California GOP looks for inroads by taking down a gas tax

If the categories of threatened species applied to politics, the Republican Party in California would be listed as critically endangered. Chin-tugging researchers would warn that the group appears destined for extinction, offering data that illustrate its depleted condition in the country’s most populous state.

The number of voters registered as Republican has fallen to third behind Democrats and those with “no party preference.” Hillary Clinton tallied 4.2 million more votes statewide than Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Democrats hold almost three-fourths of California’s 53 seats in Congress and both US Senate seats, along with two-thirds of the 120 seats in the state Legislature and, in the person of Jerry Brown, the governor’s office.

Even so, Republicans here sense a golden chance to change their short-term fortunes a few months before Election Day. Their optimism arises from a ballot measure to repeal a gas tax hike enacted by legislators last year to boost funding to repair California’s decaying roads and bridges. In last

Appealing to ‘Jekyll-and-Hyde voters’A progressive sales pitch