans have enjoyed an increase in party registrations, California pollster Paul Mitchell said that conditions on the ground do not spell looming enthusiasm for Republicans. Instead, they point to a combination of California’s electoral registration process and a Republican base activated by Trump in 2024.
Through 2019, California residents were automatically assigned as having “no Party preference” at the Department of Motor Vehicles unless they actively chose a party affiliation. This quirk artificially increased the rate of unaffiliated voters in California, Mitchell said.
As would-be Republican voters attempted to vote in the closed primaries in California, they had to reregister as Republicans. This voter registration quirk might be inflating the rate of GOP party registration California Republicans are quick to celebrate, Mitchell said.
“It’s a little premature for Republicans to be taking victory laps here when they’re making incremental improvements, at least after more of which could be attributed to simple mechanical oddities,” Mitchell said.
California-based pollster Christian Grose said that while Rankin’s background and experience as statewide coordinator for African Americans for Trump in 2016 might be a step in the right direction for a party that has struggled to make way with California’s diverse electorate, the Trump brand is still an albatross around the party’s neck in the state.
“The reality of California is that most GOP base voters are very Trumpy, conservative and white. But to win a general election in California, you need to appeal to a diverse multiracial and multiethnic coalition,” Grose said.
California-based GOP consultant Mike Madrid said it would be premature for the party to frame necessary outreach as going on the offensive rather than being a much-needed correction to reach out to possible voters turned off by the certain Republican policies.
The California Republican Party has “been digging a hole for 30 years,” he said.
“I guess it’s good that you stopped digging a hole, but that’s really what it is. There’s a long way to go to get out of this. And maybe in 30 years, you could maybe celebrate, but right now, not so much,” Madrid added.
Democrats in Congress say there is little the new chair can do to offset the negative baggage Republicans carry in California.
“They’re drinking crazy juice,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove told NOTUS. “If you wake up in the morning, you will see that Americans, Democrats and Republicans and independents are concerned, frustrated, irritated, mad at this administration.”
Rep. Jared Huffman said that by focusing on outreach, Republicans in the state are ignoring candidate viability, which he thinks is the key reason the party has lagged for so long in California.
“Here’s the problem: They have such a motley crew of junior varsity candidates; there’s no bench whatsoever in the California Republican Party,” Huffman said. “So they can talk about going on offense in deep blue districts, but you’ve gotta have credible people to run in those races.”
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Samuel Larreal is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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