Latino vote helps Democrats keep California domination
In 1994, when Rep. Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" carried Republicans into control of Congress, the tidal wave washed over California.
Voters in the Golden State re-elected a Republican governor and chose GOP candidates for four other statewide offices. In the Assembly, Republicans won eight seats and took control by a slim margin.
But last Tuesday, when Rep. John Boehner's "Pledge to America" swept the GOP into a House majority, California stayed dry. Democrats picked up a seat in the Legislature, won the governorship - and maybe all state offices - and re-elected a damaged U.S. senator.
The difference?
It's now a California where Latino voters have come into their own as a pivotal voting bloc, with the power to punish candidates seen as unfriendly on immigration policy.
The state has also shown itself to be hostile territory for political movements such as the tea party that tilted so many races elsewhere in the country.
Exit polls showed 34 percent of people in California supported the tea party movement compared with 40 percent nationwide.
In fact, California is now the most Democratic big state in the country.
"The Republicans really couldn't do anything to harness this anti-tax, anti-spending mood that the voters had," said former state Republican Party Chairman Mike Schroeder. "We are a one-party state right now."
With the 2012 presidential elections around the corner, at least one top Republican has already turned California into a symbol for dysfunctional liberal rule.
Newly re-elected Texas Gov. Rick Perry told National Public Radio last week, "If, you know, you want to live in a state that has high taxes, high regulations, that is favorable toward smoking marijuana and gay marriage, move to California."
He added, "Well, we still believe in freedom in Texas and when I say that, I'm talking about freedom from overtaxation, over-regulation, over-litigation."
Political analyst Tony Quinn, a former staff member for the Assembly Republican Caucus, said he expected more national Republicans to follow suit in the next election cycle, especially if California's unemployment rate stays near record highs.
"I think they will say, 'If you look at the mess California's in, that's what the Democrats did,' " Quinn said. " 'Then you look at me. I'll keep your taxes down and create jobs.' "
The state lost out in at least one clear way in the national Republican wave: San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi was ousted from her post as speaker of the House, which had let her direct millions of federal dollars to California.
State Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring said California sat out the national GOP trend because some state Republican legislators peeled off to support tax increases last year.
"Just as the tea party movement was taking root, we had a handful of Republicans signing onto big tax increases," Nehring said. "That produced a massive distraction and damages the brand."
Holding the anti-tax line in the coming year will be crucial to a Republican rebound, he said.
"Republicans who campaign against tax increases need to govern that way, and if they don't it is not only they who will suffer but also every other Republican in 2012," Nehring said.
Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, said the real issue was Republican attitudes toward immigration and Latino voters.
GOP candidates will continue suffering at the ballot box unless they rethink their tough stand on illegal immigration, which has come to identify the party in the minds of many Latino voters, Regalado said.
Latinos made up 22 percent of the state electorate Tuesday, exit polls showed, compared with 18 percent in 2008 and 12 percent in 2006. Brown won 64 percent of the Latino vote, while Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman won 30 percent.
The poll also showed 42 percent of voters identifying themselves as Democrats, 31 percent as Republicans and 27 percent as nonpartisans or minor-party members.
The illegal immigration issue stormed into the GOP primary in the spring when Republican Steve Poizner hammered rival Whitman for being soft on such immigrants.
"You can't take that vote for granted because it's looming so large, one of every four or five voters," Regalado said. "I think that's a very large message coming out of this election."
Nehring said reaching out to such voters was a top party priority, although he denied the party's positions were the problem.
"Republicans should not change in their opposition to securing our borders and respecting the law," Nehring said. "However, there is a need for a radical improvement in how Republicans communicate on those issues."
Quinn said he saw no evidence that state Republicans are taking the Latino voter issue seriously.
"The leadership is brain-dead," Quinn said. "That's their problem. The demographic problem is Republicans have become a party of old white people, and these are people who really want an idealistic view such as what they think existed in California 50 years ago."