Authored by Philip Wegmann & Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,
The masked man on the motorcycle, the one who waved a Mexican flag in front of a torched car as Los Angeles police stood by, will soon be famous. His identity remains unknown, his image iconic – but for all the wrong reasons.
Republicans will replay the clip again and again in campaign ads ahead of the midterms.
“This lawlessness is exactly what Americans rejected in 2024,” said Michael Whatley, chairman of the Republican National Committee. “While Democrats sow chaos, Republicans stand as the party of law and order.” President Trump is delivering on his campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration, Whatley told RealClearPolitics, and ahead of the midterms, his party “will continue to run on this winning message and finish the job for the American people.”
As National Guard were being deployed to quell violence in California, Republicans were mobilizing to capture and catalog video of looting, rioting, and violence. One RNC official told RCP they were struggling to capture the flood of content coming across cable news.
“It was just non-stop,” they said. “There was so much.”
That content from the LA riots will soon provide fodder for the contrast Republicans hope to paint in November of next year, illustrating the failed immigration policies they allege California Gov. Gavin Newsom now embodies. For his part, Newsom blames Trump for inflaming an already “combustible situation.”
Los Angeles became ground zero for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown Saturday when ICE agents launched a series of raids across the city. Protests followed. Some of the demonstrations have been peaceful. The ones getting wall-to-wall news coverage, however, were not. Demonstrators hurled rocks, firework shells, and Molotov cocktails at police. Vandalism and looting ensued, prompting Trump to order 2,000 National Guardsmen to the city without the approval of the California governor.
Newsom quickly condemned the move as a “blatant abuse of power” that puts the nation on a path to authoritarianism. “Trump is pulling a military dragnet all across Los Angeles,” Newsom said in a speech delivered from an LA studio Tuesday, as the city remains under a curfew ordered by Mayor Karen Bass. “Well beyond his stated intent to just go after violent and serious criminals, his agents are arresting dishwashers, gardeners, day laborers and seamstresses.”
“California may be first, but it clearly won’t end here,” the governor said. “Other states are next. Democracy is next.”
The White House already saw the riots as an opportunity to paint Democrats as hapless in the face of lawlessness. After the governor’s speech, they were overjoyed to have that fight with Newsom. “Democrats are not even choosing the 20 on 80-20 issues,” a White House official told RCP. “They’re choosing the 10 on 90-10 issues.”
The situation in Los Angeles could be perilous for Democrats. Newsom has tried to differentiate a violent mob from lawful demonstrators, warning on social media that those “who take advantage of Trump’s chaos” will be held accountable, while encouraging those who are “protesting peacefully.”
The White House, meanwhile, sees nothing but anarchy and is considering invoking the Insurrection Act, a law that grants the president authority to deploy the military on U.S. soil. Asked if he was considering it, Trump told RCP Tuesday in the Oval Office, “We will see.”
Republicans are betting that voters have already made up their minds. “AI couldn’t generate better imagery,” said Jesse Hunt, a GOP strategist and former communications director at the National Republican Senatorial Campaign. Trump won the general election, in large part, in reaction to the lax immigration policies of the Biden administration, Hunt told RCP, and the mob violence in LA will capture voter attention ahead of the midterms.
“It paints a real picture of which side voters can choose to be on,” he said, “public servants enforcing U.S. law in an American city or a violent mob waving another country’s flag.”
The National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee has already cut a digital spot that will serve as a template for the midterms. Posted on social media Tuesday, the video splices together clips of rock-hurling rioters in the smoke-filled streets of LA with soundbites from Democrats defending the demonstrations as “mostly peaceful protests.”
The Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Speaker Mike Johnson and the largest spender in House campaigns, has already argued this week that the riots roiling Los Angeles will continue to spread to other cities. When confronted with that chaos, the group predicted, “Americans will vote accordingly.”
A new survey commissioned by CLF, obtained by RCP, and conducted by Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio, provides the reasoning for their confidence. The polling of key congressional districts found that on illegal immigration and deportations, 57% favor “hiring nearly 40,000 additional ICE and border patrol agents to address illegal immigration as well as drug and human trafficking.” The Republican survey also showed 68% of voters favor funding for the military to support law enforcement “in their fight against drug cartels.”
The Trump administration remains convinced that the public is on their side. “They are incredibly out of touch with what the vast majority of Americans support,” a White House official said of Democrats, telling RCP, “We are going on offense and backing them into the corner of supporting dangerous criminal illegal aliens, violent rioters, and lawless chaos.”
Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics’ national political correspondent.
