Next Tuesday night, News Corporation will welcome advertisers onto Fox Corporation’s studio lot in Los Angeles for a celebratory cocktail party. The reason: to court their dollars as the company embarks on a major gambit with the launch of the California Post—a western offshoot of the New York Post.

As much of the media struggles to maintain relevance in the digital era and grapples with financial headwinds battering the industry that has hollowed out newsrooms, the Post is expanding, seeing an opportunity in the ruins of the Los Angeles Times and others that have hit hard times. Indeed, the Murdochs appear ready to stake their claim in California, never mind that the politically blue state runs largely counter to the Post’s conservative editorial skew.

Part of that has to do with the sheer size of the nation’s largest state, which, it’s been noted, is home to 40 million people, and thus more GOP voters (even if they’re vastly outnumbered) than most conservative bastions. And while it may seem contradictory for Murdoch to set his sights on a deep-blue state like California, a closer look reveals clear strategic logic. Despite the state’s well-earned liberal reputation, Los Angeles and Orange County harbor a not insignificant number of conservatives—many of whom may be disillusioned with Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass over issues like homelessness, crime, and the manner in which they addressed the recent wildfires that devastated the Pacific Palisades and Altadena in January.