Trump official Ric Grenell has said he may join the race for California governor if former Vice President Kamala Harris decides to run. And some California Republicans said they think he could have as much of a chance as any member of their party in the solid blue state.
“It’s gonna be pretty tough for any Republican, no matter what,” longtime Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa told NOTUS. “But I think Grenell probably brings a certain amount of panache with the moment if he’s gonna run for the Republicans.”
Grenell, who currently serves as President Donald Trump’s envoy for special missions, is a long shot for the 2026 gubernatorial race. While even Republican lawmakers would be the first to admit how hard it would be to challenge a Democratic candidate in California, they said a Trump-backed GOP candidate with relatively light baggage in elected office might give them a fighting chance.
“I think that we’ve got a good opportunity here because especially if Kamala Harris runs, I think that this will be a race that is very winnable,” Rep. Kevin Kiley told NOTUS. “I think that there very much is a coalition of Californians who would support a candidate who can deliver on that basic quality of life.”
Grenell cited Harris — who has not said whether she will run — when he floated the idea of a bid.
“If Kamala Harris runs for governor, I believe that she has such baggage and hundreds of millions of dollars in educating the voters of how terrible she is,” Grenell told reporters last month.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Grenell’s possible candidacy.
Republicans suggested a Harris bid would be good for the right. Last week, Grenell wrote “Run Kamala Run!” on X in response to a post about recent Impact Research polling that found 52% of California voters want a different Democratic candidate for governor.
Rep. Darrell Issa told NOTUS that Harris running could clear out the Democratic field to the Republicans’ benefit.
“If Harris is the Democratic nominee, forget about any other Democrat running,” Issa said. “I think it opens up opportunities for us.”
But not just any type of Republican can win in California. A third of the electorate “is very MAGA, very Republican, and they want some red meat,” California pollster Christian Grose told NOTUS. The rest is either moderate or solidly Democratic.
If played well, Grenell’s relative inexperience with elected office might actually become an asset for his candidacy, Grose said.
Grose said a Republican candidate would need to win in counties with a strong MAGA constituency like Riverside, where Trump won by nearly 3% of the vote in 2024, to secure a nomination in the open primary. They also would need to avoid alienating liberal bastions like Los Angeles or San Francisco to squeeze through a general election.
That would require him to moderate his positions, Grose said.
So far, Grenell isn’t moderating. He sharply criticized the state’s fire recovery efforts and repeatedly supported adding conditions, like forestry management policies, to federal disaster aid — a nonstarter for California Democrats.
Grenell has also weighed in on other hot-button issues in local California politics, from limiting the authority of the California Coastal Commission to criticizing local spending on L.A.’s homeless population.
“It’s time to put Federal $trings on California’s one-party rule of Sacramento,” Grenell wrote in a recent post on X about a budget gap of $3.44 billion in the state’s Medicaid program. California Republicans claim the shortfall is due to the state providing healthcare to undocumented immigrants.
This is not the first time Grenell has set his sights on Sacramento. In 2021, he seriously considered a run for governor, going as far as interviewing staff and campaign strategists for a campaign that never came to fruition.
“Ric’s a pretty serious guy. I know he was looking at it,” Issa said. “He’s already working for the administration. He’s got a lot of other things going on. I’m sure he’s not gonna announce early.”
This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS — a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute — and NEWSWELL, home of Times of San Diego, Santa Barbara News-Press and Stocktonia.
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