On Friday, Leonard Bernal stood next to a friend in the middle

in

a sea of ​​MAGA paraphernalia and it was absolutely buzzing.

Former President Trump had just wrapped up a fiery speech to 1,500 paying attendees at the California Republican Party’s fall convention in Anaheim, where he spent the better part of 90 minutes trashing the Golden State, its politicians and its policies.

Bernal, a 62-year-old retiree from Modesto, loved every moment. Although Trump was hard to follow as he denounced the state’s water policies, Bernal said the former president’s speech resonated with him. He has seen farmers struggle to keep their land fertile. Trump spoke of marauding criminal gangs and called California a “dumping ground” for prisoners, terrorists and mental patients.

“The state deserves to be beaten,” Bernal said. “While the country has gone to hell, California has gone to a deeper hell.”

Trump wasn’t the only one who got California into trouble. As he tried to loosen Trump’s hold on Republican voters, rival GOP candidates, including Sen. Tim Scott and the governor of Florida, took action. Ron DeSantis did the same during their tours of the state, denouncing the state as a hellhole created by the far left and overwhelmed by homelessness and immigrants entering the country illegally.

“

“Growing up in Florida, I never remember seeing a single California license plate in my life,” DeSantis told the crowd Friday evening. “I’ve never met anyone who moved from California to Florida. Fast forward fifteen years later, I become governor and suddenly we see a sea of ​​California license plates in the state of Florida.”

All the while, and usually behind closed doors, the candidates held fundraisers at the homes of wealthy Californians. The state has long been a popular destination for Republican presidential candidates looking to raise money. Californians donated more than $92 million to Trump’s campaign and to super PACs and other groups that supported his failed reelection efforts in 2020, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics.

Of the $20 million DeSantis has raised this year since entering the race in May, about $2.1 million came from California residents, according to campaign finance disclosures through June.

2023. A Super PAC supporting DeSantis has raised about $50 million this year on top of the $82.5 million transferred from its political operations in Florida. This group was able to accept donations of any size and raised about $2.2 million from Californians, which was the third largest of any state after Nevada and Florida, according to federal disclosures through June 2023.

Polls show Trump is so far ahead,

in front,

he could, due to a recent rule change, ultimately win all the state’s delegates and clinch the nomination for California’s presidential primary in March. According to a recent UC Berkeley/LA Times poll, Trump enjoys about 55% of the support of likely Republican voters in the state.

During his afternoon speech Friday, Trump falsely claimed that the state can “take children from their parents and sterilize them.” Following the frequent attacks he carried out during his presidency, Trump also addressed rampant crime and said brazen thieves stealing from stores should be shot on sight. He advocated energy independence and promised to cut federal funding for schools with vaccination mandates.

“Under the Trump administration, we will bring law and order back to California,” he said.

Despite his large lead in recent surveys, an effort to get the Republican Party of California to officially endorse Trump failed Sunday, after impassioned speakers argued that an unprecedented endorsement so early in a presidential primary campaign could impact voter turnout in downturns voting rounds.

Frankly, we have some Republicans who want people other than President Trump. We need them all there, said Fred Whitaker, chairman of the Orange County Republican Party.

Broadly speaking, however, delegates who attended the three-day confab said the state had lost its way and many wanted California to return to the days of the past.

Some longed for more economic opportunities and an affordable life, while others expressed frustration with transgender athletes or school districts that refuse to notify parents when their child identifies as transgender.

A startup campaign to make California’s Republican Party more welcoming to a broader spectrum of views on abortion and LGBTQ+ issues failed Saturday by a wide margin.

The convention overwhelmingly supported the adoption of its traditional platform, following a contentious weekend-long discussion over a proposal to remove language from the party platform that explicitly opposes abortion and defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

Loud cheering accompanied the platform vote, which passed with 79%.

Committee members charged with reforming the party platform proposed the change over the summer, which appealed to many conservative members. Outside the hotel ballroom where the platform is

what was discussed,

Activists held signs that read: Pray to end abortion and God is pro-life.

I don’t believe in the big tent. I believe in a tent that will house like-minded people,

said

GOP delegate and Paso Robles resident Randall Jordan commented on the changes to the platform, the push to make the GOP more inclusive and the state’s increasingly liberal side. “When Trump attacks the state, I hear hope. I hear hope that someone will actually do something.”

For Lifelong Californians Guadalupe and Hilario Gonzales: Anti-California Rhetoric from the Presidential Candidates

this week

felt validating. Guadalupe Gonzales, who attended Trump’s speech at the Anaheim convention on Friday, said his complaints about the state’s handling of drought, wildfires, crime and immigration resonated with her own beliefs.

I thought: yes, you hear me! Because it hurt, she said.

The couple seemed unconcerned by the widespread criticism of California they heard during the weekend convention.

We get a little embarrassed when we go to other states because they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re from California,'” Guadalupe Gonzales said. Because they think we’re crazy!

Like Trump and Scott, DeSantis has hosted multiple fundraisers, including one in Salinas recently

this

week since the campaign started. At the convention, during a campaign stop in Long Beach and during Wednesday’s presidential debate in Simi Valley, the Florida governor’s message across the state was that California was adrift and Florida represented a path forward.

But before DeSantis unloaded on California during his congressional speech Friday evening, he spoke of returning from military service to San Diego’s Coronado Island and marveling at the state’s natural beauty and “just having the freshness of the Pacific Ocean in you.” He also highlighted his upcoming televised debate with the governor. Gavin Newsom next month, which he says will show Americans the stark difference between states run by Republicans and Democrats.

“California is really the petri dish for American liberalism and American leftism,” DeSantis said.

“

What Biden is doing are things that California did many years ago. What California is doing now is probably what a second Biden term would do, or God forbid Kamala Harris, or God forbid Newsom himself, who knows, right?”

He touted his feuds with Disney and waded into the school district’s controversies over policies affecting transgender students, saying, “

I

It is wrong to tell a second grader that his or her gender is a choice. It’s not true and it’s inappropriate.”

Statements like these from DeSantis, Scott and Trump drew rapturous applause from attendees of these speeches, who paid hundreds of dollars to be near the candidates. DeSantis and Trump both clashed with Newsom, who has emerged this re-election season as President Biden’s main defender and leader of the Democratic attack.

The Governor of California

attended the GOP debate on Wednesday as a proxy for Biden and to strongly rebut Republican attacks on the state and the president.

“It’s so boring and so predictable. There’s a lack of originality in all this California bashing,” Newsom told reporters before the debate, adding that the state’s GDP growth has outpaced the nation over the past decade.

“We dominate in every category, jobs in hunting, fishing, manufacturing jobs, more manufacturing jobs here than any other state, a factor greater than the next five states combined. I’m really proud of the state,” he said.

Somewhat surprisingly, presidential candidate and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy spent little time trashing the state or talking about it at all during his speech on Saturday. When asked why, he told reporters that despite the real problems here, this kind of rhetoric bored him.

“I’m tired of lazy bashing,” Ramaswamy said. “It’s too easy.”