Trump who? California Republicans love electric vehicles

LOS ANGELES — Donald Trump thinks electric vehicles are anathema to the American Dream — he calls them union-busting job-killers that are “all made in China.”

Someone forgot to tell California Republicans.

California Republicans are living in a different reality from the majority of conservatives across the country, who have heeded Trump’s message that President Joe Biden's embrace of electric vehicles will bring a "bloodbath" by allowing Chinese automakers to dominate the market and eliminate American jobs. Over 70 percent of conservative voters surveyed by Gallup last year said they won’t even consider buying an EV. 

Republicans in Sacramento are supporting legislation aimed at improving California’s charging network and expanding state incentives for low-income car buyers. The reason is relatively straightforward: Their constituents like Teslas and other EV brands and want the state to invest in charging stations.

Their sharp break from the party’s de facto leader illustrates the potential for bipartisan buy-in as electric cars become more of a fixture in Americans’ daily lives. California, with the country’s most expansive and mature EV market, could be a harbinger of a less politically polarized automotive future.

“I do not know a single member of my caucus who is opposed to electric vehicles,” said Diane Dixon, a Republican state Assemblymember who represents Newport Beach, a right-leaning portion of Orange County.

California Republicans often buck national trends as a dwindling minority in a deep-blue state. But their stance on EVs could give car companies and policymakers a template for how to broaden their appeal beyond coastal enclaves.

That’s a future Biden and Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom are banking on as they pursue their goals to wean drivers off fossil fuels over the next decade and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“There aren't enough Democrats in America,” said veteran Republican consultant and EV advocate Mike Murphy, who drives a BMW iX and has warned GOP leaders that attacks on EVs will backfire. “So if Republicans don't want to buy them, you're never gonna get to the numbers.”

To be sure, California Republicans don't support all of the state's EV policies. They've railed against a 2020 executive order from Newsom and regulations from state air quality officials that will require all new vehicles sold be zero-emission by 2035. But instead of letting that divide impede discussions, conservative leaders say they’re hoping to avoid polarizing the issue and are instead offering constructive criticism.

“Picking winners and losers in the market, I don't think that's the proper role of the government,” said Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, who represents the San Diego area. “The California Legislature and the governor have said this is the route we want to take, we do have a responsibility to make sure that there is some infrastructure there to support it.”

Where Trump and California Republicans diverge

Despite Trump’s enduring popularity among California Republicans, who overwhelmingly supported him in the March primary, the state officials they’ve elected dismiss his message on electric vehicles, which he’s falsely claimed don’t work in cold weather and can only drive “for 15 minutes before you have to get a charge.”

They haven't really engaged with Trump's — and Biden's, who on Tuesday announced a 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles — concerns about Chinese automakers, who currently don’t sell passenger cars in the United States.

No legislative Republicans interviewed for this story specifically criticized Trump’s EV rhetoric — instead they said they hadn’t heard his statements or generally stay out of federal politics. Instead, they drew a distinction between Sacramento and Washington, D.C., where conservative lawmakers attack Biden’s policies.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso and 18 other Republicans introduced a bill earlier this month to eliminate tax credits for personal and commercial electric vehicles and slash an investment credit that incentivizes the construction of EV charging stations.

California Republicans who back those exact types of policies at the state level say they’re responding to their constituents — who are trying to avoid the nation’s highest gas prices, support car-buying incentives and want to see a more robust charging network — and trying to avoid political fights with a Democratic administration.

“We're not the same kind of caucus as they are in Washington, Republicans, anyway,” Dixon said. “We're the super-minority party, so we want to work across the aisle.”

EVs and bipartisanship

Some recent examples of bipartisanship: Republican Assemblymember Greg Wallis, who hails from Riverside County outside Los Angeles, is spearheading a proposal to extend the life of California’s expiring high occupancy vehicle lane benefits for clean air vehicles through 2027. He wrote in an analysis of the bill that HOV lane access “has proven to be an incentive for Californians to make the transition to ZEVs.”

“EVs like Tesla are notably cheaper to maintain than traditional vehicles, with additional savings from lower and more stable electricity costs compared to gasoline,” Wallis said in a statement. “As families struggle to put food on their table, it is vital that we embrace technological advances and continue to add affordable options to how we get around.”

And a pair of Democrat-led measures that would require the California Energy Commission to provide funding for the repair or replacement of broken chargers and focus incentives on low-income, high-mileage drivers have garnered unanimous support through policy committee hearings and won Republican praise.

“I just want to say thank you so much for bringing this forward and I would love to be a co-author,” GOP Assemblymember Laura Davies, who represents parts of Orange and San Diego counties, told her Democratic counterpart Phil Ting during an April hearing on his incentives bill.

Underlying data points to why California Republicans have a soft spot for EVs. A survey released last month by the EV Politics Project, an effort from Murphy to combat conservative opposition to EVs, found that while Republican and Democratic opinions on EVs sharply diverge when the cars are framed as a solution to climate change, those differences shrink among people who know EV owners.

California Republican voters are linked to 21 percent of EVs owned in the state, research from the Environmental Defense Fund and the data firm L2 found, just below their 24 percent proportion of state voter registration. That means hundreds of thousands of EVs are being driven by Republicans in a state where nearly 2 million have been sold.

That includes Republican lawmakers like Assemblymember Josh Hoover, who drives a Hyundai Ioniq 5.

“The more people who have friends or family who've tried them, the more people like them and the very fact that we have more sales here in California, it becomes a compounding interest,” Murphy said. “It starts to grow and grow and grow.”

So goes California?

Murphy said the proliferation of EVs among California Republicans largely insulates the state from Trump’s rhetoric in the short term, but continued growth of the market nationally will hinge on less divisive messaging from both parties. That means focusing on gas savings and incentives — which Republicans and Democrats like at similar rates — and avoiding mandates, which give Trump and conservative media a ready-made line of attack.

“On day one, I will immediately terminate Joe Biden's insane electric vehicle mandate and there will be no ban on gas cars or gas trucks,” Trump told supporters at a New Jersey rally on Saturday.

His campaign vows to go after California’s electric vehicle rules as well, with its national press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying in a March statement that the “complete and total ban on gas-powered cars and trucks in California and every other state that follows the California rules will decimate countless U.S. auto jobs."

The solution to making EVs less political is to highlight their performance, according to Alexander Edwards, president of polling firm Strategic Visions, which conducts surveys on millions of new car buyers. He pointed to Tesla’s early success launching with a sports car in 2008, compared to the Nissan Leaf, which is considered a flop.

“The Leaf failed because the Leaf is natural. The Leaf is environmentally friendly. The Leaf is a Democrat,” Edwards said. “Nobody was buying that vehicle.”

That’s a lesson Murphy said he’s trying to convey automakers and lawmakers in swing states where Trump still holds weight.

“You don't have to get Bubba to put a Save the Whales sticker next to the NRA one,” Murphy said. “Don't make them wear your ideological label, because they're not going to do it and they're going to resent being pushed.”