California Republicans fear McCarthy’s loss would be theirs as well

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Rep. Kevin McCarthy might be on the brink of losing the speaker’s gavel. California Republicans could be losing even more.

For many GOP lawmakers in California, McCarthy is not only a friend and former colleague. He’s a source of campaign cash and proof that their party could still be relevant — at least outside the state. Now, that seems to be slipping away along with his grip on the speakership.

Those who have known him since his earliest days in California politics praise him as a savvy operator who built coalitions and secured victories despite strong Democratic opposition. His Republican allies back home were looking forward to what he would do for the country, and for them, as Speaker of the House. That is now in peril, after six failed votes.

“He has been the most important Republican in California for the past decade,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant who worked under former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger when McCarthy was in the state Legislature.

“It’s not healthy for the [California Republican Party] if he were to lose this.”

McCarthy wielded outsize power and influence as the presumed future speaker. That goes away if he can’t muster the votes — though he’d still likely retain his seat in his Republican-favorable district and have access to GOP voters and donors.

After decades of work in the political trenches, McCarthy has become synonymous with the California Republican Party. While the state GOP has diminished since the days when it produced luminaries like Ronald Reagan, McCarthy has helped sustain it. His hometown of Bakersfield sits in the conservative heartland of the Central Valley, an area of farms and oil derricks that bears little resemblance to liberal coastal enclaves like San Francisco and Los Angeles.

McCarthy rose from a role with the Young Republicans in the 1990s to a job with then-Rep. Bill Thomas and then a seat in the state Assembly, where he would lead the Republican caucus — and establish a reputation as a relationship-builder willing to work with Democrats — before departing for Congress.

Story continues

“This has been his life since high school, really,” said former Rep. Connie Conway, who recalled then-Assemblymember McCarthy encouraging her to run for the state Assembly, where she would also come to serve as minority leader.

McCarthy proved himself to be a constant advocate for the party and someone who could do the nuts-and-bolts work of campaigning, said Assemblymember James Gallagher, who worked under McCarthy as a fellow in the early 2000s and now leads the Republican caucus in Sacramento.

McCarthy has been key to Republican wins in both Congress and the Legislature, he said.

“He’s already been very helpful to us. Obviously as the speaker, that would bring a lot of weight,” Gallagher said. “A lot of us are kind of disappointed out here to see a handful of people are just not getting together and being united and supporting the guy who has been in the fight with us.”

The would-be speaker’s ascent has also divided him from some conservative former allies who believe he has put ambition — and fealty to Trump — over principle. Thomas, the former Republican Congress member and onetime mentor, denounced his former aide in 2021 for enabling Trump’s “lies” about the election.

As his national profile rose — thanks in part to his unswerving loyalty to Trump — McCarthy became indispensable to his home state’s beleaguered party. He worked to recruit candidates and woo California-based donors whose dollars buoyed Republican prospects both around the country and in California.

“He has carried the party in California, not just from a fundraising base but from a grassroots organization,” said former Rep. Jeff Denham, who served with McCarthy in the Assembly and Congress. “He’s been someone who’s been very involved with the California Republican Party and helping to recruit candidates at all levels.”

Fittingly, a McCarthy protégé now helms the California Republican Party. With McCarthy’s support, party Chair Jessica Millan Patterson beat back further-right challengers in 2019 to secure the position.

After a disastrous 2018 cycle, the party flipped its first seat in a generation with Rep. Mike Garcia and, last fall, defended its frontline members. Those Republicans, who voted in lockstep to elevate McCarthy as speaker, benefited from McCarthy’s prolific fundraising machine.

“McCarthy’s extremely important to the California Republican Party and to anyone running for office in California as a Republican. He’s the leader of the party, he’s the most proficient fundraiser we’ve ever had,” said Republican consultant Dave Gilliard, who has run several California Republican House races. “I think that’s why the California delegation has been so united in support of him.”

Republicans and Democrats who worked with McCarthy in Sacramento remember him as more of a pragmatist than an ideologue. That’s why some are not surprised to see him hemmed in by more intransigent elements of his party.

“The Kevin I know has always been the moderate,” said Democratic former Assemblymember Dean Florez, who served in the Assembly with McCarthy in the mid-2000’s representing a different swathe of the Central Valley. Of the Republicans opposing him, Florez said, “I don’t think they’d even let Tom McClintock into the freedom caucus, he’s too liberal — and he was the party of ‘no’ when we were here” in Sacramento.

The “Bakersfield boy,” as Schwarzengger once called him, has tried to adapt to changes in his party as new-era Republicans throw high hurdles in his path, said Stutzman, the consultant who worked under Schwarzengger.

“They just want to see the world burn,” he said.

For now, California Republicans are watching the standoff in Washington unfold with a mixture of incredulity and frustration — and hoping their fellow Californian prevails.

“I’m very troubled by what appears to be an active preference of a minority of elected officials that believe throwing bombs is their key to success,” said former Republican State Sen. Roger Niello, who served in the Assembly with McCarthy. “ Kevin McCarthy is not a bomb-thrower.”