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Advertisement
California
IN A BATTLEGROUND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT NORTH OF L.A., TRUMP VERDICT MAY BE A
WILDCARD IN THE NOVEMBER ELECTION
Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Santa Clarita) speaks during a Memorial Day event in Newhall
last weekend. Garcia is fighting to keep his seat in one of the nation’s most
hotly contested congressional races.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
By Faith E. Pinho
and Julia Wick
May 31, 2024 3:42 PM PT
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Sharing a salt-and-butter breakfast roll with her grandson at a Newhall bakery,
stalwart Republican Jill Brown said former President Trump’s guilty verdict in a
Manhattan courtroom won’t dent her plans to vote for him in the November
presidential election.
The longtime Santa Clarita resident and retired teacher, who voted for Trump in
2016 and 2020, suspects Biden was also guilty of unspecified crimes and didn’t
know why prosecutors were focusing on Trump’s actions.
“Hush money has been going on since the beginning of time. So I don’t know why
they’re making such a big deal about it,” Brown, 69, said Friday.
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In Santa Clarita, nestled in a hotly contested congressional district that is
expected to help determine which party controls Congress next year, Trump’s
guilty verdict did little to sway Brown or other hardcore Republicans.
But it may nudge moderate swing voters, and that could be pivotal in deciding
the fate of Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Santa Clarita) this election.
Still, it remains to be seen whether the verdict — and any corresponding stain
on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee — will affect a congressional
race in which the overheated national discourse has often taken a backseat to
the issues affecting the day-to-day lives of Californians.
“Those who try to nationalize this race and make everything super partisan
fundamentally misunderstand our district,” said Charles Hughes, an Antelope
Valley resident and president of the local Republican central committee. Hughes
didn’t think the verdict would have any impact on the race or support for
Garcia.
Garcia is hoping to fend off Democratic challenger George Whitesides in
California’s closely divided 27th Congressional District, where voters have
twice reelected their Republican congressman — despite a double-digit Democrat
voter registration advantage. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden beat
Trump in the district by 12 percentage points.
About an hour’s drive from the solidly liberal confines of downtown Los Angeles,
the congressional district sprawls from Santa Clarita into the folds and valleys
of the San Gabriel Mountains and high desert frontier of Lancaster and Palmdale.
Advertisement
Once staunchly red territory, this district has been on the front lines of
partisan warfare since a millennial Democrat unseated the Republican incumbent
in a nationally watched 2018 race. But her meteoric rise met an equally quick
fall, with Rep. Katie Hill resigning less than a year later amid a sex scandal.
Garcia won the seat in a special election and has managed to retain it in two
subsequent regular elections.
California
SIX CALIFORNIA HOUSE RACES THAT COULD HELP DETERMINE CONTROL OF CONGRESS
From the farm towns of the Central Valley to the beaches of Orange County,
California is a battleground for control of the House of Representatives.
April 26, 2024
Kevin Mahan, 72, an independent voter, hasn’t decided how he’ll vote in the
November congressional race. As a recent transplant from Glendale, he doesn’t
know much about Santa Clarita politics or Garcia. But Mahan said he’d be
unlikely to support Garcia, adding, “If somebody’s in bed with Trump, I’m not
gonna vote for him.”
The historic criminal conviction of Trump was a sad day for America, Mahan said.
Outside money, busloads of volunteers and unabated national attention have
poured in during each of the recent election cycles. 2024 will be no different:
The race for the 27th remains one of the most competitive congressional contests
in the nation, and the results will undoubtedly help shape partisan control of
the House. It’s one of four California races rated as a “toss up” by the
nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
But the Trump verdict and potential associations for Garcia — who had been
endorsed by Trump in the past — could influence independent voters, who account
for more than a fifth of the district’s electorate.
Views of the trial and verdict have been shaped by a voters’ underlying
political allegiances, with polling showing that Democrats overwhelmingly saw
the trial as fair, whereas only a tiny fraction of Republicans agreed with that
sentiment. Independents were evenly split on the relative fairness of the trial.
Garcia has yet to comment on the verdict. Whitesides used it as an opportunity
to highlight the ties between the former president and the L.A.-area
congressman, saying in a statement that “Garcia is focused on defending Trump,
rather than serving us” and noting that his opponent was one of several
California Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 election results.
Politics
MOST CALIFORNIA REPUBLICANS IN COMPETITIVE CONGRESSIONAL RACES ARE SILENT ON
TRUMP’S CONVICTION
What do Republican congressional candidates have to say about Donald Trump’s
conviction? Those in competitive districts mostly say nothing.
May 30, 2024
Democratic allies, like Santa Clarita Valley Democrats Chair and founder Andrew
Taban and former Democratic candidate Christy Smith, who ran three unsuccessful
campaigns against Garcia in the past, were hopeful that the trial could push
independent voters toward Whitesides.
“The key thing to remember about CA-27 is that while the biggest voting bloc of
registered voters are Democrats, the second largest bloc are independent voters,
and independent voters consistently in this district have broken for President
Biden,” Smith said. With “the right kind of exposure,” she posited, Garcia’s
ties to Trump could impact how those independents vote in the November
congressional race.
Democratic challenger George Whitesides, pictured at a 2019 conference in
Beverly Hills, noted that rival Rep. Mike Garcia was one of the California
Republicans to vote against certification of the 2020 presidential election
results.
(Kyle Grillot / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
As his group canvasses for Whitesides and other local Democratic candidates,
Taban said he expected the verdict might come up in conversations with voters,
particularly as he and other club members plan to underscore the fact that
Garcia is “for sure a Trump loyalist.”
But at the end of the day, congressional swing voters are going to be much more
focused on economic issues such as gas and grocery prices, crime and the border,
said Jon Fleischman, a Republican strategist and former state GOP executive
director.
“I’m not saying that voter opinions about Trump do not matter,” Fleischman said.
“I just don’t think the verdicts Thursday change many minds.”
MORE TO READ
* AT TRUMP HOTEL IN LAS VEGAS, SUPPORTERS ARE UNDETERRED BY GUILTY VERDICT: ‘I
DON’T CARE’
May 31, 2024
* ALI: THE JURY HAS SPOKEN. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT WILL BE A GREAT TEST OF AMERICAN
DEMOCRACY
May 31, 2024
* OPINION: THE GUILTY VERDICT ONLY MAKES DONALD TRUMP STRONGER
May 30, 2024
CaliforniaElection 2024California Politics Crime & Courts
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Faith E. Pinho
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Faith E. Pinho is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, covering national and
political news, including the 2024 election.
Julia Wick
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Julia Wick is a political reporter at the Los Angeles Times. She and her
colleagues won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news for reporting on a
leaked audio recording that upended Los Angeles politics. She was also part of
the team that was a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist for work covering a fatal
shooting on the set of the film “Rust.” Before joining the Times, Wick was the
editor in chief of LAist.
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