California Republicans are waging an increasingly bitter internal battle over a disastrous midterm showing that could cost them as many as eight legislative seats. The turmoil comes as state party Chairwoman Corrin Rankin prepares to leave her post and rival factions trade accusations over millions of dollars in campaign spending.
Democrats are set to retain a supermajority in the next legislative session, while Gov. Gavin Newsom will pass the baton to Xavier Becerra. Republicans, meanwhile, are sending only four members to Congress. State Assembly Republican Leader Alexandra Macedo also lost a historically safe Central Valley seat to Hipolito Angel Cerros, a little-known Democrat.
Anne Dunsmore, a longtime Republican fundraiser, described the election results bluntly as an “ass-whooping.”
“That was not a mandate for Democrats — that was strictly an indictment of [President] Trump,” Dunsmore said. “We have to represent the citizens, not our own agenda.”
The California Post spoke with nearly a dozen GOP sources, who portrayed a deeply toxic party apparatus whose problems stretch back years and intensified in the run-up to Election Day. Key alliances fractured, while the blame game devolved into personal attacks and middle-finger salutes.
A long-running dispute between Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, who led the unsuccessful voter ID initiative Proposition 39, and California Republican Party leaders has erupted after the election loss. At the heart of the conflict is a fight over donor dollars.
DeMaio’s organization, Reform California, raised more than $6 million since the beginning of 2025 for its own voter guide and get-out-the-vote operations. By contrast, the “Yes on 39” campaign took in more than $32 million in conservative donations over the past two years.
The California Republican Party, which received limited support from the Republican National Committee, had raised only $3.2 million this year as of mid-October.
“They (the state GOP) weren’t interested in providing value to candidates, and so if you raise money there, you’re only lining someone’s pockets, and that has to change,” DeMaio told the California Post.
Republican legislative caucuses moved their fundraising operations away from the state party. Relations deteriorated so sharply that, according to multiple sources, the caucuses rejected Rankin’s offer to arrange meetings as early as the summer of 2025.
“I don’t blame the Assembly and Senate caucuses for saying that they didn’t trust the party and wouldn’t raise money for the party, because they didn’t know where the money was going,” DeMaio told The Post.
“I don’t blame them because the reality is you couldn’t trust the thieves at the party.”
Some of DeMaio’s critics responded by accusing the San Diego Republican of bullying candidates, pressuring them to finance his voter guide and pursuing personal political fights as Republicans struggled to protect their seats.
“Carl is very good at getting things on the ballot and getting his candidate through the primary, but what he doesn’t do is finish the job,” one GOP source said, labeling him “the biggest, most despicable grifter in California.”
The dispute further destabilized Republican leadership in the Assembly, where Macedo lost to Cerros, a 28-year-old Democratic challenger. Several sources accused the former beauty pageant queen of neglecting her district while making frequent Fox News appearances with Trace Gallagher.
Macedo did not respond to a request for comment.
Devon Mathis, a former Republican assemblymember who represented Macedo’s district, appeared to criticize lawmakers who focused on media appearances and out-of-district events instead of building relationships with local voters.
“You can’t represent a district from a fundraising dinner somewhere else in California,” Mathis wrote on LinkedIn. “Shocking concept, I know.”
Paul Mitchell, a pollster with Political Data Inc., said California’s 2025 redistricting effort, Proposition 50, helped energize Democratic turnout by giving frustrated voters a vehicle to oppose Trump and secure a victory.
“Democrats were in the wilderness,” said Mitchell, who drew the Proposition 50 maps.
“What Prop. 50 did was in addition to pushing back on Texas and the measurable effects of the line-drawing, it allowed Democrats and Newsom to fight back and brought along tens of millions of voters.”
Steve Hilton, the Republican candidate for governor, is supporting outgoing state Sen. Tony Strickland to replace Rankin as party chair. Strickland, who lost his Huntington Beach seat, has argued that the California GOP needs a sharper message and a more effective campaign operation.
“Republicans need to offer an inspiring vision for California, a positive, credible policy plan for making it happen — backed up by a well-financed and organized election-winning machine to match the corruptly funded Democrat machine,” Hilton told The Post.
Strickland, who did not respond to requests for comment, also has DeMaio’s support. Duane Dichiara, a partner at Republican consulting firm Axiom Strategies, said the scale of the defeat has quietly prompted rival factions to work together.
“I’ve actually seen more unity since the election than I have recriminations,” Dichiara told The Post.
He described Strickland as a pragmatic campaigner who is assembling an alliance, while dismissing suggestions that other figures would control his tenure as chair.
Still, Dunsmore and other California Republicans say the party needs a sweeping overhaul of both its leadership and its message.
“Why would you go with the same old thing?” she said. “We need a complete new vision right now, new leadership with fresh ideas.”