Most Republican candidates for Congress in California’s most competitive districts responded with radio silence to news of former President Trump’s historic criminal conviction.
A New York jury deliberated for 9½ hours over two days before convicting Trump of 34 counts of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex .
After the verdict, Republican leaders in California quickly cast doubt on the verdict’s legitimacy, arguing it would boost Trump’s chances of re-election in November.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield said Trump’s “only ‘crime’ is against Joe Biden in 2024.”
Jessica Millan Patterson, chair of the Republican Party of California, said the prosecution was “a politically motivated case brought by a far-left prosecutor” and that the guilty verdict “should never have occurred.”
Rep. San Diego-area Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) called the verdict and trial “a disgrace.”
Democrats, on the other hand, praised the verdict as proof that the American justice system is functioning properly. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who is running for Senate, said “the rule of law prevailed” despite Trump’s efforts to “distract, delay and deny.”
Read more: Column: Trump is officially a convicted felon, but that shouldn’t stand in his way
During California’s most contentious congressional races, however, few wanted to publicly address the issue of Trump’s conviction.
Representing Reps. Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills), Michelle Steel (R-Seal Beach), Mike Garcia (R-Santa Clarita), David Valadao (R-Hanford) and John Duarte (R-Modesto) did not return requests for comment. Nor do representatives of Matt Gunderson, who is challenging Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano) in coastal Orange and San Diego counties, or Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln, who is running against Rep. Josh Harder (D-Tracy) in the Central Valley .
A representative for Republican Steve Garvey, who is running for Senate against Schiff, said he had no comment on the verdict.
There was one exception Scott Baugh, who is running to flip the coastal Orange County seat held by Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) is held. Baugh, the former chairman of the Orange County GOP, characterized the Trump trial as a political prosecution and said the verdict “shouldn’t surprise anyone.”
“A politically motivated prosecutor and a hostile judge rigged the trial because of so many damaging errors,” Baugh said in a prepared statement. “President Trump will have the opportunity to appeal and I am confident that a fair hearing will expose and resolve these issues.”
And former Riverside Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona), who is fighting to keep his once-safe seat in a now competitive swing district, said in a statement Thursday evening that Trump’s prosecution was political — but his comments were more muted. than the loudest voices of the Republican Party.
Calvert said Americans who believe “justice should be blind to politics” should be “concerned” about the outcome of the trial. He continued: “It is alarming that our criminal justice system continues to be abused by partisan prosecutors who seek to use the power of their office to influence our democratic elections.”
Whether they should lock arms with Trump has been a fraught question for California Republicans for almost a decade, but especially this year. Republicans have such a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives that a handful of hypercompetitive races in the Golden State could determine which party controls the House. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated 10 races in California as competitive.
Remaining silent about the verdict makes sense for Republicans in these competitive battleground districts, said Dan Schnur, a professor of politics at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine.
“You’ll find that the loudest voices supporting Trump on this are often Republicans in very safe places,” Schnur said. “Candidates who need to reach swing voters don’t have that luxury.”
One challenge for the candidates, said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at UC San Diego, is that party political allegiances shape how voters view the process.
Polls have shown that Democrats overwhelmingly viewed the process as fair, while only a small percentage of Republicans agreed. The independents were evenly divided. A Trump-like message about a rigged, unfair process that could resonate with a candidate’s Republican base could also deter independents, Kousser said.
“Anyone trying to win a race in a competitive district this November should worry about mobilizing their base through more Trump-like rhetoric, but also about the costs of alienating the middle,” he said.
Read more: Q&A: Yes, Trump could be elected president as a convicted felon
Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist not involved in congressional races, said that while the verdict could be used by either party as a tool to recruit voters in November, it is a “sensitive topic.”
“You may have independent members in Congress who are indifferent to the verdict, but who don’t necessarily want Republican incumbents to defend Trump or disapprove of the verdict,” Stutzman said.
But Shawn Steel, who represents California on the Republican National Committee and is married to Steel of Orange County, said the ruling will have “absolutely no impact” on California House of Representatives races.
“The White House got the verdict they planned years ago,” Steel said. “The jurors in Manhattan who convicted Trump did so out of malice and hatred. Today’s verdict, along with the not guilty verdict in the criminal trial of OJ Simpson, evidenced the sharp decline in confidence in American criminal justice.”
Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco attorney who also represents California on the Republican National Committee and whose law firm represents the Trump campaign, said Californians are more concerned about quality of life issues such as homelessness, crime and illegal immigration than they are about the lawsuit.
“People are fed up,” she said. “People are much more motivated to vote in this election because things are getting bad here in California.”
While Republican House candidates in California were largely silent, some of their allies in other states, such as Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake and Vice Presidential hopeful Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, were not.
“This was a rigged, disgraceful trial,” Trump told reporters after leaving the courtroom. “The real judgment will be pronounced by the people on November 5.”
The Biden campaign said Thursday’s ruling showed the law applied to everyone, but warned the only way to keep Trump out of the White House is to vote in November.
“Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president,” campaign spokesman Michael Tyler said. “The threat Trump poses to our democracy has never been greater. He is waging an increasingly unhinged campaign of revenge and retaliation, promising to be a dictator ‘on day one’ and calling for the ‘termination’ of our Constitution so he can regain power and retain power.”
In the wake of Trump’s conviction, Democrats seized 23 vulnerable Republicans in the House of Representatives who had supported the former president, including Duarte, Garcia, Calvert and Steel.
“House Republicans have continued to put Donald Trump first and the American people last,” said Courtney Rice, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Their districts deserve better than their cult-like adherence to a wannabe dictator. Each of them should withdraw their support, but they won’t.”
Trump’s trial, which began in New York City in April, was one of four felony cases Trump faced, although it was thought to be the only one likely to see a trial before the November election.
Read more: According to polls, a conviction could cost Trump a fifth of his support. Should we believe them?
The verdict hinged on whether Trump falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment that Michael Cohen – Trump’s lawyer and later witness for the prosecution – made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who claimed she had a sexual had met with Trump ten years earlier.
Manhattan distance. Atty. Alvin Bragg had to convince the jury that Trump not only instructed Cohen to make the payments, but that he did so to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, rather than to protect his family from the story. Trump pleaded not guilty and denied the sexual encounter with Daniels; Cohen testified that he was intimately involved in the scheme.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
