Vice President Mike Pence will headline a fundraiser for local congressional representatives on Monday in Newport Beach.

The fundraiser, which was initially planned at the Island Hotel, has been moved to the five-star Resort at Pelican Hill, 22701 S. Pelican Hill Road, according to one of the organizers, Shawn Steel, chairman of the California Republican Party.

The luncheon is meant to raise money for California Victory 2018, a joint fundraising committee for seven Southland Republicans targeted by the Democrats in next year’s elections. The representatives who will benefit are Darrel Issa of Vista, Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach, Mimi Walters of Irvine, Ed Royce of Brea, Steve Knight of Palmdale, David Valadao of Hanford and Jeff Denham of Turlock.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton carried the seven districts in last year’s presidential election for the Democratic Party.

Steel said he was excited about the fundraiser and noted how Pence, when he was in Congress, drove a mile in the rain as a favor to Rohrabacher to attend a fundraiser for Steel’s wife, Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Michelle Steel. At the time she was running for a seat on the Board of Equalization.

“I never forgot that,” Steel said.

The Democratic National Committee put out a statement declaring “2020 presumptive nominee Mike Pence heads to California.”

“Following the chaos, scandals and repeated failures of Donald Trump’s administration, it’s no surprise that Vice President Mike Pence is heading to California to court congressional Republicans and high-dollar donors in preparation for his 2020 bid for the White House,” according to Vedant Patel of the DNC. “Unfortunately for Mike Pence, Californians by a margin of millions already rejected Trump, Pence and their efforts to slash funding for public education, potential tax cuts for the richest Americans and their multiple attempts to strip health care from millions of Americans.

Steel responded that the DNC “can be snarky all they want — Pence is enormously popular.”

Costa Mesa City Councilman Jim Righeimer is planning to attend the fundraiser.

“I met (Pence) back when he was a congressman, actually,” Righeimer said. “He’s very personable, very down to earth — someone you’d expect out of a Midwestern state.”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy will also headline the event.

“I’ve known Kevin since we were both young Republicans when his hair wasn’t gray yet and I didn’t have a bald spot,” Righeimer said.

The fundraiser was originally scheduled for last month, but had to be delayed as Pence went to Florida following Hurricane Irma.

Pence is also scheduled to attend a fundraiser in Beverly Hills during his California visit — also a rescheduling of an event that had been planned in September. Details of the Beverly Hills event were not immediately available.

According to the vice president’s office, Pence is scheduled to attend the Indianapolis Colts football game Sunday, then fly to California later that day to attend a “tax reform” event and a space council event.

–City News Service

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