California by city

[ottermax]

Los Angeles County, CA results (by city)
                        Biden        Trump
Beverly Hills   55.07%   43.86%   -19.97%

Dear Lord, what happened here?! Beverly Hills is like the epitome of the white latte liberal city that generally swung to Biden this year. I remember it swinging pretty Republican in 2008 and 2012 but then it swung pretty hard to Hillary in 2016, now only to swing against Biden pretty substantially. What the heck is going on in 90210?!

I don't think Beverly Hills is a good example of a white latte liberal city... it's largest demographic is Persian Jews who are an unusual bunch. Also lots of wealth without "a college degree" types. Look at Palos Verdes and other beach cities for more of the "latte liberal" where there was a swing towards Biden.

Biden really underperformed in Los Angeles County!! It's like all the groups he struggled with - Hispanics in stunning margins from Vernon to Maymood to Cudahy and El Monte... Asians in some areas... and even Armenians in Glendale!

[ottermax]

Los Angeles County, CA results (by city)
                        Biden        Trump
Agoura Hills   63.17%   35.03%   3.75%
Alhambra   70.75%   27.42%   -7.02%
Arcadia   59.84%   38.75%   1.74%
Artesia   61.69%   36.26%   -13.66%
Avalon   59.40%   37.89%   9.88%
Azusa   66.72%   30.97%   -5.59%
Baldwin Park   73.61%   24.33%   -15.71%
Bell   78.94%   18.44%   -15.97%
Bell Gardens   80.10%   18.13%   -17.35%
Bellflower   67.15%   30.43%   -7.64%
Beverly Hills   55.07%   43.86%   -19.97%
Bradbury   51.70%   46.90%   5.58%
Burbank   67.63%   30.35%   -1.81%
Calabasas   63.75%   34.52%   -1.06%
Carson   75.09%   23.08%   -10.79%
Cerritos   62.49%   35.82%   -4.46%
Claremont   68.07%   29.83%   1.94%
Commerce   78.35%   19.37%   -12.35%
Compton   86.58%   11.00%   -11.87%
Covina   60.91%   36.95%   -1.00%
Cudahy   80.01%   16.95%   -16.53%
Culver City   83.25%   14.83%   1.51%
Diamond Bar   58.92%   39.54%   -2.14%
Downey   66.52%   31.39%   -9.06%
Duarte   67.07%   31.00%   -3.22%
El Monte   70.28%   27.91%   -17.96%
El Segundo   63.59%    ]33.96%   6.47%
Gardena   75.38%   22.46%   -10.16%
Glendale   58.93%   39.21%   -11.04%
Glendora   48.57%   49.10%   5.82%
Hawaiian Gardens   72.12%   25.30%   -15.91%
Hawthorne   78.28%   19.39%   -9.35%
Hermosa Beach   69.35%   27.89%   4.91%
Hidden Hills   58.33%   40.18%   -3.10%
Huntington Park   80.91%   17.46%   -15.92%
Industry   45.45%   46.59%   -22.30%
Inglewood   88.62%   9.56%   -6.85%
Irwindale   69.78%   29.35%   -10.51%
La Canada Flintridge   62.18%   36.18%   6.11%
La Habra Heights   43.88%   54.49%   6.22%
La Mirada   53.47%   44.57%   -1.36%
La Puente   73.23%   24.28%   -13.96%
La Verne   50.53%   47.52%   3.71%
Lakewood   60.37%   37.45%   1.02%
Lancaster   57.71%   39.54%   5.88%
Lawndale   72.35%   25.30%   -11.09%
Lomita   58.46%   38.86%   1.41%
Long Beach   72.49%   25.01%   -0.67%
Los Angeles   76.56%   21.43%   -6.96%
Lynwood   82.00%   15.10%   -16.71%
Malibu   66.20%   31.85%   0.04%
Manhattan Beach   66.43%   31.14%   3.53%
Maywood   80.02%   17.20%   -17.33%
Monrovia   65.86%   31.71%   3.00%
Montebello   73.96%   23.92%   -9.61%
Monterey Park   68.09%   30.27%   -7.66%
Norwalk   69.27%   28.42%   -11.79%
Palmdale   63.14%   34.56%   -1.53%
Palos Verdes Estates   54.84%   42.94%   6.42%
Paramount   78.32%   19.14%   -14.43%
Pasadena   77.00%   20.84%   0.06%
Pico Rivera   74.81%   23.24%   -12.13%
Pomona   70.82%   26.64%   -9.32%
Rancho Palos Verdes   57.65%   40.15%   6.40%
Redondo Beach   67.56%   30.25%   5.62%
Rolling Hills   43.02%   54.86%   11.77%
Rolling Hills Estates   55.61%   42.58%   8.24%
Rosemead   66.91%   31.62%   -19.95%
San Dimas   50.27%   47.67%   1.66%
San Fernando   76.59%   21.05%   -11.57%
San Gabriel   66.01%   32.08%   -7.53%
San Marino   59.26%   38.71%   5.00%
Santa Clarita   53.07%   44.93%   4.94%
Santa Fe Springs   67.71%   29.82%   -11.32%
Santa Monica   81.45%   16.76%   -1.07%
Sierra Madre   65.89%   31.55%   5.86%
Signal Hill   73.46%   24.26%   1.45%
South El Monte   73.52%   23.81%   -18.53%
South Gate   78.58%   19.08%   -15.62%
South Pasadena   78.98%   18.80%   3.83%
Temple City   59.98%   38.24%   -1.88%
Torrance   60.23%   37.53%   3.27%
Vernon   68.04%   31.96%   -20.17%
Walnut   61.51%   37.04%   -4.44%
West Covina   65.01%   33.23%   -6.67%
West Hollywood   82.20%   16.42%   -6.75%
Westlake Village   57.51%   40.45%   4.79%
Whittier   62.74%   35.01%   -0.50%

I apologize if I made any errors with the colors anywhere. This is a big one.

There are no real surprises here when you look at overall trends everywhere else. Los Angeles County has a great deal of restaurant and retail jobs in the suburban areas that swung towards Trump, so Trump campaigning on re-opening everything probably helped him a great deal. Most of Biden's gains were in areas with higher white populations.

Thank you for your work on this. Seeing these results are really shocking and I haven't had time to really analyze them... but seeing some of these places like Redondo Beach and other wealthy white areas vote left of some Hispanic cities is rather shocking. Overall it looks like 2016 was a bit of a fluke for Democrats in some areas... but Trump really had some appeal. So curious what everyone else thinks.

[ottermax]

I understand that.  San Marino has become very Asian, but used to be wealthy WASP Republican, while Beverly Hills was dominated by wealthy liberal Jews prior to the influx of Persian Jews.

Affluent Chinese immigrants and their children do not take kindly to being called a virus by a sitting president and members of said president's party.

I've been trying to make sense of the Asian swings - frankly they don't really make sense to me. My impression is that most Asian immigrants are affluent and highly educated but overall as a group they seem to have swung pretty heavily to Trump? Or did Asians also have a wealth / education divide similar to white voters? I know the Vietnamese are anti-communist so that's part of it, but aren't they a small fraction of the overall Asian vote?

The San Marino swing is actually very curious to me too - are the Asians that live there very different than the ones that live in Santa Clara County?

In Santa Clara County, some Asian majority areas swung by double digits to Trump while some stayed about the same or even swung to Biden. The main difference seems to be education levels and ethnicity. Places like Cupertino and west San Jose, which are wealthier, more educated and the Asian population is predominantly Indian or Chinese barely swung to Trump by a couple points.

 On the other side of the valley in Milpitas, which has a much higher Filipino population and the education and income levels are lower, there was a double digit swing to Trump. The Vietnamese areas in San Jose seem to have experienced an even greater swing towards Trump than Milpitas. Though if you go up to Fremont, which is right adjacent to Milpitas, the swing to Trump is again muted at about 3%. That is another city with higher education and income levels, and more Indians and Chinese vs Filipinos or Vietnamese.

There seems to be a similar trend in Hispanic areas based on education. Whittier one of the few higher-education, higher-income Latino areas in the country didn't swing to Trump nearly as strongly as other communities.

[ottermax]

Why didn't places like Long Beach and Whittier swing so hard against Biden like other Hispanic areas? I know they both have smaller hispanic majorities and significant white minorities, so does that have anything to do with it?

Welcome to the forum! I was also wondering about Long Beach- it's one of the more racially diverse cities in Los Angeles County, with relatively even shares of White, Latino, Black, and Asian residents. I think the places that had larger R swings tended to be more racially homogeneous, as well as higher nonwhite populations and lower education levels.

-snip-

There seems to be a similar trend in Hispanic areas based on education. Whittier one of the few higher-education, higher-income Latino areas in the country didn't swing to Trump nearly as strongly as other communities.

I should also note that the relatively weak swing in Whittier might just be because the more conservative white voting population swung toward Biden like it did in neighboring areas of Orange County, counterbalancing the Hispanic swing toward Trump. A precinct-level analysis would be necessary to distinguish this in Whittier. Similarly Long Beach is big so it's difficult to make sense of any swings without more detail.

Looking back the swings just reflect so many of the national trends - it's a shame people don't know more about the intricacies of LA County politics. Seeing a place like Glendora vote similarly and swing alongside Palos Verdes is really odd but makes a lot of sense given national trends. Same with West Hollywood and Huntington Park.... totally different, yet very clear reasons for their sharp swings.

[ottermax]

In LA do you know what the reason for that random Trump +10 precinct in East Hollywood (it was Clinton+21 in 2016 so it's clearly not always an anomalous solidly GOP area)? I did notice that there's a Church of Scientology in the precinct, could that be the reason?

It's either Scientologists or Armenians, probably both.

Why did Armenians swing to Trump anyway?

Yes, I want to know the answer to this also as they voted quite strongly for Clinton, so what made Armenians swing this time?

I do know that when Trump visited in the fall Armenian flags were everywhere along his motorcade route.