He’s a Former Republican Taking on Dana Rohrabacher. Can He Win?

IRVINE, Calif. — Harley Rouda may not fit the image of a liberal hero. For decades, he was a registered Republican and in 2016 donated money to presidential hopeful John Kasich. He is a real estate executive opposed to rent control. He regularly appears at campaign events with a white pocket square tucked into his conservative dark suit, even in the sweltering Southern California summer heat.

But Rouda is the Democrats’ best chance in three decades to unseat Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.

With his unwavering support of President Donald Trump and his close ties to Russia, Rohrabacher is the target of ire for Democrats across the country. He is the only sitting congressman whose name has appeared in indictments around the Russia investigation and the House majority leader went as far as suggesting he is on Vladimir Putin’s payroll.

Now, Rohrabacher’s embrace of the Kremlin has also put him at risk politically in this rapidly changing suburban district. Democrats have deemed Rohrabacher the most vulnerable Republican in California. A recent New York Times Upshot and Siena College poll found the candidates tied, each with 45 percent of likely voters. And Rouda has raised more money than the Rohrabacher campaign, according to finance reports filed at the end of June.

The contest has become one of the most closely watched political fights in the country and Democrats see defeating the eight-term incumbent as one of their top priorities. It also demonstrates just how much has changed in Orange County, which less than a generation ago was solidly Republican. Rouda has capitalized on the shifts by denouncing Rohrabacher at every turn and now must use the remaining time before the election to convince voters that he is just like many of them: a former Republican who believes the party has abandoned moderate views.

“We have a Republican Party that in many ways is leaving its Republican voters,” Rouda, 56, said in a recent interview at his campaign’s headquarters in an Irvine office park. “It’s true even more so here than in other places in the country.”

Even as he campaigned among reliably Democratic voters before the June primary, Rouda did not hesitate to bring up his own political shifts.

“When I started this, I went to talk to a group of activists and they said, ‘You look like a Republican,'” he told the crowd at a meeting of Democratic activists this summer, prompting a round of laughter. “They didn’t think that was a bad thing. Neither do I.”

As the laughter subsided, Rouda asked how many people had been lifelong Democrats. A couple dozen hands went up in a crowd of roughly 200 people.

“How many of you would not have been at a meeting like this if Hillary Clinton had won?” he asked. Then, many more people raised their hands, as murmurs of agreement rippled through the room. He quickly added: “Me neither. President Trump has changed everything.” Throughout the country, there have been other examples of former Republican or unaffiliated voters jumping into the political ring this year. Of the dozens of first-time Democratic candidates vying for Congress in this year’s midterm elections, there are candidates in Texas, Ohio and North Carolina who until recently were registered as Republicans or Independents. Like Rouda, many saw themselves as Reagan Republicans, but say the party has steadily strayed from the ideals of the former president (who was also once the governor of California.) They were stunned to see Trump win the White House, they said, and his presidency has at once activated and radicalized them.

Races like this one represent an essential test for Democrats: Can the party win over moderate, suburban and affluent voters even as it moves toward a more populist bent? Rouda has said he is in favor of Medicare for All, a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage tied to inflation, along with free tuition at public colleges. While Democrats in many parts of the country are embracing similar policies in an appeal to liberal voters, Rouda is counting on attracting moderate voters by portraying his support for these policies as fiscally responsible.

Republicans still outnumber Democrats by 10 percentage points in this wealthy district. In a sign of the challenge Rouda faces, Clinton won by just 2 points and Rohrabacher easily secured a victory of nearly 17 points in 2016.

Still, support for Republicans has been steadily eroding in Orange County. Now, roughly a third of voters in the county are registered Republicans, down from more than half in 1990. Roughly 30 percent of voters in the district are not registered to either party. With a margin of 9 percentage points, Clinton was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the county since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

This weekend, former President Barack Obama is trying to rally Democratic voters in Orange County, campaigning for congressional candidates in the districts Clinton won, including the 48th.

“I think of party as something you’re born into and may not necessarily choose at first,” Rouda said. “Most kids don’t say I’m not really feeling Christian, I think I’m Jewish. I think it’s the same if you’re a Democrat or a Republican and I was raised in a traditional Republican household.” Rouda has struggled to explain why he did not change his registration until after the 2016 election. He said he thought he was already a registered Democrat and only realized he was not when he looked at his own voter card before he declared his would run. Then, he saw he had initially marked Democrat, but crossed it out and circled “no party preference” instead.

The last Republican he voted for, he said, was Bob Dole, when he ran against President Bill Clinton in 1996.

But in 2016, Rouda gave $1,000 to the presidential campaign of Kasich, the governor of Ohio who is also a longtime friend. Rouda has said the donation was a token of friendship more than a sign of agreements on policy.

In his campaign appearances, Rouda often talks about income inequality as one of the most pressing issues of the moment. But the district he wants to represent is a stark example of extremes of wealth and poverty. The district includes Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, home to some of the most expensive real estate in the world. It also encompasses Costa Mesa, where 27 percent of children younger than 5 live in poverty, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Rouda grew up in Ohio, where his father created a real estate brokerage that he eventually took over. After the firm was sold to a Canadian conglomerate in 2016, Rouda moved to California, fulfilling a lifelong wish of his wife, who grew up on the Northern California coast. Some local voters have expressed skepticism of Rouda, casting him as a newcomer who is merely running to feed his own ego.

“We don’t know what he’s really about, who really sent him or what he is really going to do,” said Vincent Brook, a 63-year-old resident of Huntington Beach who said he has voted for both Republicans and Democrats. “I always go with the devil you know.”

Whether or not Rohrabacher’s ties to Russia will torpedo his campaign remains to be seen. Rohrabacher declined to comment for this story. Many residents here have grown increasingly frustrated with him.

“We don’t get anything but a bad reputation from him representing us,” said Annie Vangrow, 61, who has lived in the beachside town of Corona del Mar for decades. “He makes our area look like right-wing wackos and the truth is we have not been that for a long time.”

Rouda has clearly been buoyed by Rohrabacher’s recent cameos in the Russia investigation. In July, he admitted to meeting with Maria Butina, who was indicted on charges of conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent, during his trip to Russa in 2015. Rohrabacher dismissed the charges against Butina as “bogus.” And when Trump met with Putin in Helsinki, Rohrabacker offered the strongest defense of the president.

That week brought in a record number of donations to the Rouda campaign, overwhelmingly from outside the district.

“I think there is this sense that our democracy — the institutions and foundations of our democracy — are under attack,” Rouda said. “The Republican Party has yet to find a consistent backbone to stand up to the unpredictability and behavior of Donald Trump.”