Reform CA Announces “Strategic Voting” Campaign to Defeat Asm. Maienschein for His ACA-13 Vote

‍‍California Democrats hold a Super-Majority in the state legislature and confidently vote for bad bills because they assume their political careers are safe from threats by Republican challengers. That’s about to change.

Today Reform California announced it is launching a “Strategic Voting” campaign to “create political consequences” for Democrats in so-called safe seats who cast bad votes.

“The problem in Sacramento is Democrat politicians in safe seats don’t see a risk in voting for bad bills like ACA-13 because they don’t consider Republican challengers to be a serious threat to their political careers, but this project creates a serious threat that their bad vote may come back to haunt them in any Democrat-Democrat contest they get in,” DeMaio explained.

Reform California’s “Strategic Voting” campaign intends to target a handful of Democrats in 2024 who find themselves to be in Democrat-Democrat contests. The campaign will specifically fund ads to Republican and Independent voters in those contests urging them to “vote strategically” against the target as a sanction for their bad votes in Sacramento.

Assemblyman Brian Maienschein, who cast the deciding vote to pass ACA-13, has been selected as the first target of Reform California’s “Strategic Voting” campaign. ACA-13 guts Prop 13 and is designed to make it easier for state and local politicians to raise taxes.

Maienschein is running for San Diego City Attorney in 2024 against fellow Democrat Heather Ferbert. No Republican is expected to file in the race – and the San Diego Republican Party has encouraged “strategic voting” in past Democrat-Democrat races – most recently in AD80 special election where David Alvarez beat Georgette Gomez using Republican votes.

“Because of his vote in favor of the tax-raising bill ACA-13, we are now all-in to defeat Brian Maienschein and end his political career,” DeMaio pledged. “Our Reform California Voter Guide is hugely popular in San Diego county and we are committing additional financial resources to get the word out against Maienschein to Republicans and common-sense Independents.

Republican and common-sense Independent votes in the City of San Diego can be decisive in the City Attorney’s race between two Democrats. In the 2022 election, the Republican candidate for Governor won 34% of votes in the City of San Diego. That’s not enough to win, but it is a sizeable and coveted voting block that can tip the scales in the City Attorney’s Democrat-Democrat contest.

“With our Strategic Voting campaign, we can’t take out every Democrat who votes for bad bills, but we can end the political careers of a few that end up in a race where Republican and Independent votes make the difference – and we intend to make Brian Maienschein and a few others famous this cycle for that,” DeMaio concludes.