“I love California,” he says, “and I hate what Jerry Brown has done to it.”ĭonnelly is an easy target for liberals. Since running for the gubernatorial nomination he has focused on crumbling infrastructure, shoddy schools and the flight of businesses to lower tax states. He has voted against bills on minimum wage and transgender rights, wants to abolish the Air Resources Board which regulates air quality, and calls state welfare programmes a form of slavery. The concern for the GOP, said Pitney, is that a Donnelly candidacy would tar Republicans running for other state offices – and the party's image beyond California.Ī former Minuteman who led militia-style border patrols, the Golden State's GOP frontrunner favours Arizona-style laws against illegal immigration, which he has linked to gang violence, and opposes driving licences and public financial aid for undocumented people. “Brown would have to commit a major felony with a minor farm animal on TV to lose,” said Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna college. “We have to remember that if people don't like us they won't vote for us.”įew doubt that Governor Jerry Brown, a Democratic incumbent with 59% approval ratings and a $20m (£12m) campaign war chest, will squash whichever Republican runs against him in November. “We're making it very difficult to be likeable,” he said. Latinos, women and young people, in particular, are likely to recoil should Donnelly clinch the nomination, said Lionel Sosa, a Texas-based GOP media guru who advised Ronald Reagan, both Bushes and John McCain. But it has alarmed some GOP activists, who fear the impact on efforts to rebrand the party. Such rhetoric has powered Donnelly past Neel Kashkari, a better-funded and centrist rival who languishes in the polls. The very first thing we should do is stop rewarding illegal behaviour, stop incentivising it.” “I don't blame them for coming here when we're giving them all kinds of free stuff. Americans believe that government is the biggest threat to our future.”Ĭalifornia and the US needed to secure the border and deter illegal immigrants, added Donnelly, 47. “The Democratic party has been hijacked by Marxist progressives. When you become a champion of the people they'll follow you to the ends of the earth,” he told the Guardian during a campaign stop this week.Īmerica's biggest state was hungry for his promise of smaller government, he said. The state assembly member from Twin Peaks – a remote, rural community – has roused grassroots conservatives with broadsides against taxes, illegal immigration and government regulation.
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