Why backers of Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta are trying to help the most

One ad even says, with a wink: “If you care about Roe v. Wade, the choice is clear. Remember to vote early
— before the June 7 election for attorney general.”

Why would Communities for Justice, a left-leaning independent group funded by labor and wealthy East Bay criminal justice reformer Quinn Delaney, subtly try to sway the GOP vote?

The top two finishers in the June 7 primary will advance to the general election in November. Bonta, by virtue of being the semi-incumbent (he was appointed to the role) the only Democrat on the ballot in a state where 47% of the registered voters are Democrats, is virtually guaranteed to make it. That leaves Early, Hochman and Schubert to scrap for the second slot. (Green Party criminal defense attorney Dan Kapelovitz is also running.)

Early is the Republican Team Bonta wants to face in November. They think Early is the most Trumpian — and thus, the most beatable in a state that loathes Donald Trump. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who appointed Bonta to the position last year, is familiar with this strategy.

When Newsom faced a recall last year, he told voters that if they booted him, they might wind up with conservative talk show host Larry Elder, a Trump admirer out of step with most Californians on key issues. Elder proved to be a perfect foil, helping Newsom to beat back the recall.

While Hochman won’t divulge if he ever voted for Trump and Schubert told me on The Chronicle’s “It’s All Political” podcast that she wrote in former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice twice instead of Trump, Early is a proud Trump backer. One of his clients is the Trump-friendly One America News Network.

Early believes that conservatives “are under attack. We’re in a battle of good versus evil,” as he told the California Republican Party convention last month in Anaheim. “This is our destiny as Republicans, to fight the evil woke.”

Some of Early’s positions on hot-button issues might wake up voters across the political spectrum in a sleepy midterm where the races at the top of the ticket — governor and U.S. Senate — are drawing little attention.

Early opposes abortion, which is supported by 79% of likely voters, including 59% of Republicans, according to a July 2021 survey from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. He thinks California gun laws are way too strict, bemoaning the “overbearing restrictions on the ability to buy ammunition.” A 2020 10News/San Diego Union-Tribune Poll survey found that 72% of respondents would back a law limiting how much ammunition can be purchased at the same time.

Early told the GOP convention that “one of the biggest dangers to our country is this Marxist indoctrination of our students in our schools,” and vowed to “do everything I can as California’s next attorney general to outlaw critical race theory in California.” (“There is no evidence that CRT is widespread in K-12 education,” according to research from the California School Boards Association.)

The pro-Bonta group hopes its ads convey Early’s vision of conservatism, which Early described to The Chronicle as being “part of the Reagan/Trump wing of the California Republican Party.” He was also an attorney for some of the lead proponents behind Newsom’s recall.

Their goal in pitching these message to conservative talk show audience listeners is that they hope those voters question whether Schubert or Hochman are conservative enough to taken on the left-leaning Bonta. If enough back Early, then Bonta gets his preferred opponent.

Early agreed with one aspect of that strategy.

“I note that whoever is behind the ads apparently knows that my purported ‘Republican’ and ‘No Party Preference’ opponents in the race are essentially one and the same, rarely take strong positions on anything, and in all respects, are far more to the left that me,” Early said. “Other than that, I am not going to comment on whatever perceived tactics my opponents are using.”

The pro-Bonta ads focus on abortion and guns. One ad features a man and a woman talking about the candidates:

Man: “Eric Early is a big Second Amendment defender — and he’s very pro-life.”

Woman: “And the Democrat — Bonta — is strongly pro-choice?”

Man: “That’s right. Very different than Eric Early, who proudly calls himself the candidate from the Trump wing of the Republican Party — he’s pro-Trump, pro-life,and pro-guns.”

Woman: “That says it all.”

Early told me this week that on abortion, “I believe in state’s rights. I will enforce the state’s constitutional laws whether I support them or not. If a state law is determined to be unconstitutional, then I will not enforce that law.”

Forget where Bonta is at on abortion. Early is much further right on the issue than even his conservative rivals.

Last year, Hochman told me on The Chronicle’s “It’s All Political” podcast that “I 100% support the Roe v. Wade decision. It created a balancing test back in the early 1970s. It’s been modified by the Supreme Court ever since. And I’ve seen no reason why it should be changed at all at this point.”

This week, Hochman told The Chronicle that if elected, “I will take an oath to enforce California’s laws concerning reproductive rights and will then do so. The attorney general enforces the law and does not create it.”

Schubert told The Chronicle that “as a woman who is pro-choice, I am deeply disturbed and quite frankly, shocked, that our Supreme Court would overrule 50 years of legal precedent.”

Schubert said that “the concept that some states would criminalize a woman’s decision to seek an abortion is outrageous to me. As a career prosecutor, I’ve had cases where women and children were raped and impregnated by their rapist. It’s reprehensible that some states want to ban a woman’s right to choose even under these acts of violence.”

The California Republican Party supports the reversal of Roe and believes that life starts at conception, according to its platform.

So will all these political mind games work? It could. Democrats have used versions of this sort of political triangulation before.

In his 2002 re-election campaign, Democrat Gray Davis unloaded $10 million of advertising in the primary aimed at the fluctuating abortion positions of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a moderate Republican who Davis’ supporters believed would be a tougher general election opponent.

Their move worked. The more conservative Bill Simon won the GOP primary and Davis beat Simon in the general election. (This campaign occurred before California adopted its top-two primary system.)

Newsom’s backers also employed a version of this tactic in his 2018 gubernatorial primary. Newsom supporters attacked Republican John Cox in the primary as a pro-gun Trump favorite in an effort to lift his profile with GOP voters. Cox advanced to the general election instead of former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat who held many of the same positions as Newsom and could have proven a tougher foe.

It worked that…