Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will keynote a luncheon at the California Republican Party’s convention later this month in Burlingame.

Gingrich will keynote the lunch on Saturday, Feb. 25, just a few days before the Feb. 28 primaries in Arizona and Michigan. California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro said he expects Gingrich might also do a fundraiser in California before returning to the Arizona battleground.

“Newt’s desire to come here was clear all along, and I think it’s a good thing for California politics that he wants to make sure that his campaign lasts enough for Californians to have a say,” Del Beccaro said, referring to the Golden State’s very late June 5 primary. “This sends a clear signal to me that he’s at least planning for that.”

Del Beccaro declined to comment on other possible convention guests. There has been no mention of Mitt Romney attending the state GOP convention; some sources weren’t sure he had been invited.

Sooner yet, Gingrich is scheduled to be the guest at a “Making California Count” event this coming Monday, Feb. 13 in Pasadena sponsored by TeaPAC, that Tea Party organization announced today. Part of TeaPAC’s town hall series, the event will be open to the public.

California’s Democratic and nonpartisan voter registration have increased from the last presidential election cycle to now, while Republican registration has fallen, according to the new report from Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s office.

The report shows that the 3.6 million voters who express no party preference now account for 21.2 percent of the state’s electorate, “a new all-time high” up from 19.4 percent (3 million voters) in January 2008, Bowen said.

The state’s 7.4 million registered Democrats – up from 6.6 million four years ago – now account for 43.6 percent of registered voters, up from 42.7 percent four years ago. Republican registration has dropped from 33.5 percent (5,197,897 voters) in January 2008 to 30.4 percent (5,170,592 voters) now.

“Republicans in California are a half percentage point away from an endangered species designation,” California Democratic Party spokesman Tenoch Flores said this afternoon. “Year after year voters see the GOP shrink away from their responsibilities and abdicate leadership on the tough issues facing our state. The numbers come as no surprise.”

California Republican Party spokeswoman Jennifer Kerns argued that while Golden State voters aren’t self-identifying as Republican, they’re voting like Republicans on the issues.

“Despite the increased numbers of decline-to-state voters, the fact is that Californians have voted our way on ballot initiatives, including overwhelmingly rejecting the last eight tax increases on the ballot,” she said via e-mail this afternoon. “The Republican Party has more work to do to communicate that THOSE principles are OUR principles, and we need to connect those dots for the voters. But the fact that voters are voting the way they do on those ballot measures indicates that they actually agree more with Republican principles of fiscal conservatism, smaller government, and less bureaucracy.”

California law requires statewide voter registration data updates 154, 60 and 15 days before each primary election, and 60 and 15 days before each general election. One “off-year” update is released in February of years with no regularly scheduled statewide election.

California’s new top-two primary system – in which the top two vote-getters in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of what parties they belong to – applies to statewide offices, state legislative offices and House and U.S. Senate offices, but does not apply to the presidential election, county party committees or local offices. Only the Democratic and American Independent parties are letting no-party-preference independents vote in their presidential primaries.

The last day to register to vote in the June 5 primary election is May 21; the last day to request a vote-by-mail ballot is May 29.

The Republican National Committee today announced its latest effort to reach out to Latino voters will be headed by a political consultant who not long ago was speaking for a major California candidate.

Bettina Inclan, who served as press secretary to 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary candidate Steve Poizner and later that year spoke for Florida gubernatornial nominee Rick Scott’s successful campaign, is the RNC’s new director of Hispanic Outreach.

On a conference call with reporters, Inclan said the effort will focus on working with local leaders to spread the GOP message and stage get-out-the-vote efforts targeting Latino voters in the potential battleground states of Florida, New Mexico, Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada. California, where a heavy Democratic edge means the state isn’t so much in play, apparently didn’t make the cut.

They’re also launching a @RNCLatinos Twitter account and a Tumblr site to go with the RNCLatinos.com site they rolled out in October.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said the Latino unemployment rate is about two points higher than the national average, and President Obama’s job approval ratings among Latinos have sunk more than any other demographic in his first term. Latinos are “tired of the broken promises and empty rhetoric of this president,” he said, and will be receptive to the GOP’s job-creation economic agenda.

“He’s losing in this Hispanic community and that’s because individual and economic freedom, good jobs and the American dream, rank number one across America and especially in the Hispanic community,” Priebus said.

Latino voters contributed heavily to the pummeling that California’s statewide GOP candidates took in 2010, and so the state GOP has stepped up efforts to court them by recruiting, endorsing, training and helping to fund Latino candidates.

There’s nowhere to go but up, according to a veteran GOP pollsters’ survey last March.

The survey of 400 California Latino voters had found only 26 percent had a favorable impression of the GOP, while 47 percent felt unfavorably about it and 27 percent had no opinion. It also found the party wouldn’t win over many Latino voters by stressing conservatism; only 22 percent agreed Republicans should, “stick to core values and nominate true Conservatives.” Philosophically, only a third were self-described conservatives, with a third calling themselves moderate and a quarter calling themselves liberal.

Immigration policy remained a sore point, with only 25 percent approving and 71 percent disapproving of Arizona’s controversial law. But the poll found more than seven in 10 voters would consider a candidate who says, “secure the border first, stop illegal immigration, then find a way to address the status of people already here illegally.” And 69 percent of Latino voters said they’d consider voting for a Republican who talked about “ensuring all children had a chance at a first-rate education” even if they disagreed with that candidate on immigration policy.

Asked today bout Latino voters’ heavy support for the DREAM Act, which the GOP has opposed, Inclan replied, “Immigration is important – we need to address it, we need to talk about it” but the economy will be main thrust of the RNC’s Latino outreach.

UPDATE @ 12:40 P.M.: I see my esteemed colleage Carla Marinucci at the Chronicle had the scoop last month on another major development in Inclan’s life.

It would be like Christmas coming two days late: Donald Trump will moderate a GOP presidential debate on Tuesday, Dec. 27, Newsmax Media and ION Television announced today.

The event is scheduled for 8 to 9:30 p.m. EST, to be broadcast from the Hoyt Sherman Theater in Des Moines, Iowa. This would be the GOP field’s final face-to-face showdown before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses Jan. 3.

I say “would be” because there’s a catch: All of the major Republican presidential candidates have been invited to participate, the organizers said, but they have not yet respondind to my query about whether any candidates have actually committed to be there.

I certainly hope they all go. As ION Media Networks Chairman and CEO Brandon Burgess put it, “ION’s and Newsmax’s powerful combined audience reach, coupled with the prominence of Donald Trump as moderator, makes this one of the most influential meetings of the candidates to date.”

Prominence, indeed! I must begin planning the drinking game for this debate; so many options…

ION Media Networks, Inc., according to its website, is a privately-owned, independent network television broadcasting company that owns and operates the largest broadcast television station group in the U.S., reaching more than 99 million U.S. homes via broadcast, cable, and satellite distribution systems. Its flagship general entertainment network, ION Television carries a blend of series, theatrical and made-for-television movies, specials and sports.

Newsmax.com claims the title of the nation’s largest online conservative news outlet, with more than 7.3 million unique visitors monthly.

UPDATE @ 12:02 P.M. SATURDAY: IT’S ON, BABY! Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond tweeted a few minutes ago that Newt has accepted the invitation.

UPDATE @ 1:45 P.M. TUESDAY: So crestfallen. Romney won’t attend. WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA, MITT?

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney remains on top while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has surged to a strong second among GOP presidential candidates, but California’s Republican voters still aren’t thrilled with their options, according to a new Field Poll.

While candidates strive to solidify their support in the final months before the first caucuses, this poll also shows an increasing proportion of California Republicans – 26 percent, up from 16 percent two months ago – are undecided about who they want as the nominee. More than three in four who expressed a preference for one of the candidates say it’s still early and admit they’ve not made a final decision of who they’ll vote for.

Perhaps that’s because only 16 percent are very satisfied with the field of GOP candidates; 47 percent say they’re somewhat satisfied; and 33 percent are not too satisfied or not at all satisfied.

Romney has the support of 26 percent of California Republican voters; Gingrich has 23 percent; former Godfathers Pizza CEO Herman Cain has 9 percent; and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has 5 percent. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who’d entered the race amid much buzz – and 22 percent report in September – but fizzled in his debate performances, has plummeted and now is tied at 3 percent with Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. Bring up the rear are former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., at 2 percent and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman at 1 percent.

Gingrich’s strongest base of support is among the 26 percent of Republican voters who identify a lot with the Tea Party movement; in that group, he leads Romney 38 percent to 18 percent. But among all other Republican voters, Romney leads Gingrich 29 percent to 18 percent.

Among the slightly less than half of California Republicans who call themselves strongly conservative, 84 percent have picked a candidate while 16 percent are undecided; within this segment, Gingrich leads Romney 31 percent to 29 percent. But more than a third of Republican voters who consider themselves moderate remain undecided; in this segment, Romney leads Gingrich 24 percent to 17 percent.

GOP men are dividing almost evenly between Romney (28 percent) and Gingrich (27 percent), while women prefer Romney over Gingrich 25 percent to 19 percent. And Romney’s support skews younger: He leads Gingrich by 10 percentage points among Republican voters under 50, although 52 percent of that age group is still undecided; those 50 or older prefer Gingrich by three percentage points.

The Field Poll surveyed 330 California Republican voters from Nov. 15 through Nov. 27; the poll has a 5.7-percentage-point margin of error.

The California Republican Party, troubled by its failure to attract Latino voters, today touted a day-long media training workshop it held last week with Latino elected officials and candidates.

The state GOP says the event at Univision’s Los Angeles facility was “an important step” in its relationship with GROW Elect, a political action commitee created to recruit, endorse, train, and help fund California Latino Republicans and independents for elected office. There were question-and-answer sessions with CRP Chairman Tom Del Beccaro of Lafayette and former State Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth of Murrieta; GROW Elect consultants Luis Alvarado and Moises Merino were also on hand for the training.

“This is part of keeping our promise to establish a stronger, more consistent Republican presence in the Latino community and to continue our support of GROW Elect and their impressive efforts,” Del Beccaro said in today’s news release. “We’re excited to partner with GROW Elect, not just with training but with other resources that will help promote their bottom-up approach to connect with Latino voters throughout California.”

The CRP and GROW Elect plan to offer more such workshops for Latino Republicans across the state, with two more sessions planned for Sacramento and Fresno before the year’s end.

The Pew Research Center found that Democratic candidates won the Latino vote, usually by wide margins, in last November’s elections across the nation. In California’s U.S. Senate race, Democrat Barbara Boxer won 66 percent of the Latino vote while Republican Carly Fiorina won 31 percent; for governor, Democrat Jerry Brown won 63 percent of the Latino vote while Republican Meg Whitman won 34 percent.

Veteran Republican pollster Bob Moore in March had said his latest survey showed there was an opportunity for the state GOP to gain ground with Latino voters despite its negative image – a nice way of saying the party had nowhere to go but upward.

The survey of 400 California Latino voters had found only 26 percent had a favorable impression of the GOP, while 47 percent felt unfavorably about it and 27 percent had no opinion. It also found the party wouldn’t win over many Latino voters by stressing conservatism; only 22 percent agreed Republicans should, “stick to core values and nominate true Conservatives.” Philosophically, only a third were self-described conservatives, with a third calling themselves moderate and a quarter calling themselves liberal.

Immigration policy remained a sore point, with only 25 percent approving and 71 percent disapproving of Arizona’s controversial law. But the poll found more than seven in 10 voters would consider a candidate who says, “secure the border first, stop illegal immigration, then find a way to address the status of people already here illegally.” And 69 percent of Latino voters said they’d consider voting for a Republican who talked about “ensuring all children had a chance at a first-rate education” even if they disagreed with that candidate on immigration policy.

In July, it was Michele Bachmann; in September, Rick Perry, and in October, Herman Cain. Now Newt Gingrich seems poised to be the Republican presidential flavor of the month – or perhaps even a lasting contender.

While former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has held relatively steady in the polls in recent months, the Minnesota congresswoman, Texas governor and former Godfather Pizza CEO have taken their turns near the top. Cain remains there still, but there’s no question the recent allegations of sexual harassment are taking their toll; his days at the top of the roller coaster seem numbered, and Bachmann and Perry are waving a welcome to him from the bottom.

Now the most recent polls show a resurgence for Gingrich, the former House Speaker from Georgia who shot himself in the foot right out of the campaign gate in May by criticizing Republicans’ beloved Ryan budget plan and having a profligate jewelry spending habit that put him firmly among the vaunted 1 percent.

His campaign has been heavily touting (and tweeting) his debate performances, so now that he seems to have some momentum, look for him to come out very aggressively in tonight’s CNBC faceoff in Michigan.

Gingrich might have an advantage lacked by other Republicans who’ve nipped at Romney’s heels before falling away – he’s been on the national public stage a lot longer. Bachmann was busy founding a charter school but had never sought public office; Perry was Texas’ Agriculture Commissioner, and had only become a Republican a few years earlier; and Cain was a Federal Reserve Bank official in Kansas City in 1993-94 when House Minority Whip Gingrich was coauthoring the GOP “Contract with America” that led to the 1994 Republican Revolution and catapulted him into the Speaker’s office.

That means the press has had more time to investigate him and voters have had more time to know him, leaving less chance of uncovering some sort of new surprise. Of course, that also means everyone knows his dirty laundry – the only House Speaker ever disciplined for ethics violations (and by an overwhelming, bipartisan vote), with two marriages ended by affairs, one even as he pilloried President Clinton for his extramarital fling. But reviving such criticisms doesn’t pack the same political punch as exposing them for the first time, so Gingrich may whether this storm better.

“Candidates often look really good until they’re put under the microscope, and Gingrich has – to put it mildly – a colorful past,” San Jose State University Political Science Professor Larry Gerston said today. “Once a discussion of his past is renewed, and it will be as it would be with any candiate’s history, that’s when we’ll have an answer as to what Californians care about.”

“Californians tend not to get as hung up on these kinds of moral issues as we see in other places,” Gerston continued. “It may not be much, it may be yesterday’s news many times removed. On the other hand, it could be that people say, ‘Oh yeah, I remember him’ and the past comes flooding back.”

The key question could be “has he crept up because he’s become more desirable or has he crept up because others are imploding?,” Gerston said. If Gingrich has earned his bump in the polls through his debate performances and the way he’s running his campaign, “then we may see somebody who has renewed staying power. If he’s crept up because it’s ‘anybody but Mitt’ and we’re down to the dregs, it could be another story. The jury is out right now.”

Counting Gingrich out would be a mistake, he added. “He’s smart, the guy is smart and he’s thoughtful and he doesn’t put his foot in his mouth. His actions are another story, but he doesn’t put his foot in his mouth when he’s talking about an issue.” In fact, Gerston said, the only other candidate who consistently has shown that sort of experience and grasp of the issues is Romney.

On Friday night’s edition of “This Week in Northern California,” we talked about what recent California polls mean for the President, Congress and Republicans, as well as about the state GOP convention, plus the Solyndra bankruptcy debacle. Also, Belva Davis’ interview with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood.

Will the Demon Sheep campaign method be writ large upon next year’s Senate elections? 2010 Republican senatorial nominee Carly Fiorina has become a vice chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, chairman U.S. Sen. John Cornyn announced this morning.

The NRSC’s news release said Fiorina, serving with Cornyn and NRSC Vice Chairman U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, “will amplify Senate Republicans’ focus on healing America’s troubled economy, and assist with the NRSC’s crucial fundraising efforts in support of a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.”

“I’m pleased to welcome my friend Carly Fiorina to the NRSC team, where her many business and civic achievements will make her an invaluable leader and fundraiser during this critical election cycle,” Cornyn, R-Texas, said in the release. “I look forward to working with Carly to elect strong Republican Senators who will finally put a stop to President Obama’s failed tax-and-spend agenda, and instead promote the economic growth and job creation Americans so badly need.”

Fiorina said the Senate sets the nation’s legislative agenda and she’s proud to work with the NRSC to restore a GOP majority next year. “Republicans in the Senate will provide job creators the opportunities and environment they need to grow our economy, decentralize power out of Washington, and restore fiscal accountability.”

The former HP chairwoman and CEO first got her feet wet in politics supporting 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain. She defeated former congressman Tom Campbell and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, in the June 2010 GOP primary, but lost in November to incumbent U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., by 10 percentage points.

UPDATE @ 2:48 P.M.: “Carly Fiorina laid off thousands and outsourced good American jobs overseas, but that didn’t stop national Republicans from investing millions in her campaign last year, which she lost by double digits, or hiring her today,” Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Press Secretary Shripal Shah said today. “Apparently, Republicans are not only protecting tax breaks for millionaires, they’re also finding them jobs.”

The Contra Costa Times’ home page headline this morning is “Red tide hits Blue wall,” and that’s undoubtedly true.

As Republicans elsewhere in the nation took 11 governor’s offices from Democrats, Jerry Brown overcame Meg Whitman’s $161.5 million blitz to become the nation’s only Democratic gubernatorial pickup. As Republicans elsewhere in the nation picked up six seats in the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer turned away the toughest challenge of her career, from Carly Fiorina. Neither race was nearly as close as polls and pundits had projected.

In fact, neither were most of the down-ticket races; at this hour, with the attorney general’s race still too close to call, it’s possible that Democrats swept the statewide offices. And as a Republican tide undid the Democrats’ electoral victories of the past two cycles to retake the House of Representatives and end Nancy Pelosi’s reign as Speaker, here in the 11th Congressional District, Jerry McNerney – perhaps the state’s most endangered Democratic House member – holds a razor-thin margin over Republican challenger David Harmer as ballots continue to be counted.

Why?

Naturally, your opinion this morning seems to depend on where you’re standing.

“Feeling pessimistic, but bucking the national trend, California voters decided against a pair of untested Republicans in favor of old-school Democrats on Tuesday,” the New York Times reported.

From Robert Cruickshank at Calitics.com:

So. What all does this mean?

First, that Californians want to be governed by Democrats, and certainly not by wealthy CEOs. The Whitman bust is one of the most laughable and epic political failures we’ve ever seen. She spent $160 million to lose by double digits. Ultimately she and Fiorina could not overcome the basic contradiction of Republican politics: their base hates Latinos, but California’s elections are increasingly decided by Latinos.

More importantly, Californians rejected right-wing economics. They rejected Whitman and Fiorina’s attack on government and public spending to produce economic recovery.

From Steve Frank at California News & Views:

In my opinion, our losses were not due to lack of money (except for our registration effort). Nor was it because of a lack of personnel and smart people.

Two words for this massive lost [sic] in California, while the GOP was winning in a landslide–or just winning–in 49 other States.

ARNOLD SCHWARZEGGER. [sic]

Would you trust a political party that gave you $140 billion in defiicits? Would you trust a Party that gave you a Governor looking for ways to give amnesty to illegal aliens?

Would you trust a political party that has a Governor that supports choo-choo trains over economic stability and loves ObamaCare?

Arnold brought us to 12.4% unemployment and a Great Depression.

Arnold also bankrupted the California Republican Party–he caused divisions and disputes–kept donors from supporting the GOP.

With Arnold as the titular head of the California GOP–with a fiscal record that put us into a Depression, with policies like AB 32 that have caused massive unemployment and will devastate the Satte over the next few years, with his refusal to support his own political party–after seven years he has done the impossible.

He destroyed a political party and he has destroyed a whole State–Our slogan now is “Welcome to the Tarnished State”.

Any wonder the Republican Party of California lost most everything yesterday?

So, readers, what do you think? Latino outrage, class warfare, a wildly unpopular Republican incumbent governor, lousy candidates or campaigns, old habits dying hard, or something else entirely — why couldn’t the GOP seal the deal here in California?