Paula Whitsell, the chair of the San Diego GOP, sat down with NBC 7 political reporter Joey Safchik for a comprehensive interview about the now-competitive 48th Congressional District, voter ID laws and immigration policy.
A transcript of the conversation is below.
Safchik: Democrats control the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, make up the entirety of the San Diego City Council and hold four of the county’s five congressional seats. Republicans still hold leadership positions in several municipalities. Now, all eyes are on the 48th Congressional District as it comes into play as a district with the potential to swing blue because of the new congressional maps. As candidates get ready to duke it out, we’re talking to the chair of the San Diego Republican Party, Paula Whitsell, about her party’s strategy to tighten its grip on the new district. Thank you so much for being here.
Whitsell: Thank you for having me.
Safchik: Let’s look ahead to 2026 as we wrap up 2025. Where is your focus?
Whitsell: Well, we have a lot of local races. As you said, we have mayor’s races, city council races. So we have a lot of things going on for 2026. It is a gubernatorial cycle as well. So we will have elections for the governor of the state of California, which should prove to be very interesting as well. We have two very strong candidates on the Republican side, Steve Hilton and Sheriff Chad Bianco, who are polling well as well. And I think Californians are ready for a change. Being number one in poverty, number one in homeless, number one in gas prices, all these types of things are not helping the Democrat cause to say they should be given another four years to run this state. So, we’re looking forward to a really energetic and lively year next year. But we have a lot of races that are important, and we are already getting started on getting those going.
Safchik: What do you think is in store for your party next year here in California? Do you think you can make inroads?
Whitsell: Yes, I do believe we can. I think Californians generally are fed up with being number one on homelessness and gas prices. I mean, gas in other states is $2.89, and we’re paying $4.59. So, I think those types of economic issues are going to come to play, and we saw in the last election, a significant shift towards the Republican side for communities, Hispanic communities and various communities, that are typically more conservative. And now they realize that these policies are not working for the normal, working class person. And it’s becoming too expensive here in California. And so something has to change.
Safchik: But then we saw with Prop 50 that the special election was largely perceived as a referendum on the Trump administration. So what does your party have to do to kind of halt that momentum for Democrats?
Whitsell: Well, first of all, the ballot language for Prop 50 was very deceptive because the polling actually revealed that people, the general consensus of voters was to have an independent commission. They voted for that, and overwhelmingly. And so the language on the ballot initiative was deceiving because even people coming out of the polling stations said, ‘No, no, I believe in the independent commission,’ but they just voted against it. So I think that was very deceptive. And that is not exactly a reflection of what people really want to feel. So I don’t look at it as being a referendum necessarily on the Trump administration. But I do feel that, you know, people here in California are starting to get fed up.
Safchik: So one of the consequences of Prop 50 passing for Republicans here in San Diego is that the 48th district now leans blue. What does the party have to do to hold on to that seat?
Whitsell: Well, first of all, Congressman Darrell Issa, who is currently in that seat, he has come out and definitively said that he is a Californian, he’s not going anywhere, he is going to be running for that seat. And so he plans to hold on to it. He has good name recognition. He has a solid record as well. So I do believe he will be able to hold on to that seat. Leaning blue does not necessarily mean that it’s going to go blue. And he really is a strong candidate, has a good track record. Here in California, people know him as being solid. So, he is going to give the Democrats a run for their money for that seat. And I believe he will be able to hang on to it.
Safchik: The local party has already endorsed him. Do you think now that that district leans blue in terms of voter registration, he’s going to have to moderate any of his positions?
Whitsell: I don’t think necessarily that’s going to be the end result because the current constituency that he has. He’s very responsive. People, like what he, you know, he’s very common sense, down to earth, basics. And so I think that’s something that resonates with the voters. So I don’t think that’s going to change. And really, the Democrats don’t have a good message right now. What are they going to say, that they’re in favor of some of the crazy policies that are in place right now? That’s a hard thing to sell. So I think Congressman Darrell Issa has a solid position. He is going to run this district back. It doesn’t matter that it’s leaning blue. He may just have to work a little harder, but he’s not going to just hand it over. He is going to work, and he’s going to retain his seat.
Safchik: Rep. Issa is a very close ally of President Trump. Do you fear that could be a toxic relationship in this district now?
Whitsell: No, I don’t. I don’t, and one thing people don’t realize is that there are more Republicans in the state of California than any other state in the Union. So, yes, we are outnumbered here in California, but that doesn’t mean that we are not as strong a force here in California. And, it’s going to be difficult for people to come out against some of the policies and concerns that President Trump has put forward for the working class and for just normal everyday people, and especially here in California, where we’ve been suffering under the the burden of the highest tax burden in the country, the highest gas prices in the country, the highest poverty level in the country. So I think that’s a good message for Republicans. And I think that’s going to make it difficult for the Democrats to to sell this to the people of California.
Safchik: You sound pretty optimistic that Congressman Issa can hold on to that seat. What issues are going to be front and center in that race?
Whitsell: Well, I think the Democrat messaging is always that, you know, everything is dire. Everything is unaffordable, all these things. But what they don’t recognize is that some of these concerns are the result of having Democrats in power for the last four years here in California specifically. So, there’s example after example that we can cite with regard to, homelessness on the streets, money, millions of dollars has been spent on this issue. And it’s not getting better. It’s getting worse. It’s walking down the streets of our main cities. Looks like you’re in a third world country. And this is the state of California. And so, yes, we are the fourth economy in the world, but we’re also first in a lot of things that we should not be bragging about.
Safchik: Let’s talk about the governor’s race for a minute. Do you think, realistically, a Republican has a chance to win that office?
Whitsell: I do, I do, I’m very optimistic. Because Gavin Newsom’s record has been so disastrous for Californians here. You know, he really doesn’t have anything he can brag on. And some of the Democrats who are running for this seat, for governor of California, I mean, you have Eric Swalwell. He doesn’t even live in California, and he has other issues that everyone knows about. You know.
Safchik: He doesn’t live in California because he’s a congressman in D.C.? His district is in California.
Whitsell: Yes, but to be a congressman in D.C., you’re supposed to live in your state. You don’t have to live in your district, but you do have to have a residence in your state. So and we have Katie Porter, who blew up, you know, and imploded on camera in front of Californians. So you have candidates that are not really strong in terms of their relationship with the people of California. And I think that Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco have a better message. And I think they’re going to give the Democrats a run for their money. It’s not going to be a walk in the park for them.
Safchik: There are a lot of races next year that you’ve got your eyes on. It’s going to be a busy year. How does the local party delegate resources?
Whitsell: Well, first of all, right now we’re in candidate recruitment mode. So we want to make sure we have a strong Republican candidate for every office that’s going to be open next year. So we’ve been doing a lot of candidate training. We’ve been doing a lot of candidate recruitment to make sure we have someone in every office that’s going to be open because as we saw during Covid, even Parks and Recreation and some of the offices that people don’t pay attention to really had an impact on our daily lives. So we need to have a good, strong Republican in every spot that’s going to be open next year. So that’s what we’ve been doing this year really, focusing on candidate recruitment, candidate training to make sure we’re ready to go next year.
Safchik: You have mentioned the high gas prices here. Obviously, a major issue for people regardless of party. What policies are you advocating for to make gas more affordable, amongst any other cost of living changes here?
Whitsell: Well, the gas tax that we have here in California is the highest. It’s higher than Hawaii got six and Hawaii gets their petroleum, which has to be shipped in. So there’s a lot of policies that are directly connected to and related to the state of California that are on top of the normal taxes that you see on gas. And so I think those things have to be revisited. One thing that people are not paying attention to, the recent budget that Gavin Newsom put through, is going to create a huge deficit for the state of California. But embedded in that is a guest is a vehicle mileage tax. So people are going to be surprised when they get their bills next year that they’re going to be paying for every mile that they drive in the state of California. So, the solution that the Democrats have for every problem, every concern is to raise taxes. And at some point people are exhausted and they have nothing more to give. So I think revisiting those policies is going to be the first step in making California more affordable.
Safchik: How would having a Republican in the state’s highest office change that?
Whitsell: Well, a lot of these things are commissions and, like the California Coastal Commission and some of these commissions, some of these environmental impacts are all done through these commissions. And the governor will have a strong influence and impact on some of these commissions and decisions that are being made, without the vote of the people. And they have a very significant financial impact on our daily lives. And so just having common sense, rational, sane policies in Sacramento and proposing these policies and the governor not signing off on every crazy thing that the Democrat supermajority wants to do in Sacramento is a start..
Safchik: A lot of cost of living decisions, I’m thinking about housing specifically, are made at a hyper local level or at a state level, not necessarily at a federal level. Do you think people at home recognize that?
Whitsell: Well, what impacts local prices is availability. And when you have reduced availability, the natural impact is going to be that the prices are going to go up and whether it be rentals, whether it be housing. And so by changing that dynamic, it’s going to have an impact on, on local housing as well. We’ve already seen I’m in real estate and we’ve already seen a bit of a turnaround since the beginning of the year. Last year there was nothing. It was completely dead. No one was buying. None was selling. This year it’s changed. People are now starting to buy and sell a little bit. The market is starting on an upward curve. And so, that is going to ultimately help affordability as well because you’re going to have more housing availability.
Safchik: One of your party’s major platforms statewide. Right now is voter I.D.. That’s correct. Why is the party investing so much time and energy into that?
Whitsell: That has been a huge focus for us here this year. We’ve spent a lot of time and resources and making sure we get the signatures to get that on the ballot. It will be on the ballot in November of next year. The voter I.D. It’s a crazy thing that people even question this because you can’t get on a plane. You can’t do anything without identifying yourself. But yet you can vote in the state of California without providing ID, so, the voter ID creates a system where, since we do have mail in ballots here in California, we have a lot of orphan ballots, ballots that come to people’s homes or places of business where the person has moved on, the person has passed away. I want to say that the estimate that there’s about 2 million orphan ballots that are out cycling around during every election cycle, what happens with those orphan ballots is they’re, often, gathered up and filled out and turned back in, and the voter ID will eliminate or greatly reduce the problem of orphan ballots, because it’s going to require that a person provide one of seven IDs. And so, they will provide the last four digits of whatever ID that they choose. So if someone receives a ballot and they’re trying to turn it back in, they’re going to need to know which of the seven IDs that the person chose and what are the last four digits of that ID in order to turn in that orphan ballot. So it’s going to make it a lot more difficult. The second thing that’s going to change that dynamic is in this ballot initiative, the registration of voter ID is going to need to do an audited every two years. And so, that is going to be crucial at keeping the voter rolls clean, with active current residents here in the state of California, in your, in your county. And so that’s going to have a very big impact on making the elections fair and honest.
Safchik: Where is that information about orphaned ballots being counted coming from? Because I spent a lot of time talking to the nonpartisan Registrar of Voters, who tells me that any voter fraud is exceedingly rare, negligible, practically nonexistent in San Diego County.
Whitsell: Well, we get people turning in orphaned ballots, all the time.
Safchik: Where is that information coming from?
Whitsell: From just people who are voting, and they call the office, they call headquarters saying, hey, I’ve got these ballots coming to my house. What do I do with them? And so, it is a problem. It is a problem.
Safchik: But that sounds like people saying they’ve received this, not that they’re filling it out and turning it in.
Whitsell: Well, that would be, Yeah. You’re right. That would be, when you’re looking at voter fraud, they always say it doesn’t exist, but you have ballots cropping up. We’ve had elections here in California where ballots cropped up in them. You know, overnight we went to bed and we were winning and we could wake up the next morning. And now you have ballots. And the other thing is taking 30 days to count ballots. There’s no need for that. We can count the ballots in a reasonable period of time. So.
Safchik: But isn’t that because they’re checking them over and over again? They have those policies in place?
Whitsell: Well, that would be the ideal thing. I don’t think that happens in reality.
Whitsell: You can go watch it. You can go observe.
Whitsell: That is correct. And we do have people that go to the registrar of voters to observe the counting, but those are ballots that have already been turned in. So we don’t want ballots hanging out. That don’t, should not be sent to those addresses or to those places of business or nursing homes or anywhere else where ballots don’t have their owners. So it’s just a safeguard to make sure that that’s not happening. Rather than being anecdotal, we know for sure that that can’t happen or it’s going to be very difficult to happen because of the way that the voter ID is going to function.
Safchik: Do you feel like the safeguards that are in place right now are not enough?
Whitsell: They’re not enough, and do not believe the registrar when we’re told that they may not know, because if the ballots are turned in, how do they know? They don’t check.
Safchik: Well, they’re checking the signatures.
Whitsell: Not necessarily all of them.
Safchik: We’re told that they do.
Whitsell: Well, we’ve seen signatures go through that are not, necessarily, verifiable, but, there’s no way to check for sure. But if you have a system in place like this, there’s no doubt that it’s going to be verifiable, because you do have to present an I.D.. We’ve had people show up to vote and somebody else has already voted. And so, you know, you get all these anecdotal stories of people that are trying to vote and these incidents are happening. But without voter ID, there’s no way to verify. So it’s difficult for a Registrar of Voters to say, yes, this is happening or this is not happening when there’s no way to verify.
Safchik: How do you respond to concerns that voter ID laws could disenfranchise particularly minority voters?
Whitsell: I have not yet heard of any single person who needs an ID, has not been able to get an ID, because here in the state of California specifically, if you are not able to get an ID, they will give it to you for free. So that excuse is just an excuse to sidetrack the issue, which is you should have to identify yourself in order to exercise your civil responsibility of voting.
Safchik: Do you think this stands a real chance in California?
Whitsell: I do, because, in the polling that we’ve done, of course, a very large section of the Republican Party is in favor of this. But interestingly enough about, I think– don’t quote me, I think it’s like 58% of Democrats believe also that you should have to show your ID to vote.
Safchik: Let’s talk about immigration for a minute. Do you endorse the Trump administration’s immigration policies and how they’ve played out here in San Diego?
Whitsell: I think it’s very important that people follow the rules. I came from a country. I came from Brazil. When I came here, I followed the rules. It was difficult at the time, but I made sure that everybody did what they needed to do, in order to follow the rules. And I don’t think that in general, these communities, minority communities who are following the rules and doing everything right, they’re not in favor of people jumping the line and jumping the border. Aside from the fact that it takes a lot of resources away from our local communities. So, if you have people jumping the line and taking resources and, you know, mental health insurance and that sort of thing away from the people who actually need it, who are here legally, then that’s not fair.
Safchik: New data shows some 75,000 people detained by Ice over the first nine months of the Trump administration do not have criminal histories. How does that square with campaign promises to detain and deport the worst of the worst?
Whitsell: Well, what happens is people get caught up in the crossfire. But the fact that they’re here illegally, doesn’t excuse the fact that, you know, that they haven’t committed a more egregious crime. If you’re here illegally, that means you came without following the rules, and you jumped ahead of everyone else who’s standing in line and doing things correctly. And that’s not fair. And it’s not fair to the people who actually need these resources. So it’s not fair to people who need Medicaid and some health insurance, because the state of California is paying for health insurance for people who should not be here in the first place. It’s not fair to those who need these resources and these programs that we put in place to help those who need extra assistance, because those resources are being taken up by people who decided it was not worth following the rules.
Safchik: San Diego is a border city, border county, binational city, binational county, and our economy does rely heavily on immigrant labor. Do you think there is room here for local Republicans to take a slightly more moderate approach than the federal government when it comes to immigration policy?
Whitsell: As long as they follow the rules? Yes. We are an immigrant community here because we’re on the border. And no one is advocating to jump the line. And there’s a lot of programs and different things that people can do, to apply to be able to stay here. And there should be no reason why people don’t just follow the rules.
Safchik: Is there anywhere where San Diego Republicans, where California Republicans are not in lockstep with the federal government right now?
Whitsell: Well, it doesn’t really matter because these issues, the immigration issues, are federal issues. So we don’t really have a say in regard to that.
Safchik: What about other issues?
Whitsell: Like, for example?
Safchik: Health care?
Whitsell: Well, and that’s something that is being debated right now, in Washington, because the current Obamacare has proven to be a huge failure. And Obamacare was designed to help people who have difficulty getting health insurance. And now it’s super expensive. So they’re now already looking at other solutions to be able to make it affordable and attainable for just normal, everyday Americans.
Safchik: I guess what I’m getting at is, as the leader of the local Republican Party, are you comfortable pushing back against the federal administration if there is anywhere where you disagree?
Whitsell: I don’t see why that would be even a concern, because first of all, I see in my lane, I’m the chair of the local Republican Party here in San Diego County. And that’s my. Those are my responsibilities and areas of concern. And, I trust President Trump to make the correct decisions for the country in general. People voted for this. People support this. And it’s not– who am I to tell the federal government what they’re supposed to be doing, with regard to these federal issues here in California.
Safchik: Where do you see room for bipartisan cooperation?
Whitsell: Well, I think there’s a lot of issues that we have to tackle here in California, such as homelessness. That’s really a huge problem. And, you know, education where it’s, you know, when I first moved here, when my father was in the Navy, one of the things that we really loved about California was the education that’s gone by the wayside. We are now, I think, second to last. So. And we spend more money than anyone else. So clearly our resources are not being used properly. We should be at the top and we’re at the bottom. And so I think there’s a lot of these kinds of things. Education, homelessness, poverty concerns, taxes. There’s not a tax that a Democrat doesn’t like. And we need to revisit this because at some point it becomes too burdensome for normal, everyday working class people to live in California. And we, you know, if you are our well-to-do people, move away. But if you’re not, you’re stuck here. And at some point, we need to make this the Golden State again. And so there’s a lot of these types of things that we could work together on as we look ahead into 2026.
Safchik: Are you hopeful that you will see change?
Whitsell: Yeah, yeah, I do. I’m really optimistic that we will get a lot of our people across the finish line and we will start making significant changes here in California and make it the Golden State again.
Whitsell: Paula, I’m very grateful for your time. Thank you.
Whitsell: No problem. My pleasure.
Want more insights? Join Working Title - our career elevating newsletter and get the future of work delivered weekly.
