ICYMI: California's First Latina GOP Chair Takes a Victory Lap

The longtime political operative and acolyte of Kevin McCarthy gives an exit interview.

When Jessica Millan Patterson took the reins of the California Republican Party in 2019, the media coverage invariably led with the history she made - how she was the first woman, first Latina, first millennial to lead the party.

The reality check usually came in the second paragraph: The longtime political operative and acolyte of Kevin McCarthy was assuming among the most thankless jobs in politics.

The state GOP had just lost half of its congressional delegation in the blue wave of 2018. The party was not only badly lagging Democrats in registered voters, it was outranked by voters registering no party preference. Republicans teetered on the brink of irrelevance in Sacramento and had even slumped in onetime strongholds like San Diego and Orange County.

The vibes, as Patterson described it, were that “California was a lost cause … and we were going to go the way of Hawaii…”

Instead, Patterson, during an exit interview with Playbook marking the end of her tenure this week, sounded - as incongruous as it would’ve sounded when she started - triumphant.

To be clear, not too triumphant. Patterson, 44, is not the chest-thumping type. And Republicans are still resoundingly California’s minority party…

But on balance, Patterson undoubtedly leaves California Republicans in stronger shape than when she took over. Her operation registered nearly 1 million new Republicans, clawing its way back into second place in state party identification behind just Democrats. The GOP flipped back some of the House seats it lost in 2018 and in 2022 was able to deliver the decisive win to make McCarthy, her longtime mentor, speaker of the House (at least for a few months, anyway). And last year, Republicans flipped legislative seats in both houses, the first time they’ve done so during a presidential cycle since 1980…

“We weren’t trying to change the world. We weren’t trying to go in there and say, we’re going to turn California red,” Patterson said. “We have a limited amount of resources, and we’re going to go into places where we believe that there is a pathway to victory, and we’re going to find that pathway. We’re going to find the right candidate, and we’re going to win in these seats…”

Read the full story here.