Wrong again. In 1994, the year Proposition 187 won by a landslide with Republican support, Republican candidate Chuck Quackenbush was elected state Insurance Commissioner, Republican candidate Matt Fong was elected state Treasurer, Republican candidate Dan Lungren was elected state Attorney General, Republican candidate Bill Jones was elected Secretary of State, and Republican candidate Pete Wilson was elected governor.
Pesky old facts.
Name the second Republican who has won a statewide race in California in the general elections of 1996, 1998 and 2000.
Republicans running for statewide office go into the election spotting the Democratic nominee a million votes thanks to Pete Wilson.
The big mystery in California politics was when the Hispanic vote would start turning out in a big way (more than 20-25%). The answer was "1996 thanks to Pete Wilson".
My father's tracking polls for the Democratic state central committee showed in 1993 that Wilson's proposed Proposition 187, for the 1994 election, had a chance of finally motivating the Hispanics to vote. So he flew to Washington to convince Leon Panetta & Bill Clinton to put federal money into speeding up the naturalization process for immigrants in California, and to commit national Democratic money to registering those new Hispanic citizens as Democrats. That money was committed in _late 1993 and early 1994_ for spending starting in the fall of 1994!
Compare voter registration and immigration naturalization statistics for Hispanics in California for the five year periods 1990-94 and 1995-1999, or do it on a yearly basis. If the latter, you'll see the spike starting about the middle of 1995.
Email Jim Brulte at senator.brulte@sen.ca.gov for confirmation. He watched it happen. And my father gloated at me for years.