By admin 
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s wife is launching a new 501(c)(4) nonprofit to energize statewide conservatives as California Republicans cast blame and jockey for leadership in the wake of a national and statewide blue wave election.
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Denise Bianco, who has never held office but who helped fundraise through merchandise sales during her husband’s gubernatorial campaign, will serve as president of the California Action Network. “Legally speaking,” the sheriff will have no role in the new organization, according to the group’s chief operating officer, Jack Belgrade.
Still, the sheriff is set to appear at an upcoming event focused on the nonprofit. It will aim to build on the enthusiasm of grassroots supporters who backed Bianco during his fourth-place finish in the June primary, according to the group’s vice president, Joy Miedecke.
“The name ‘Bianco’ is very important in this because people have faith in him,” she said in an interview.
Belgrade said the group will use some strategies popularized by progressives — including third-party ballot collection and a strategy called relational organizing — to mobilize California conservatives. That includes a new app set to launch in January in which conservative voters can nudge people in their contact lists to vote through one-on-one conversations.
The nonprofit also took inspiration from Miedeck’s work in Riverside County. She used similar strategies locally as president of the East Valley Republican Women Patriots.
The Patriots are set to host an event featuring the Biancos on Nov. 17 where the couple will discuss their vision for the new nonprofit, the sheriff’s 2028 bid for reelection, and his unsuccessful court battles over 650,000 ballots he seized earlier this year.
Belgrade said the group would not be used to cover legal costs the sheriff incurred in that fight, which ended with a forceful rebuke from the California Supreme Court. Bianco sued Riverside County last month after the county refused to reimburse Bianco for more than $10,000 in legal fees, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Republican factions tangle over party’s future
The nonprofit is the latest response to Republicans’ election night drubbing.
Both of the recently appointed Republican legislative leaders — Assemblymember Alexandra Macedo, R-Tulare, and state Sen. Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks — face razor-thin margins in their reelection bids. Assembly Republicans could dwindle to as few as 12 and Senate Republicans as few as five. Each chamber has three uncalled races as of Thursday afternoon.
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Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, said he was “honored to lead what will be the largest Democratic State Assembly caucus in modern history” in a statement last week.
Fallout and finger-pointing from the blowout losses have already begun. California Republican Party Chair Corrin Rankin said Wednesday she won’t run for reelection. She blamed “rogue organizations, grifters and selfish commentators” for undermining party unity in a post-election statement last week, arguing the party had “too little power in California to be divided.”
Her potential replacements include Bianco’s rival GOP gubernatorial hopeful, former Fox News host Steve Hilton and outgoing state Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach, who lost his reelection bid. The latter’s candidacy is backed by Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, R-Valley Center, who has built a rival fundraising and political operation to the state party under the banner of Reform California.
Despite Rankin’s plea for unity, Miedecke said the organization would not work with existing groups. She said the California GOP’s problems long predated DeMaio, but argued his efforts had come up short in the Proposition 39 voter ID initiative he championed this year and the fight against Democrats’ Proposition 50 redistricting measure last year.
“Everybody else, whatever they want to do, that’s fine,” Miedecke said. “But working together with something that we feel didn’t work would be a waste of our time.”
DeMaio shrugged off the criticism.
“Joy’s an acquired taste,” he said. “Hopefully she’ll do something effective.”
DeMaio blamed the “national Republican Party” for last week’s losses, arguing it was “more concerned about ballrooms than the price at the pump.” He argued the state party needed a “complete overhaul” of its campaign tools, bylaws and coordination to make the most of its limited resources when the political pendulum inevitably swung back towards Republicans.
“Otherwise the national headwinds will shift and California Republicans will still be a s—show,” DeMaio said.
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