Carl DiMaio (4:31)

Oh, indeed. But recognize what happened to Swalwell was the Democrat establishment took out the trash they covered for him for so many years. And when he was no longer useful to them, when he actually represented an impediment or a threat, they got rid of him. And they're now lining up behind Xavier Becerra as the establishment's choice. They fear someone like Tom Steyer with unlimited money who can't be controlled. They really fear Katie Porter, who's bat blank crazy and is progressive. So they think this milquetoast quote, centrist Democrat Xavier Becerra is the horse to back. There's nothing centrist about Xavier Becerra. He is ambitious. His policies are carbon copy of Gavin Newsom's. And we'll get more of the same with less hair gel. With Becerra, you basically will get higher taxes, more government regulation, jobs will be destroyed, schools will be handed over to the teachers unions, a complete mess out here in California. My bigger concern, Mr. Speaker, is that Republicans have a great risk of being shut out entirely in this top two jungle primary because we've got two good Republicans, Chad Bianco, the sheriff from Riverside, and Steve Hilton, a Fox News commentator. Both are great guys and both would be wonderful governors. But Republicans get about 35% of the vote in the jungle primary. Democrats get 65%. If you split 35% between these two candidates, you're talking about maybe the high teens for both of them. And it's quite possible for two Democrats to get 20% or more in this election. And Shut the Republicans out. That would be devastating to our down ticket races in November. If we didn't have a Republican candidate at the top of the ticket, that would be no motivating factor for Republicans to turn out for congressional seats, for state Senate, assembly seats, and of course, the California Voter ID initiative. So our goal at Reform California is to try to unite behind the best, most viable Republican candidate in each race through our voter guide program. And we're launching approximately a $2 million campaign in these last four weeks to try to get our voter guides out to Republican voters across the state.

Newt Gingrich (6:44)

I think it's very hard for people outside of California to fully understand how the system now works. Can you explain this sort of top two model?

Carl DiMaio (6:56)

Yeah, the establishment, special interests, the labor unions, the lobbyists, the business groups, about a decade and a half ago realized that if you have political party voters, if Republicans got to choose the Republican nominee for state assembly, state Senate or Congress or governor, that they would get, well, people who are more conservative. Conversely, some of the Democrats said, well, maybe we would get more liberals in Democrat primaries. So they kind of got together and they did a deal. They said, why don't we let the establishment and the rich and powerful select who the nominees are by creating something called the jungle primary, where the political parties don't get to vote for their nominees. Instead of every race, Congress, Governor, State Assembly, State Senate, all candidates run on the same ballot. Democrats, independents, Green Party, Libertarian, and whichever two candidates in each race get the most votes, the top two candidates, irrespective of political party, they would advance to the runoff. So that means in some races, it's the top two Democrats moving into the runoff. In my race last election, I'm the more conservative Republican and the Democrats split the vote in my seat so that two Republicans advanced to the runoff so that they then could back the squish, the sellout Republican in the runoff. It didn't work out for them. I won by 20 points. I even carried, ironically, the Democrat voters. But can you imagine that? Urging Democrats to strategically vote for a Republican or Republicans to vote for a Democrat in a primary? It's just illogical and it's not the way elections should be run. But unfortunately, that's the screwed up system we have in California. So in this primary, in the governor's race, the top two candidates on June 2 with the most votes, irrespective of political party, will advance to the November runoffs, which means you could very well have two Democrat candidates be the top two, and they would be the only two on the ballot in November.

Newt Gingrich (8:57)

And have you picked somebody in the governor's race?

Carl DiMaio (9:00)

We've not announced an endorsement yet, but what we have said is strategic voting for right now, vote for the Republican in the lead in the polls. And right now that's Steve Hilton. He has about a five point lead on Chad Bianco. And so we will likely make an endorsement when ballots hit next week. But right now we're encouraging people, when you're ready to vote, vote for the candidate leading in the polls. And that right now is Steve Hilton by a five point margin.

Newt Gingrich (9:25)

Is there any chance that Bianco could drop out and is that even doable? Under California law?

Carl DiMaio (9:31)

No. Once someone's name is on the ballot, they only have until early April to remove their name from the ballot and only under certain restrictions. So Swalwell's name is still on the ballot. But I don't see Republicans dropping out and thinning the field. And that's not a dig against Chad Bianco. He's a great guy, He's a great sheriff. I just care about making sure we get one Republican in the runoff so that we have our point of view that we offer voters an alternative in November versus more of the same, which is the decline of California, which was once a great state, the most prosperous state, arguably the most free state, and has now become a complete dumpster fire under far left wing extremist policies.

Newt Gingrich (10:12)

Speaking of far left extremist policies, I was fascinated that Tom Steyer came out for actually bringing back all of the illegal immigrants that had been deported by ice, which, which struck me as probably even in California, not very popular.

Carl DiMaio (10:29)

No. And it's almost like a race to the bottom when it comes to some of their policy positions out here. Who can say the F word the most against Donald Trump? Who can, you know, destroy the most jobs, raise the most taxes, limit the most freedom? It plays to the Democrat base that shows up and is the most active in a primary election. The concern I have about this race is that you do have Steyer with unlimited money. He's already spent about $130 million. He can spend well as much as he wants, quarter billion dollars. And then you've got the establishment lining up behind Becerra. And so it does present this risk that the guy who's the billionaire with the guy with the establishment support will end up both of them making it into the runoff. So that's what we're going to be focusing in the next four weeks on, is that we have to make sure we get a Republican in the runoff so that we have an opportunity to offer a vibrant alternative in California.

Newt Gingrich (11:23)

In the first polls I looked at, it didn't seem like Becerra had made much progress.

Carl DiMaio (11:30)

The poll that the Democrat Party put out last week was clearly goosed. They put their thumb on the scale because when the establishment gets behind a candidate, one of the things that they and their allies in the liberal media do is they put out these fake polls saying, oh, well, look at this candidate surging in the polls. This is the person to get behind.

Newt Gingrich (11:49)

We.

Carl DiMaio (11:49)

The implied argument is that there must be something wrong with you if you're not jumping on the bandwagon. That's why they use these fake polls. But we have seen that that narrative has resulted in Becerra moving up. Katie Porter obviously has her band of angry progressive activists and then Stiers kind of sopping up any of the other voters that he can convince with his media buys. It's a jump ball. But I do believe that if Democrats don't see Becerra moving up to first place, that they will likely get Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom to go out and give the nod we're publicly endorsing. You know, Gavin Newsom's political team is actually running Becerra's campaign now. They sat on the sidelines waiting to decide who they were going to anoint. And now all of the unions, well, most of the unions, all of the progressive groups, Planned Parenthood, they're all getting behind Becerra along with the political operatives. So expect the establishment money to go in heavy to boost them up.

Newt Gingrich (12:51)

Given Star's wealth, is it likely that he will spend a fair amount of money going after Becerra?

Carl DiMaio (12:58)

Oh, yes, but because of the fragmentation in media, it's a heavy lift for him. Democrat voters look at a billionaire with suspicion. You know, they don't like billionaires. At least they say they don't. Their policies actually are perfect for the elites and the billionaires. But he's already spent $150 million, and he's still just at 10, 12, 14% in the polls. You know, there may not be a whole lot more upward momentum for him, because I think most people have already kind of seen what he's had to say, and they're not buying it easily.

Newt Gingrich (13:28)

But if he stays down at 14, you could end up with Becerra and a Republican at that point.

Carl DiMaio (13:36)

Correct. If Hilton remains where he is and the undecided vote, and there's only about 4 or 5 percentage points on the Republican side, Undecided breaks, then he might make it into the runoff by a whisker. Again, for all the political pundits that were just a couple weeks ago talking about Republicans getting the top two, I have said from the get go a year and a half ago that the more likely scenario is that Republicans get locked out. And the math is pretty easy to do. If you look at previous jungle primaries in 2022 and 2018, Republicans get about 35% of the vote. There's no magic 45% of the vote for Republicans or even 40% of the vote. And of course, in this era, right now, this midterm, Democrat voters are more motivated than Republicans to show up. We've seen that in the special elections this cycle so far. And so I think we're looking at 35% of the vote. We gotta get Hilton to 20 to 23% in order to comfortably get Hilton in the runoff. And right now he's in the high teens. Not good enough.

Newt Gingrich (14:38)

So even if he gets in the runoff, though, doesn't the Democrat become the prohibitive favorite?

Carl DiMaio (14:44)

Yes, the Democrat does. But when people say, well, it's a lost cause, well, you can't beat someone with nothing. And that means that if you're not in the runoff, there's no chance. And I've told the Republicans, your job is to put the best Republican in the general election you can possibly get across the finish line. Because that's the only path to breaking the super majority that the Democrats have in California. It's the only path to us. Eventually, yes, one day, absolutely. I believe we will become a majority party again, even in the state of California. You're not gonna be able to do that if you constantly get shut out of the finals. Because then those voters who show up in the general election, they don't hear an alternative. And we've gotta offer a credible altern election after election after election to make sure that we make up some ground.

Newt Gingrich (15:34)

When we come back, we'll talk about the California Voter ID Initiative, a state constitutional amendment on the November 2026 ballot that will require voter ID for all future elections in California. Moving beyond the governor's risk, let's talk about the California Voter ID initiative. You co authored the California Voter ID initiative, and I think to a lot of people's surprise, you've gotten well beyond a million signatures. That's an enormous undertaking on a shoestring budget.

Carl DiMaio (16:12)

In California, initiatives are funded by special interests who have a direct benefit from the provisions, and so they'll Bankroll campaigns spending $10 $15 a signature. We are a grassroots organization. Reform California is the largest conservative grassroots organization in the state of California. We raised $3 million from nearly 100,000 donors. And they gave $5 a month, $10 a month, and we recruited over 18,000 volunteers statewide to collect these signatures. Over 100,000 Californians collected a signature from someone on the petition other than themselves. And so it was a real grassroots qualification effort. We are up against the machine of the Democrat Party though. They've got the liberal media on their side saying that voter ID will suppress votes and is racist. They will put a bad ballot title on this initiative and it's possible they'll look at a competing measure to try to thwart and confuse the vote. But I do believe we can prevail in November and voter ID is a game changer in California. If we get voter ID passed, it will first and foremost require that we clean up our voter rolls, which is a huge game changer, because right now California has the worst maintained voter rolls in the nation. People who've left the state years ago, about 2 million people are still on our voter rolls getting ballots in California in each election who have long since left. We don't do proper citizenship verification. They just take it based upon the attestation of a voter saying, yeah, I'm a citizen. They take them at their word. We don't believe that that's good enough. We believe that we should be doing citizenship verification. And finally, in an all mail in ballot state with so many voters who've left with orphan ballots being mailed out, the ballot harvesting operations funded by left wing NGOs has resulted in a number of ballots, we don't know how many, being harvested from people who no longer live here and returned with fake signatures. And they don't do proper signature verification in these mail in ballots. And so as a result, we don't know how much fraud is happening. If we go to voter id, we literally shift the verification process from a signature to the last four digits of a government ID in the mail in ballot and that will improve the integrity overnight.

Newt Gingrich (18:33)

Right now the polls show that this is like a 68, 24 position. Independents are for it by 70 to 21, Republicans are overwhelmingly 93 to 3. But even the Democrats are 52 in favor, 37 opposed. How hard do you think it's going to be for the left to lie enough about this to beat it?

Carl DiMaio (18:57)

Well, what they will do is they will put a title on the initiative that doesn't say voter id. It'll say an initiative to make it harder to vote. An initiative to restrict individuals eligible to vote, that's literally what they will say. They won't mention that it's just voter ID and citizenship verification, which are, as you mentioned, overwhelmingly super majority positions. And the funny part about it is they say it's racist. First and foremost, non white voters in the polling support voter ID by larger margins than Caucasian voters in California. And states that have implemented voter id, including Georgia, states that have implemented these election integrity reforms have increased voter participation in voting because people's public trust and confidence in voting goes up. When you have more trust and confidence in a process, there's more likelihood that you're going to participate. And we've seen that even amongst minority populations that voting participation goes up when you enact election reforms, including voter id. So on all of the logical and fact bases, we should be able to pass this. But Democrats in California have literally lied on the ballot with false ballot titles. You thought the Virginia redistricting measure was a deceptive title about restoring fairness to elections in California. They will take it to a whole new weaponization level. And that's why we have to run a very aggressive campaign of neighbor telling neighbor, friend telling friend, a grassroots campaign to get the truth out and to win at the ballot box.

Newt Gingrich (20:33)

The support for citizen verification is even higher. It's like 79, 20 with even Democrats are like 69 to 30 and independents are 80 to 12. So if we get a Republican into the general election for governor, isn't this an issue that they could potentially wrap themselves around and draw the contrast with the Democrat and have just an enormous advantage?

Carl DiMaio (21:02)

Oh, absolutely. What Reform California has been doing is we've been working with all the statewide candidates and all of our target legislative candidates for Congress as well as state legislature to get them all to participate in an integrated campaign of making a case for all the ballot measures that were for and against as well as all the candidates. One of the ways that we can level the playing field, because the Democrats have the liberal media that will lie, they also have more money than we will ever be able to imagine spending. So they will have a money advantage and a media advantage. What they won't have is a movement advantage. And what we need to do is use that integrated slate, the voter guide, to give voters a simple description of what's on their ballot in terms of ballot measures, a plain English description, and make sure that they know who to vote for in every race. The two issues that we need to focus on in this election, number one, voter ID to boost Turnout of Republican voters. We need to go after all the voters who voted for Trump in California. There are 6.1 million of them. That's a lot of Trump voting Republicans in California and convince them to show up in a midterm election. So boosting Republican turnout with voter id. But secondly, making a case to the persuadable independents and conservative Democrats that the cost of living is out of control, it's unsustainable, and that they need to vote down the various tax raising schemes that are on the ballot. And that's why reform. California also has a tax reform measure on the November ballot to save Prop 13 and to overturn billions in unfair and costly tax hikes that will really give relief to working families. So we're going to make a cost of living play in the November election to the middle as well as hopefully get more turnout of Republicans with the voter ID initiative. This is an integrated, strategic approach to combating the left in California.

Newt Gingrich (22:54)

Coming up, we'll discuss the proposed California initiative called the Billionaire Tax act that will impose a one time 5% tax on billionaires and how it could potentially impact the California economy. Can you sort of walk us through the kind of history of the billionaire tax bills? At one point, the governor had taken a firm position against it, and yet somehow it evolved into something that was on the ballot by another route.

Carl DiMaio (23:29)

Sure. Democrats all want higher taxes, full stop. Anytime they say they're against a tax, they're lying to you. In this case, the only reason why Newsom is opposed to the billionaires tax publicly is, is he's running for president. That's the only reason he wants the campaign contributions from some of these billionaires for his ambition. And he certainly wants the money that the tax would raise. So what he did was he winked and he nodded at the Democrat progressive groups and the labor unions, the government unions, and said, put this on the ballot through a signature process so I can't stop it. And that's exactly what they did. They ended up paying millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars at $15 a signature to get a million five signatures to force it on the ballot. Which means it goes on the ballot with or without Newsom's signature.

Newt Gingrich (24:19)

So he could be guilty but not look guilty.

Carl DiMaio (24:22)

Correct. And that's how these politicians play. They wink and they nod and at the end of the day, they get what they want without being held accountable for what they're really supporting.

Newt Gingrich (24:33)

Do they have the signatures to get on the ballot?

Carl DiMaio (24:36)

Yeah. The government unions and the progressives and a lot of Democrat politicians are backing this so called billionaires tax. But let's be very clear about this. This is not a billionaires tax. It's an everyone's tax. Hidden in the initiative is language that allows the state legislature to expand this tax to any taxpayer in the state of California without a vote of the people. But secondly, this is the socialist dream of Democrats who've always championed something called a wealth tax. I call it a savings tax. They're not content just to have an income tax on your income. They're not content to have a sales tax on what you buy, or a gas tax, or a car tax, or a utility tax, or a property tax. No, no, no, no, no. If you're somehow able to scrimp and save with California's high taxes and high cost of living and have a little money left over at the end of the year, these Democrat socialists, they want a piece of that, too. They will go into your house and look under your mattress to find out if you've got CA. They want to tax your 401k, your savings account, any equity in your home through what they call the wealth tax, or what I call the savings tax. And so what we did in this election is we not only did the save the Prop 13 tax, which we got qualified last week, but we are submitting signatures, Mr. Speaker, on a countermeasure called Stop the savings tax. And our signatures are being submitted today through early next week. And our initiative would counterbalance a billionaire's tax. If our initiative gets more votes than theirs, it would negate the billionaire's tax and ban any savings tax from ever being applied in the state of California. It's a state constitutional amendment that would bar the legislature from enacting a savings tax. I want to remind people when they say they're going to tax the billionaires. You're a historian. Back in the 1910s, when the backers of the income tax amended the U.S. constitution to give the Congress the ability to enact an income tax, what did they say? They said only 1% of Americans, the uber, uber wealthy, would be subjected to an income tax. As a result of that lie, they were able to get this constitutional amendment to create an income tax, a federal income tax authority nationwide. Well, now everyone pays the income tax, of course. And this is exactly what they plan to do in California. They want to get a savings tax enacted. They say it's for the billionaires, but it's for everyone. And then once California enacts this crap sandwich, they're going to go to every other state in the nation and say, well, if California did it, you certainly should do it too. This is a socialist pipe dream. We got to block it right here in California for not only protection of Californians, but protections of all Americans.

Newt Gingrich (27:26)

You have people now who live in Nevada, which has no income tax because they fled California. Wouldn't this particular tax almost guarantee that everybody who's really successful just moves?

Carl DiMaio (27:39)

Oh, it's a house of cards. California's revenue structure is absolutely unsustainable. The top 1% of income taxpayers, the billionaires, the millionaires contribute 38% of all of our income tax in the state of California. And the income tax is two thirds of our state's revenue. So if you just get a couple billionaires to move to Florida or Texas, if you get a handful of millionaires to flee Silicon Valley as they already have announced they have been doing because of the billionaires tax, then you're going to see a sucker punch to the state's budget. Now, as all of the tax paying Californians fleeing, who's left? The citizens that are left on welfare. We have the highest percentage, a third of welfare recipients in the state of California in the nation. And so you have people who are most dependent on government programs remaining in California while the people contributing to support those programs are fleeing. Mr. Speaker, this is not sustainable. This is a house of cards that's quickly imploding. And it's not even if the billionaires tax passes in November, we are having people leave the state high net worth individuals just at the proposal of a billionaire's tax on the ballot.

Newt Gingrich (28:57)

I'm looking at the former Uber CEO has gone to Texas. Don Hanke went to Las Vegas, Steve Spielberg moved to New York. Zuckerberg, Page, Sergey Brin, Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison have all moved to Florida. I mean, this is like a hemorrhage of talent and a hemorrhage of money.

Carl DiMaio (29:17)

It is. And can I just point out the hypocrisy here, the irony, with the exception of Peter Thiel, great guy, libertarian, love him. The rest of them are all liberals who have put the monster in place. They have contributed millions of dollars collectively, billions of dollars to support left wing extremist politicians. And now the monster has turned on them, as the left always does, okay? When you're dealing with fascism, when you're dealing with socialism and communism, they always turn on members of their own coalition. These billionaires are sitting there with their jaws on the floor saying, oh my goodness, they're coming for my wealth. They want to force me to pay More. Hello, Captain Obvious. You're just the latest on the menu, but you put the monster in power with your campaign contributions over these last several cycles.

Newt Gingrich (30:09)

In your Stop the savings tax initiative, you include a ban on retroactive tax increases. What is a retroactive tax increase?

Carl DiMaio (30:19)

The billionaires tax. They thought they were so clever. They thought, well, as soon as we file this and collect the signatures and put it on the ballot, a bunch of people are going to move out of the state. And they were right. So they included in their initiative a clawback provision saying that they would go and do retroactive taxes. So as part of our initiative, we said, no, no, no, no, you can't do a claw back tax. If you want to change tax code, it has to be go forward. You can't do a retroactive claw. We've thought through a lot of different bad tricks that Democrats engage in in taxation and we put them into this initiative. And mind you, I called the bluff of the Democrats in the state legislature. I introduced this measure first on the assembly floor. And I said, okay, you say you're only going to tax the billionaires, that you're going to protect the little guy. Okay, put up or shut up. Vote for this state constitutional amendment which would shield middle class taxpayers from any savings tax. And they voted it down. They killed it. So that's why we had to go to the ballot. What I love doing is going to the assembly floor enforcing a vote. I call it creating the dirt file. I want a recorded vote on every Democrat on these controversial bills because what they do is they usually kill bills in committee without a vote of the floor. They protect their vulnerable members. While we now have racked up vote after vote to provide a dirt file and to expose that their rhetoric does not match the reality in terms of the votes that they cast. So we plan to weaponize that vote along with several other votes to raise taxes and make the cost of living worse in California. Weaponize that against the Democrat supermajority in these target seats in November.

Newt Gingrich (31:55)

I admire your courage. What's the ratio in the assembly and Senate in California?

Carl DiMaio (32:02)

So last year before our election, we were 18 out of 80 and we picked up two seats that the Republican Party wrote off and didn't fund. But Reform California recruited the candidates and funded these grassroots candidates. And so the two seats that we did pick up were our Reform California grassroots candidates were now 20 out of 80, which is 25%. We need to get to 33%. We need to get to 1/3 to break the super majority. And that at Least gives us a seat at the table, some leverage. And we would obviously need to get 40 seats in order to break the majority. But let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with not only the liberal media in California, which is never going to be on our side. We're dealing with a business community that betrays us, betrays their own members. Just like you had to deal with the U.S. chamber of Commerce when you were in the minority in the 1990s. This was the US Chamber of Commerce was anti business, colluding with Democrats on job killing policies because they wanted to suck up to those in power. That's basically what the Chamber had become. And your strategy was, well, let's make sure businesses know that the chamber has betrayed them and let's see if we can get some business groups willing to fight in Sacramento. We've got the same problem. All of the lobbyist groups, all the business groups have sold out their members. And so they collude with Democrats, they fund Democrat campaigns. The final thing that we're dealing with is a Republican Party that literally believes that they need to go along to get along, that they need to be Democrat light, that they need to suck up to Democrats for scraps. And so what we're bringing in in the reform California movement are principled fighters who know that the first duty of an opposition party is to give voice to the voiceless. Which means you don't go along and get along. You offer audacious, bold, 70% solutions and you don't mince words and you force the fight into the streets so people know what our ideas are and what we are fighting for. Don't back down from a controversial issue or a fight when it's a 70% issue. That's when you want the spotlight on you. Second, you file a fighter in every single damn seat you can possibly file because in a wave election, you don't know which seats you're gonna get. And third, you build the resource base around grassroots donors, grassroots volunteers so that they have a fighting chance. We're turning the tide in California. It's not happening quick enough, sadly for every California common sense voter who leaves the state and goes to Texas or Georgia or Florida. Now I've gotta turn the tide with two more voters on our side to move the needle.

Podcast Advertiser (34:39)

But.

Carl DiMaio (34:39)

But we are seeing an opportunity because things are so bad in California and we now have a new approach to fighting that is very strategic. And I'm excited by.

Newt Gingrich (34:50)

I think you're doing amazing work and I think we've been looking for courageous people willing to build on positive ideas and willing to fight. And Carl, I think you absolutely reflect that. I want to thank you for joining me. Our listeners can follow the progress of the California voter ID ballot initiative by visiting reformcalifornia.org and I think they can get involved by visiting reformcalifornia.or and you have a lot going on for them to be involved with. So thank you very much for joining us.

Carl DiMaio (35:24)

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Newt Gingrich (35:28)

Thank you to my guest, Carl Di Maio. New Twirl is produced by Gingrich360 and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Garnzi Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. Special thanks to the team at Gingrich 360. If you've been enjoying Newts World, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Join me on substack@gingrich360.net I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Newts World.

Carl DiMaio (35:59)

Foreign. To be a star.

Podcast Advertiser (36:07)

No problem. Anyone can shine on TikTok. Post your first video today. Real life, real story, real you. Download TikTok and get started.

Carl DiMaio (36:21)

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.