When Donald Trump was last president, California brought liberal resistance to its agenda. He is now set to reprise the role.

In fact, Trump’s return to power was on the agenda late Tuesday, while the California Attorney. General Rob Bonta says he already has a plan To do so — the state must be “1000% focused” and ready to fight for California’s progressive lifestyle in court and beyond.

“We will use the full force of the law and the full authority of the office to defend and protect California’s progress, our people, and our values,” said Bonta, who expects to run for governor.

Bonta added: “For months, in some cases for more than a year, we have been planning for possible attacks and our responses on all different topics and areas, from attacking our environment to reproductive freedom to attacking our common sense weapon.” laws, our LGBTQ+ community, our civil rights, our different constitutional rights.”

California first to sue Trump administration more than 100 times He was mostly successful, and Bonta said a similar combative approach is almost certain in the former president’s second term.

“If Trump does not break the law, violate the Constitution, or exceed his authority through unlawful means, there will be nothing we can do,” Bonta said. “But if he does what he did last time and does what Project 2025 suggests he should do, of course we will take him on in court because he will be breaking the law.”

Bonta’s message, a comprehensive defeat It’s a bittersweet situation for Democrats and for Vice President Kamala Harris, a Californian who was derided by Trump as the “radical left lunatic who destroyed San Francisco.”

In his victory speech early Wednesday, Trump said the American people had given Republicans “unprecedented and powerful authority” to drive their conservative agenda. largest mass exile U.S. history has seen harsh restrictions on abortion, cuts to environmental regulations, strengthening of gun rights, and declining gay rights.

“This will truly be the Golden Age of America,” Trump said.

Kevin Roberts, prominent conservative and Anti-California Project 2025 playbook He said Trump, who has estranged himself but whom many see as a possible policy guide for his second term, “has triumphed against a relentless left-wing machine intent on stopping him” and that “the entire conservative movement is united behind him.”

In the Golden State, the nation’s most populous and most economically powerful state, Trump’s claimed tenure seemed muted, like a rumbling from elsewhere.

as of Wednesday morningHarris was beating Trump by almost 1.7 million votes in California, with nearly half the state’s votes still to be counted — or by a margin larger than the entire population of many U.S. states. Rep. Adam B. Schiff, one of Trump’s arch-foes in his first term, had triumphed as the state’s newest senator.

Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said Californians are thus giving their leaders a mandate of their own.

“There is a tremendous ideological difference between California voters and Donald Trump,” Chemerinsky said. “California officials like the attorney general will use the law to fight back.”

Eric Schickler, co-director of UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and author of the new book “Partisan Nation,” said he has no doubt that California will remain a “focal point of resistance” against Trump.

“It generally fits where the voters are in the state and certainly the national goals of someone like Newsom,” he said, referring to Gov. Gavin Newsom, Harris’ surrogate and a constant critic of Trump.

But Schickler said it also “carries downside risks or costs,” especially given Trump’s penchant for “revenge politics” and open threats to the state.

During a campaign visit to Coachella last month, for example, Trump described the state as a wasteland of high costs, over-regulation, homelessness and crime, mistaking the real problems facing the state for a litany of lies.

He also criticized Newsom for his handling of the state’s water supply and Threatens to cut federal disaster aid For wildfires unless California provides more water to farmers and homeowners.

“We’re going to take care of your water situation, force it down your throat, and say: Gavin, if you don’t do this, we’re not going to give you any of the fire money we’re sending you all. “It’s time for all the fires, wildfires that you have,” Trump said.

Newsom did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. But just last week, he said “no state has more to lose or more to gain in this election.”

Trump’s promise of mass deportation of undocumented immigrants will alone devastate the California economy and, as a result, the national and global economies, Newsom said, with “effects from valley to valley, from Silicon Valley to the Central Valley.”

Such a move, he said, would damage California’s reputation as a land of opportunity, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit for multi-generational American families and newcomers.

Newsom was calling on voters to prevent Trump from coming to power. But his words reflected a years-old resistance to Trump.

Just a few months into Trump’s final term, Lt. Cmdr. Governor Newsom gave a stirring speech at the state Democratic Party’s 2017 convention about California fighting for the progressive beliefs on immigration, the environment and the LGBTQ+ community that Bonta touted on Tuesday.

“We are all Californians. Wear it with pride. “This is our moment,” Newsom said later.

By August 2020, just a few months before Trump lost his re-election bid to Joe Biden, the state had made good on its promises. The then California Attorney. Gen. Xavier Becerra, now Biden’s secretary of health and human services, announced the state’s 100th lawsuit against the Trump administration.

More than half of those lawsuits alleged that the administration undermined or failed to comply with federal environmental rules. Others opposed the administration’s policies on immigration, education, healthcare, guns and civil rights.

“I’m surprised that any president in any administration would be caught red-handed violating the law at least 100 times,” Becerra said at the time. “I’m not surprised we had to sue because we have to protect our people, our resources and our values, and we use the rule of law to do that.”

Democratic attorneys general won 83 percent of the 155 cases they filed against the first Trump administration. a scoreboard By Paul Nolette, professor of political science at Marquette University.

California Democrats had been vowing to fight again ever since it became clear Tuesday night that Trump was on the rise once again.

Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, wrote of X: “To be clear: California will fight to protect our democracy, our freedoms (and) the basic dignity of all people.” .”

Schiff touched on similar themes. victory speech. “California will continue to be at the forefront of progress, a bastion of democracy, a defender of innovation, and a protector of our rights and freedoms,” Schiff said.

Trump did not directly mention the idea of ​​winning blue states like California in his own acceptance speech, but he did promise success for all Americans. He called his victory a “historic realignment” of the various American factions behind him, and suggested that his authority came from God, not just them, given that he had survived a near-fatal assassination attempt.

California will face special challenges in Trump’s second term, Schickler said.

“There are a multitude of federal policies that Trump will implement that could have a major impact on the state, and the means to resist that may be limited, especially given Trump’s aggressive willingness to use executive authority and the subsequent fact that the courts are generally controlled by conservatives with a strong view of presidential power ” he said.

There could be major fights over a number of important issues on which the Trump administration and California have very different positions; these include mail-in distribution of abortion pills, a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, and race-conscious education at public universities and colleges, and protections for vulnerable populations such as transgender people and children.

More volatile than anything else may be the disagreement over immigration, Schickler said.

“Assuming there are mass deportation efforts, immigration will be one of the main flashpoints,” Schickler said. “That would require the federal government to do something within the states, and you can imagine there might be some resistance from people in California to that.”