Richard Grenell Group Looking to Reshape California Politics

The former acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, is looking to reshape California’s political landscape and implement “permanent change” with his “Fix California” group.

Grenell’s group, “Fix California,” is said to be modeled after Stacey Abrams’ group “Fair Fight.” Which was proven to be highly successful in their voter registration and advocacy efforts leading up to the general election and the Senate runoff a few months ago. Former Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) also announced in February she will be starting a group to serve as a response to Abrams’ Fair Fight organization.

Grenell told Fox News his group’s efforts see beyond Newsom’s current recall effort. “What I’m consistently hearing from activists and donors is that after a year of our economy being shut down for political reasons and Zoom school, that people in California want permanent change,” he told Fox News.

Since the effort to recall Newsom is still ongoing, it is still uncertain if it will succeed and how long the overall process will take. If the recall for California’s current Governor is successful and a new Governor is elected, the person will only be in office briefly before the 2022 midterm elections.

Last month, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) took a poll of the school district’s parents, which showed over half of the parents want to send students back to school for hybrid in-school learning starting mid-April, based on early polling.

Grenell went on to tell Fox News the three main focuses of “Fix California” will be “suing counties in California to clean up their voter rolls, registering voters, and researching paths to expand school choice in the state.” He added, they will be going after the voters who are “frustrated ‘decline-to-state.'”

Grenell thinks one of the main ways that “Fix California” can drive the turnout in the polls for the midterm is using school choice as a significant issue. One of the major problems in California is the schools reopening. Teacher unions have been fighting to keep having online schools.

“Conservatives in California had largely stopped focusing on Democrats’ efforts to move the state far to the left about a decade ago, realizing they did not have the political capital to stop them,” Grenell said.

H added that “California Republicans would help GOP candidates in other states.” Now that the Democrats’ policies moved the future left and have made California “disastrous,” it could be possible that “Republicans would have a chance to win back California voters.”

The last time a Republican was Governor of California and won a statewide election was in 2006 when Arnold Schwarzenegger won his second term as Governor. Registering voters and moving to California would be a challenge today for anyone. In the 2020 election, voters in California overwhelmingly voted for President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump.

The coronavirus has played a huge role in California, showing voters what a “disastrous” job the Democrats have done in the state. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has closed the state for the last year, spelling the ruin of businesses that have been unable to survive.

“We’ve been waiting for the last 10 years for that moment to show the electorate that progressive policies are bad for the largest state in the union,” said Grenell. Coronavirus has turned up their timeline, leading “Republicans to point to the disastrous policies and blame the one-party control of the state – the Democrats.”

Grenell refused to tell Fox News whether he would run for Governor. According to Breitbart News’s Matthew Boyle, “sources familiar with the matter say Grenell is definitely considering a run for the governor’s mansion if a recall election is triggered.”

“I’m telling our donors when I meet with them that this is not a sexy, quick fix like one hyped-up statewide race,” Grenell said, looking for this process to be a long process that will, in the end, be a success. “This is a four-year campaign to fix California and to do the long-term reforms that we know we need.”