California won’t feel the Republican wave during midterms, but its moderate Democrats will

The 1994 election was the most Republican election in my lifetime.

I was a young political staffer and law school student trying to figure out what was going on in the world. Voters across the country expressed their displeasure with first-term President Bill Clinton and his policies. It was a landmark event as Republicans took control of the House and Senate.

This November could be far worse for President Joe Biden than it was for Clinton.

Until recently, it would have been hard to imagine a president’s approval rating as low as the 40% range where President Trump hovered during the 2018 midterms, which saw Democrats pick up seats all over the country. But with inflation, high gas prices and a war in Ukraine, Biden is stuck near 40% just as Trump was.

What was Clinton’s approval rating in mid-October of 1994? In the 40s as well.

There were indicators that a red wave was coming in 1994, and there are indicators that another one is coming today. Republican leaders need to choose what to do about it.

In a 1993 special election in California, a Republican former newspaper editor from Santa Cruz was elected to the state Assembly. That was the signal that 1994 was about to break red statewide because it was a seat Republicans were never supposed to win. No one really expected it to be as big as it was, except for maybe the Republican Assembly leader, Jim Brulte, and his political director, Chris Wysocki.

No one could have predicted a Republican majority in the Assembly until election night in 1994. Brulte never served as speaker, in a twisted Capitol tale too long to recount, but he scared Democrats and proved Republicans could be competitive in California.

I swear it really happened.

Here we are in 2022, and a Republican majority in any part of California is even more unlikely. Yet the signal could be in the recall elections of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon.

Most surprising to me, voters without a party affiliation are behaving more like Republicans upset with the status quo. They have completely flipped from two years ago.

The latest data shows huge pickups for Republicans across the country. Yet unlike in 1996, when newly elected Republicans were swept out of office two years later, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, state Senate Republican Leader Scott Wilk and Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher have recruited high-quality candidates who are more likely to withstand a pendulum swing in 2024.

By almost every objective measure, Republicans are about to have a big year. It won’t be as big in California, but it will end any chance for Biden to implement anything in Washington.

For my liberal friends, this is why you should care: The elected Democrats who will be swept from office hold swing seats in the suburbs. If moderates are no longer in office, that will make the hardcore progressives in the party an even more dominant force.

Democrats have had the opportunity to run California without opposition for nearly 20 years. The next election will not affect their super-majorities in the state Assembly and Senate, but it will purge some moderates and make their caucuses even more progressive.

This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 5:30 AM.