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TEN years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger made a speech at the California Republican Party’s convention that silenced the crowd. “Our party has lost the middle and we will not regain true political power in California until we get it back,” Mr Schwarzenegger, then the state’s governor, warned. “In movie terms, we are dying at the box office. We are not filling the seats.”Back then, Republican registration in California had been falling for a decade. Nonetheless, Chad Mayes (pictured), until recently the Republican assembly leader, recalls being sceptical of the Terminator’s message. “Dying at the box office? Oh come on,” he recalls thinking to himself at the time. “Things ebb and flow.” Today, Mr Mayes looks back on the message as prophetic.As of February 2017, just 25.9% of Californian voters were registered with the Grand Old Party—the lowest level since the 1980s and nearly 20 points less than the share of Golden State residents registered as Democrats. There are nearly as many Californians who express “no party preference” as there are Republicans. Republicans hold less than one third of seats in the state assembly and state senate and have not won state-wide office since Mr Schwarzenegger’s re-election in 2006. Asked to characterise the condition of the party in the state, Sherry Bebitch ...
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