Republicans blame Carl DeMaio for party division as his group rakes in millions ...Middle East

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It was the first meeting of the new year and local Republicans, from senior leaders to right-wing influencers, were gathered at a suburban San Diego church to discuss who the party should endorse in the June primary.

Insults and personal attacks flew between a local GOP activist and Assemblymember Carl DeMaio for more than an hour as party members argued over how to tally their votes. Then, finally, came the results: No one would receive an endorsement, not even a candidate for the seat currently held by the Republican leader of the state Senate.

Republicans blamed DeMaio for the party’s failure to back even a single candidate for the first time in recent memory. Known for making more enemies than friends, he continues to anger his colleagues — both in the statehouse and at home in San Diego — as he works to strengthen his political organization, Reform California, one of the state’s biggest conservative fundraising machines.

In the months leading up to the vote, critics accused DeMaio of packing the local party with allies to ensure Reform California would become the authority on Republican endorsements in the San Diego area. The organization raised $5 million in 2024 alone — three times more than the San Diego Republican Party raised in that time.

Former county party chair Corey Gustafson, who was ousted after refusing to back DeMaio’s 2024 Assembly campaign, said DeMaio has effectively made himself the de facto leader in local GOP politics – in part, by installing precinct committee members who benefit from Reform California dollars.

After DeMaio’s 2024 win, Republicans in San Diego believe Reform California and its endorsements are powerful and, without them, elections are harder to win, Gustafson said.

“The party can’t be as strong and have candidates respect their decision if they have an alternative to it,” he said. “And that’s what Carl DeMaio’s creating.”

Gustafson believes right-wing activist Kristie Bruce-Lane, the candidate DeMaio wants to replace outgoing Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones , is unlikely to win, but he says that’s beside the point.

“It has nothing to do with electability, it has nothing to do with who’s the better candidate. It has to do, to DeMaio, with which candidates support him,” Gustafson said.

DeMaio countered that he’s bringing the anti-establishment change voters are seeking.

“These are people who don’t actually want to fight in California. They’re part of the ‘surrender caucus,’” DeMaio said of his critics. “I don’t worry what other people have to say about me and our movement. We took on both political parties in 2024, and we beat them.”

Consolidating power

The intra-party endorsement drama was the latest episode in DeMaio’s attempt to consolidate power throughout the state through Reform California, which includes political action committees, a consulting firm and a YouTube channel with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

Reform California has endorsed Senate and Assembly candidates from Sacramento to Los Angeles. DeMaio also uses the organization to campaign for ballot initiatives. A recent example is the Republican-backed bid to put voter ID on the November ballot, which has raised $10 million with the help of wealthy and small dollar donors, according to DeMaio. 

“This group is large and well-funded enough to act like a party, and it’s doing so by being involved in races all across the state,” UC San Diego political science professor Thad Kousser said.

“That elevates this above what we often see, which is a local fight between local factions. He is a statewide force within the Republican Party, and he brings the campaign resources, the fundraising dollars, that creates.”

Waning GOP influence

President Ronald Reagan once described San Diego as his “lucky city,” a conservative outlier alongside Orange County in an increasingly Democratic state as population growth and demographic shifts began to fortify California as a blue state heading into the 1990s.

In 2008, Barack Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the county in decades, and Democratic voter registration began to eclipse that of Republicans. The trend accelerated around 2014 as Republicans lost control of city and county offices one by one. Meanwhile, Republican voter registration statewide continued to fall.

Today, 41% of San Diego County voters are registered Democrats and 28% are Republicans, according to the secretary of state’s office. 

DeMaio served on the San Diego City Council from 2008 to 2012.  He launched a failed mayoral bid in 2012 before turning to talk radio as a show host, followed by two unsuccessful campaigns for Congress in the San Diego area, in 2014 and 2020.

His tenure on the council was spent forming unlikely alliances with Democrats to address the city’s debt. But he angered public employees after attempting to slash police and firefighter salaries as a solution. That animosity would linger for 14 more years when the state’s powerful public employee unions took the unusual step of backing DeMaio’s opponent, Republican Andrew Hayes, when DeMaio first ran for the Assembly in 2024.

DeMaio won overwhelmingly, despite opposition from San Diego Republicans and more than $2 million spent from a prominent Republican consulting firm to defeat him.

Gustafson, the former local party chair, pinpoints this as the time when support for established Republican power began to erode in San Diego.

“We have been falling more and more behind. When I was chairman in 2024 we had a little bit of a bounce in the Republican direction, so that was a good thing when President Trump was elected,“ he said, referring to San Diego. “But basically, since 2017, the Republican Party has lost ground everywhere.”

DeMaio formed Reform California in 2017. The organization claims to have raised $25 million, primarily through small donations driven by DeMaio’s online presence – every day he sits alone at a desk in front of a blue background and streams to tens of thousands of viewers. The roughly 20-minute segments mostly focus on Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and mainstream conservative critiques of immigration and state spending. He also uses his speeches on the Assembly floor to make viral content about controversial bills, such as a new law that bans federal immigration agents from wearing masks.

‘Decorum, decorum, decorum’

DeMaio has built a poor reputation among lawmakers because of his crude language, unabashed embrace of right-wing conspiracies and refusal to work with colleagues, even fellow Republicans, on legislation.

During his first few days in office, DeMaio, who is gay, likened members of the LGTBQ Caucus to “mean girls,” referencing the 2004 film.

Of the 21 bills he introduced in his first year, none passed. He rarely votes on bills and has never cast a “yes” vote. He missed 135 votes last year and had the highest percentage of “no” votes — 36% —among GOP legislators, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database.

Last month, it briefly appeared as if DeMaio were about to buck the trend when he stood up to support a bill aiming to clamp down on ticket sellers.

“I rise in strong support of AB 1349,” DeMaio said on the Assembly floor to a chorus of heckles and laughter.

“Decorum, decorum, decorum,” Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal joked.

But DeMaio ended up not voting on the legislation, joining five Republicans and eight Democrats who also abstained.

His bills have proposed requiring voters to show proof of citizenship and lengthening prison sentences for certain crimes. Each died in committee, a typical outcome for bills authored by Republicans because Democrats control both chambers of the Legislature.

‘Grassroots rebellion’

And yet, despite his lack of legislative success, DeMaio moved to place more of his allies in leadership with the help of Reform California.

Paula Whitsell, the current San Diego County party chair, whom DeMaio backed, did not respond to interview requests.

Reform California, which DeMaio calls a “grassroots rebellion,” has raised money through separate political action committees for voter guides and ballot measures. 

He controls its two political action committees: Reform California with Carl DeMaio and Reform California Voter Guide. Some Republicans have accused him of transferring funds from his Reform California political action committee into Carl DeMaio for State Assembly after his 2024 election win. 

Donations on the county party’s website now redirect to the contribution pages for Reform California and DeMaio’s reelection campaign. The communications director for Reform California, Dylan Martin, is also a spokesperson for DeMaio in the Assembly.

The arrangement has prompted a state investigation. In a sworn complaint, the president of the state’s police union accused DeMaio of funneling donations to Reform California into his campaign account in 2024. 

“Based on publicly available information, it appears that Mr. DeMaio has misused Reform California funds to benefit his Assembly campaign in direct violation of state law,” the complaint states.

The investigation is pending before the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

DeMaio had faced four previous investigations by the commission, two of which ended in warnings and two that found no violations, according to its FPPC website.

Growing sphere of influence

Reform California has endorsed congressional candidates in the Central Valley and San Diego, as well as legislative candidates throughout the state, such as Assemblymember David Tangipa of Fresno, Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil of Modesto and Sen. Tony Strickland of Huntington Beach.

“By working with these tandem organizations, he seems to shift the money from one hand to another, from one pot to another,” said Justin Schlaefli, a local Republican activist who was an early supporter of DeMaio before breaking with him. “And he seems to use it deceptively, in my opinion, to feed his own political machine and his own re-election campaign.”

DeMaio pushed back. 

“This is why Republicans are not moving forward,” DeMaio said. “You have some of these people who have agendas and it has nothing to do with electing Republicans. It’s everything to do with them wanting to seize power back and line their pockets.”

Meanwhile, the state Republican Party is recuperating from its most recent bruising loss at the ballot box, after voters overwhelmingly supported a measure to allow Democrats to redraw U.S. House maps in their favor ahead of November’s election.

Just one year earlier, things were briefly looking up for the party after it picked up three seats in the statehouse for the first time in a decade, and nearly every county shifted further to the right as gauged by the electoral support for President Donald Trump.

However, since chair Corrin Rankin was elected in 2025, the state party has been criticized for lacking strong leadership, and senior Republicans in the Legislature have worked to weaken its authority over how it distributes donations to reelection committees.

A spokesperson for Rankin said she had no comment..

With no formal party endorsement for the seat Jones, the Senate Minority Leader, is soon vacating, Reform California has a louder megaphone to be the main authority on Republican causes. That becomes even more important in a year when Republicans will likely face the political headwinds that incumbent parties typically face in the midterm elections. The state Senate district also overlaps with the congressional district held by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, which was recently redrawn to give Democrats a greater advantage.

Many of the races Reform California is involved in are in the conservative pockets of Southern California where Republicans gained the three legislative seats.

A complicated picture

The picture gets further complicated by demographic changes and an increase in Latino voters that have made the district Jones is vacating more competitive than it was four years ago. Democrats now have a slight edge in voter registration, said Mesa College political science professor Carl Luna.

Establishment Republicans hoped that San Marcos Mayor Ed Musgrove, a moderate Republican, would succeed Jones. Musgrove had received endorsements from Jones, Issa and other elected officials, as well as police associations.

“I endorsed Ed Musgrove because he is the strongest candidate to win this seat and deliver results for the communities I represent and love,” Jones said in a statement to CalMatters. “Republican division at the local level only fuels the sweeping advance of Democrat rule in San Diego.”

Instead, DeMaio’s candidate, Bruce-Lane – who had unsuccessfully run for the Legislature – is considered a riskier choice, because candidates further to the right tend to perform worse in general elections, Luna said.

And that Jones’ input didn’t count for much is worrisome for Republicans.

“If his endorsement doesn’t really have a huge impact on what the local party does, it’s a sign that the Sacramento Republicans may not have as much power as the social media Republicans.”

Not all the GOP agrees that Reform California’s growth is troublesome, though. For some, it’s a welcome change for a party desperately in need of money.

“I wish the Republican Party had five Reforms who were aggressively sticking it to the Democrats and raising more money to get Republicans elected,” said GOP strategist Duane Dichiara, who downplayed the state’s campaign finance investigation. “I think they play hard and I think a lot of people don’t like that.”

CalMatters is a nonpartisan and nonprofit news organization bringing Californians stories that probe, explain and explore solutions to quality of life issues while holding our leaders accountable.

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