How another California Republican bubble burst, extending an epic political losing streak

Republicans had a tumultuous couple of weeks. After their red “tsunami” crashed into reality’s rocky shore, throwing California Republican Kevin McCarthy’s humiliating quest for the House speakership into doubt, Donald Trump washed up on a low tide to announce another campaign. So one could be forgiven for overlooking the shipwreck that came of another great Republican hope.

Lanhee Chen, the Republican candidate for California controller, thanked his family, campaign, voters and donors Tuesday but acknowledged that he hadn’t managed to “break the losing streak” of the California GOP, as he and others once dreamed he would. Chen’s loss extended that streak past an impressive 16 years without a single statewide win.

With Chen now losing by over 10 percentage points to Democrat Malia Cohen, it’s easy to forget the gauzy optimism with which his campaign was once greeted.

Launched amid the irrational Republican exuberance of last year’s attempt to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, Chen’s campaign was at one point suspected of being the “best chance to win a statewide office since Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger,” the last member of the party elected statewide. Thanks to Chen, who advised presidential campaigns for George W. Bush and Mitt Romney, 2022 “might be the year that one of the country’s bluest states shows a hint of red,” offered one prominent publication. A Wall Street Journal column suggested that the candidate could “reinvigorate” a California Republican Party showing “signs of revival.”

Skeptical? Consider that the Chen campaign’s internal polling reportedly showed “57 percent of Californians would consider voting for a Republican controller candidate,” according to another columnist. He “even earned an endorsement from the Los Angeles Times’ liberal editorial board”!

Enough people with disposable income believed all this that as of late October, Chen had substantially outraised and outspent his future Democratic vanquisher. The myth of Chen’s viability had been further buoyed by his first-place showing in the state’s pan-partisan primary — though some observers might have forgotten to count up the far greater number of votes divided among his four Democratic rivals.

All the hopey, changey excitement around Chen didn’t just gloss over the fact that his party is closing in on two decades without a statewide officeholder and three without legislative power. Despite all the earnest arguments that the controller’s watchdog role is uniquely suited to someone outside the ruling party, Californians have an unbroken record of electing Democrats to that position for nearly half a century. National Republicans’ escalating authoritarianism, demagoguery and bigotry, and California Republicans’ failure to clearly distance themselves from them, don’t improve the chances of a stunning reversal of the party’s fortunes.

It’s fitting that Chen’s loss became official on the day of Trump’s ominous campaign announcement. To his credit, Chen called the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection an “abomination” and said he didn’t vote for Trump. But he also embodied California Republicans’ ambivalence by waiting until after the primary to reveal the latter and level the underwhelming critique that “there are a lot of people who I believe would be better for the job than the former president.”

Given his apparent capacity to challenge the stewardship of the ruling party, Chen was a more promising candidate for the job than Cohen, a former San Francisco supervisor and state Board of Equalization chair who was the Democratic establishment’s choice. Ironically, however, Chen’s campaign — like those of his fellow Republicans in other statewide races — served mainly to ensure that Cohen would not face more meaningful competition from a contrarian Democrat such as state Sen. Steve Glazer, one of the contenders eliminated by Chen in the spring. Far from presenting a serious challenge to California’s Democratic establishment, Republicans like Chen have become instrumental in its preservation.