History :
The Lincoln Club sprang from the ashes of Richard Nixon’s defeated 1962 gubernatorial bid. Many of the former Vice President’s supporters believed his bitter primary battle with conservative state Senator Joe Schell mortally wounded his general election prospects, handing Democrat Pat Brown a second term as governor.

Several of Nixon’s Orange County supporters made up their minds to never again allow such destructive internecine warfare. They reached out to their erstwhile foes in the Schell camp and founded an organization to build Republican strength by lowering the intensity of intra-party warfare and making party politics more orderly and business-like. They called it The Lincoln Club of Orange County in honor of the first Republican president and his devotion to the Union.

From the 1966 election of Ronald Reagan as governor to the political resurrection of Richard Nixon (once a member himself) all the way through to the recall of Gray Davis, the Lincoln Club has been a leader in the Republican party’s most important local, state and national causes.