Huntington Beach’s MAGA revolution sets its sights on Sacramento

Michael Gates is basing his position as California attorney general on his ten-year reign as Huntington Beach’s chief justice.

When we met at a Starbucks not far from City Hall, he rambled on about the real issues of his hometown: Declining crime and homelessness. Visitors from all over the world. A prosperous Main Street. The small town feel is “almost like the Midwest.”

His biggest obstacle in trying to convince voters that he should replace Rob Bonta, other than his membership in the Republican Party? Um, Huntington Beach.

For years, Surf City conservatives like Gates have had fun playing burr in California’s blue seat. From the hearings against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration to the protests against the COVID restrictions to the City Council’s vote to put a sign outside the public library that says “MAGA,” Huntington Beach’s GOP leadership hasn’t met an anti-liberal they haven’t presented as an anti-tyranny move worthy of Bunker Hill.

Their antics have made Huntington Beach the laughing stock of the nation — but Gates and his pals have had the last laugh so far.

They ran as a slate in two elections that flipped the City Council from a Democratic majority in 2022 to a Republican one at a time when Orange County was turning purple. The takeover was a source of excitement among California conservatives seeking victory in a state where Democrats hold a majority in both chambers of the legislature and have held every statewide office for 15 years.

“We got into this fight scene,” said Mayor Casey McKeon, a third-generation Huntington Beach resident up for re-election this year. “We are an example that all cities can follow. If I were running for state office, I would run that.”

That’s exactly what MAGA-by-the-Sea designers plan to do this November.

In addition to Gates’ bid, Council Member Gracey Van Der Mark is seeking an Assembly seat. His former council colleague Tony Strickland won his state Senate seat last spring and is the co-sponsor of a proposed voting system that would require voter ID for every election. Huntington Beach voters approved a similar plan in 2024, which was later struck down by the California Supreme Court.

Huntington Beach’s red revolution now includes conservative commentator Steve Hilton, who launched his gubernatorial campaign last spring near the city’s world-famous fishing spot — even though he lives in Silicon Valley.

Hilton told me that he has long loved Huntington Beach because it reminds him of Brighton, the British seaside town where he grew up. His love for Surf City deepened when he talked extensively with people like Gates and Strickland, who sold him on their idea to stick with Sacramento.

“There’s a lot of excitement about it — it’s a place where it’s well-run and clean and organized,” said the candidate, who has consistently led the polls as his Democratic opponents polled half of the vote. “When I was thinking about where to launch my campaign, it made sense [in Huntington Beach]because it felt like home.”

Better not tell anyone at HB that you’re an immigrant, Steve!

California Republican Party Chairman Corrin Rankin is confident that the Huntington Beach delegation can win.

“What happened there proves that honest leadership works,” he said. “Right now, we have a former mayor of San Francisco who is a governor. He looks at the differences in what each city is like.”

Strickland, who is Hilton’s campaign chairman, vows that he and his former colleagues didn’t plan to take their fight nationally, but “if you do a good job, other opportunities come up.”

“I think California is on the wrong track — most people think so,” he added. If his team pulls off the November sweeps — governor, attorney general, Assembly seat and voter ID proposal — “it will be known as a big change in the Golden State that made it golden again.”

Does drinking Surf City water give you magical powers too?

It’s easy to dismiss what Strickland, Gates and others have created as a lucky local run that is about to collide with the reality of running statewide as a Republican. Even in Huntington Beach, residents weary of the endless culture wars rejected two ballot measures last year seeking to give the City Council the power to regulate a municipal library program that Van Der Mark has long said provides child pornography.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned while tracking chronic HB savers for a century, it’s to never take them for granted – the more you do, the more they burn, the more they plan. They plan on the Dodgers’ World Series team’s behavior and clash with local hero and mixed martial arts legend Tito Ortiz, who served on the council for a few months in 2021 before stepping down because he said the job “doesn’t work for me.”

Gates, 51, is so Huntington Beach you look it: A bull with a neck. They have blue eyes. Bro-y. A ridiculous haircut. The face of the aw-shucks doesn’t hide the righteous fury that wants to pile progressive California into submission.

“I know what it’s like to come from a working family, a working family, and I find it very difficult to make ends meet,” Gates said, noting that his Irish American parents sometimes had to take food and diapers to their children from the St. Mary’s Catholic Church pantry. “So, let’s take control away from government and give power back to working people.”

Fullerton College political science professor Jodi Balma teaches her students about Huntington Beach as an example of how “slate power can really work” in the apartheid era. But when I asked if he thought Surf City terrorists could disrupt California politics, the professor quickly said, “No.”

A majority of California voters think the country is headed in the wrong direction, and the number of undecided voters in elections ranging from California governor to the LA mayoral race puts the fear of God into Democratic leaders. But how can Strickland and company be fooled into thinking that’s an association More and President Trump — who recently endorsed Hilton — a winning strategy in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1? And to propose Surf City — a wealthy beach town so full of itself that it makes Santa Monica seem as humble as Santa Ana — as the last, best hope to save California?

Hilton was disappointed when I asked if he agreed with everything his friends on the City Council had done over the years. “I’m not, so I don’t see the daily operations,” was his feeble salsa response.

Gates was outspoken.

“I think almost everyone in the city leadership would agree that the library thing is out of control,” he said. At the time, Gates was working for the Department of Justice in Washington as a deputy assistant attorney general in the human rights division, he resigned after just ten months because he was homesick.

Sand art at Huntington City Beach in 2020.

(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)

Gates gave a great speech for most of our hour-long interview. He and Hilton put a lot of pressure on Latino voters – “they can save California because they understand that new leadership can change the country.”

But for all that Gates says that might appeal to a jaded Democrat like me, his Huntington Beach braggadocio always wins.

He praised some of his political wisdom (“Be patient, bide your time, discipline, shut your mouth. The long game will win.”), raised gender issues (“I want to protect our young girls. I want to stop all the mutilations that happen in hospitals on our young people.”) and railed against unruly Democrats (“[Californians are] badly. And honestly, we’re pissed. We’re really crazy.”).

Above all, Gates has repeatedly proclaimed how special Huntington Beach is.

“We love our freedom. We love to fly our American flags,” he said. “We love our beach. I don’t know, it’s a different culture here.”

Good luck selling Californians on it.