He earned trust in Sacramento, but Californians still don’t know Newsom challenger Brian Dahle

Less than seven weeks from the November midterm election, state Sen. Brian Dahle may be better known as the highest bidder for a slaughtered goat than as Gov. Gavin Newsom’s opponent.

A Republican candidate for governor must be either a celebrity, independently wealthy, or outlandish to have a shot — at least that’s the conventional wisdom in California politics.

Yet Dahle, a conservative farmer from the state’s rural north who didn’t go to college, is sticking to his nice-guy vibe.

“I hear it everyday. ‘You need to do something crazy,’” he said between campaign appearances in the San Joaquin Valley last week. “I don’t know, I am who I am. People who know me trust me and are in my corner.”

The goat fiasco is probably not what they had in mind. Dahle had the misfortune of bidding $902, a donation to the local 4-H program, on a goat named ‘Cedar’ that was slaughtered against the wishes of the young girl who raised and loved it. Now her family is suing the Shasta District Fair. Dahle didn’t resist efforts to save the animal.

Goat meat aside, Dahle’s family-run campaign is being drowned out out by Newsom’s money and incumbency. The governor’s decisive defeat of last September’s recall and the more than 2-to-1 registration advantage enjoyed by Democrats in California make Dahle’s mission quixotic at best.

An August poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found that Newsom has the backing of 52% of registered voters, compared with 25% for Dahle. Nearly 60% said they didn’t know enough about him to even venture an opinion.

The governor, who recently agreed to an October debate with Dahle, is so confident in his re-election that he spent campaign dollars to buy television spots, newspaper ads and billboards in red states like Texas and Florida to promote California as an abortion refuge.

“I don’t think there’s a reason to believe California Republicans are any less galvanized than national Republicans,” said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego. “It’s just in California, the governorship right now is an unattainable goal unless a unique candidate with a strong funding source comes forward.”

Dairy farmers as clients and core voters

On opening day at the sprawling Tulare County Fair, Dahle schmoozed with voters and delivered a short speech as a chorus of bleating goats waited for auction in the barn next door. He was with his people — dairy farmers, drip irrigation specialists, local sheriff’s deputies with children in 4-H.

But in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, a Republican stronghold, the event felt more akin to a county commissioner’s race than one for governor of the world’s fifth largest economy. Less than 100 fair-goers were seated at the event’s red-and-blue checkered tables.

“We have the highest taxes and the highest poverty rate in the nation. We have the highest gas prices, the highest electricity prices. Our schools are failing us, and we have no water,” Dahle told his audience. “I want you to picture the next four years without change. How much is Gavin Newsom going to take from you?”

California’s leaders need to build new water storage capacity like the Sites Reservoir project, he said, and lower energy costs by building more transmission lines. He also advocated ramping up oil production, and thinning forests to capture more snow and rain.

Dahle advocates suspending the state gas tax, fully funding local law enforcement agencies, conditioning services for the homeless on sobriety and giving parents more school choice. He is opposed to government-mandated COVID-19 vaccinations and didn’t receive one himself.

When asked about abortion, Dahle pointed to his record of voting against measures that would increase access. Abortion services would remain safe in California if he were elected because Democratic legislative leadership would block any effort to change that, he said.

Dahle’s message seems to resonate most deeply with agricultural communities who have seen climate regulations make their way of life and business increasingly difficult. The California Farm Bureau gave him a key endorsement, despite the political risk of vexing the highly-likely-to-be re-elected governor.

“These farmers, they’re the people that are slowly disappearing. We endorsed Dahle because he is a farmer and a businessman who understands,” said Tulare County Farm Bureau president Matt Watkins. “We don’t have a lot of options. It isn’t politically savvy but we’re kind of done playing that game.”

Whether the candidate can reach and appeal to Independents and or even Democrats is another matter. If last year’s recall election is any indication, issues promoted by a conservative like Dahle are out of step with the state’s largely liberal electorate.

Yet, at the same time, political discontent in the state is large and growing. The UC Berkeley poll found 52% of registered voters believe the state is headed in the wrong direction, and a majority of those whose primary concerns are crime, taxes, regulation, and immigration gave Newsom negative marks.

A survey by the Public Policy Institute of California released last week showed that 71% of Californians say rising prices are causing financial hardship for their households. And while Newsom enjoys strong majorities of support in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, he leads Dahle by only single digits in the Central Valley, Orange/San Diego counties and the Inland Empire.

Democrats checking the box

Newsom is in a commanding position. Even before turning last year’s recall, he won the 2018 governor’s race by the largest margin in half a century.

In 2022, he has the time and wherewithal to build a national profile as a Democrat unafraid to pick fights with Republican governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis. His campaign account has $20 million, more than 11 times what Dahle has raised.

At 56, Dahle has run for office eleven times, but a statewide race is a different beast. He served on the Lassen County Board of Supervisors for 16 years before being elected to the state legislature in 2012, where he served as Assembly Republican leader with policy specialties are in water, forestry, and wildfire issues. He entered the state Senate in 2018.

Dahle (pronounced like ‘Dally’) is proud of his family’s deep roots in California. His grandfather, a World War I veteran, was awarded 80 acres just south of the Oregon border in a lottery during the Great Depression.

Rich only in farmland, Dahle grew up poor and with an alcoholic father who got sober for the last 30 years of his life. College wasn’t an option, so he worked jobs in lumber mills and hydroelectric plants across the state before returning home in his mid-20s.

In the legislature, he has garnered a reputation as a warm and principled colleague who rejects the partisan divides that prevail in Washington. Dahle and his wife, Assemblywoman Megan Dahle, are known to host other lawmakers for dinner at their ranch in Bieber.

The town of barely 300 residents in the northwestern corner of California is where one of their sons, Chase, 22, runs the family seed business and grows organic wheat they sold south to dairy farmers this year.

Reagan, 20, is managing Dahle’s campaign. In between fundraisers and media appearances, Dahle checks on the farm and attends volleyball games for his daughter Roslyn, 12.

Come November, he said, some Democrat state senators “are are going to check my box.”

“They won’t say that in public. They told me privately and I wouldn’t share that, because that’s who I am,’” he said.

State Sen. Susan Eggman, a Democrat who represents the San Joaquin Valley, said she told Dahle no such thing but wouldn’t be surprised if some of her colleagues did. Several other Democratic senators did not return requests for comment.

Despite being Mexican-American and a lesbian with very different politics, Eggman said the two work closely together. She has been to his ranch home in Bieber, and even stayed overnight when the women’s caucus fishing trip got caught in a forest fire.

“Brian is a great guy,” she said. “I don’t think he’s gonna have enough money to get in front of enough people. California is a big state and he has very conservative values at the end of the day, policy ideas that would be very different than a lot of people would be okay with.”

‘He’s got a great story’

A Republican hasn’t been elected to governor in California in 15 years, and the state’s conservative rural voters often feel as alienated from Democratic leaders in Sacramento as they do urbanites in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Despite early optimism about toppling Newsom in the 2021 recall, Republican recall candidates were unable to turn out their vote. At 4.8 million, it fell well short of the 6 million votes Trump received in California in 2020.

State GOP leaders hope Dahle’s cross-party friendships in the capitol can translate to a wider appeal with voters.

Jessica Patterson, chair of the California Republican Party, likened Dahle to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his ability to bring along people from outside the party. Voters want a governor focused on “very real problems” in California and not looking for a presidential run, she said.

“I think Sen. Brian Dahle has a great story that resonates with people,” said Patterson. “He’s been a part of the legislature and is very well versed on that but he also understands the everyday fights that people have. So I do think he inspires new people.”

The state’s history of Republican governors is star studded with the likes of Ronald Reagan and Schwarzenegger, famous actors prior to their political careers. Talk show host Larry Elder gained some traction but lost in last year’s recall.

This election is the first time in almost a quarter century that the California GOP has run a gubernatorial candidate with previous experience in public office, said Dan Schnur, a political science lecturer at USC and UC Berkeley. Perhaps it’s a sign.

“It took California Republicans a long time to dig a hole. They’re not going to climb out of it right away,” said Schnur. “It’s very unlikely he wins, but a candidacy like his may represent a step back toward relevance for California Republicans.”

This story was originally published September 22, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "He earned trust in Sacramento, but Californians still don’t know Newsom challenger Brian Dahle."