Why did Clinton do so well in Orange County,CA?

[Cyrusman]

She did WAY better in Orange County than Obama both time. Even in 2008 when Obama was winning states like Indiana and North Carolina he still lost Orange County.

[Politician]

Because of demographic changes.

[Mr. Smith]

She did WAY better in Orange County than Obama both time. Even in 2008 when Obama was winning states like Indiana and North Carolina he still lost Orange County.

He barely lost it that time, and Trump was just not a good fit for the area. Someone like Cruz or Rubio would've defeated Hillary easily there [though not necessarily have won the election overall] and probably landed a different outcome in 2018.

[Pericles]

[TDAS04]

Same reasons Clinton outperformed Obama in DuPage County, IL.

[Ilhan Apologist]

Her opponent was Donald Trump

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Better question: why did Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama do so poorly in Orange County, California?

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

She did WAY better in Orange County than Obama both time. Even in 2008 when Obama was winning states like Indiana and North Carolina he still lost Orange County.

Even in 2008, Obama still failed to even prevent McCain from taking a majority.

[Some of My Best Friends Are Gay]

Better question: why did Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama do so poorly in Orange County, California?

Because it's a historically very Republican county, and H.W, Dole, Dubya, McCain and Romney were all good fits for the county, to varying degrees.

Trump's sheer unpopularity with suburban voters and Hispanic and Asian voters (two large blocs here) really caused the dam to break in 2016, and now I don't think my county will vote Republican for president at any point in the near future.

[lfromnj]

She did WAY better in Orange County than Obama both time. Even in 2008 when Obama was winning states like Indiana and North Carolina he still lost Orange County.

Even in 2008, Obama still failed to even prevent McCain from taking a majority.

Vietnamese vote saved him.

Turns out calling em the G word gets them to vote for you.

[Gracile]

Better question: why did Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama do so poorly in Orange County, California?

The demographics of Orange County had not shifted to the point where a Democrat could win, and the GOP candidates ran on more traditional fiscally conservative platforms that resonated with voters in the county at the time.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

She did WAY better in Orange County than Obama both time. Even in 2008 when Obama was winning states like Indiana and North Carolina he still lost Orange County.

Even in 2008, Obama still failed to even prevent McCain from taking a majority.

Vietnamese vote saved him.

Turns out calling em the G word gets them to vote for you.

Wow; apparently, the Vietnamese American vote went from 67% for McCain in 2008 to 54% for Romney in 2012 to 32% for Trump in 2016. Fast shifting demographic.

[RINO Tom]

Better question: why did Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama do so poorly in Orange County, California?

The demographics of Orange County had not shifted to the point where a Democrat could win, and the GOP candidates ran on more traditional fiscally conservative platforms that resonated with voters in the county at the time.

Exactly.  People underestimate how statistically little has to change for the end result to look drastically different.  When you take an evenly slightly significant demographic change and give it four more years every time and then ALSO have a decent shift in former Republican-voting people, you will actually have a very large swing once those two things are added together.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Better question: why did Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama do so poorly in Orange County, California?

The demographics of Orange County had not shifted to the point where a Democrat could win, and the GOP candidates ran on more traditional fiscally conservative platforms that resonated with voters in the county at the time.

Exactly.  People underestimate how statistically little has to change for the end result to look drastically different.  When you take an evenly slightly significant demographic change and give it four more years every time and then ALSO have a decent shift in former Republican-voting people, you will actually have a very large swing once those two things are added together.

Orange County was not behaving really anything like that. It was alternating from 2000-2016 at least between having a large Democratic trend and a small Republican trend each time. Look at the trend maps for 2012 and 2004 in the County on atlas for example. Based on wikipedia, this alternating trend sequence goes back to 1992.

[lfromnj]

She did WAY better in Orange County than Obama both time. Even in 2008 when Obama was winning states like Indiana and North Carolina he still lost Orange County.

Even in 2008, Obama still failed to even prevent McCain from taking a majority.

Vietnamese vote saved him.

Turns out calling em the G word gets them to vote for you.

Wow; apparently, the Vietnamese American vote went from 67% for McCain in 2008 to 54% for Romney in 2012 to 32% for Trump in 2016. Fast shifting demographic.

Yeah Mccain had some really good ties with the Vietnamese community. Fighting in South Vietnam helps when they are mostly an anti communist demographic. One of the craziest shifts.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

She did WAY better in Orange County than Obama both time. Even in 2008 when Obama was winning states like Indiana and North Carolina he still lost Orange County.

Even in 2008, Obama still failed to even prevent McCain from taking a majority.

Vietnamese vote saved him.

Turns out calling em the G word gets them to vote for you.

Wow; apparently, the Vietnamese American vote went from 67% for McCain in 2008 to 54% for Romney in 2012 to 32% for Trump in 2016. Fast shifting demographic.

Yeah Mccain had some really good ties with the Vietnamese community. Fighting in South Vietnam helps when they are mostly an anti communist demographic. One of the craziest shifts.

I do not understand why fighting in South Vietnam would help a candidate with the Vietnamese-American vote honestly. South Vietnam was just as much a dictatorship as North Vietnam was, if not worse.

[RINO Tom]

Better question: why did Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama do so poorly in Orange County, California?

The demographics of Orange County had not shifted to the point where a Democrat could win, and the GOP candidates ran on more traditional fiscally conservative platforms that resonated with voters in the county at the time.

Exactly.  People underestimate how statistically little has to change for the end result to look drastically different.  When you take an evenly slightly significant demographic change and give it four more years every time and then ALSO have a decent shift in former Republican-voting people, you will actually have a very large swing once those two things are added together.

Orange County was not behaving really anything like that. It was alternating from 2000-2016 at least between having a large Democratic trend and a small Republican trend each time. Look at the trend maps for 2012 and 2004 in the County on atlas for example. Based on wikipedia, this alternating trend sequence goes back to 1992.

I just mean in general.  Assume Random Stereotypical White and Affluent Suburban County A has the following characteristics:

75% White, 25% Minorities in 2008
60% White, 40% Minorities in 2016

Whites vote 65% GOP and 35% DEM consistently in all three elections
Minorities vote 70% DEM and 30% GOP consistently in all three elections

This is not an outrageous example, as Gwinnett County, GA got 20% less White between 2000 and 2010.  In the example above, this demographic change ALONE takes you from a near-15% win for the GOP in 2008 to 4% win for the GOP in 2016.  That is a staggering *TREND*.  If you factor even the tiniest bit of White Republicans defecting and/or being replaced by Millennials in the voting pool, you have a pretty damn easy switch.

[Lu Xun]

She did WAY better in Orange County than Obama both time. Even in 2008 when Obama was winning states like Indiana and North Carolina he still lost Orange County.

Even in 2008, Obama still failed to even prevent McCain from taking a majority.

Vietnamese vote saved him.

Turns out calling em the G word gets them to vote for you.

Wow; apparently, the Vietnamese American vote went from 67% for McCain in 2008 to 54% for Romney in 2012 to 32% for Trump in 2016. Fast shifting demographic.

Yeah Mccain had some really good ties with the Vietnamese community. Fighting in South Vietnam helps when they are mostly an anti communist demographic. One of the craziest shifts.

I do not understand why fighting in South Vietnam would help a candidate with the Vietnamese-American vote honestly. South Vietnam was just as much a dictatorship as North Vietnam was, if not worse.

The leadership of the Vietnamese American community is made of basically people who were closely tied to the South Vietnamese government or at least fiercely in opposition to the North Vietnamese one.  There are even right-wing nationalist terrorist groups that operate openly in Vietnamese American communities. 

While many of the refugees were just average people looking for an escape from poverty, the Vietnamese American vote as a whole has historically been pretty similar to the Cuban American one, driven largely by anti-communism.  Fortunately this is changing as a new generation emerges and new immigrants come from Vietnam.

[Sumner 1868]

Clinton won neighborhoods with median incomes over $250000 by twenty points. Democrats are the new party of the upper class.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/27/upshot/white-voters-precinct-analysis.html

[RINO Tom]

Demographic changes + Romney voters dying off en masse since 2012

Not sure if this is a joke based off my post, but my point is the vast majority of Romney voters in wealthy suburban counties across the country were Trump voters.  It only takes a relatively small chunk defecting or staying home plus continued demographic change to make a very big difference.

[MT Treasurer]

Demographic changes + Romney voters dying off en masse since 2012

Not sure if this is a joke based off my post, but my point is the vast majority of Romney voters in wealthy suburban counties across the country were Trump voters.  It only takes a relatively small chunk defecting or staying home plus continued demographic change to make a very big difference.

Well, that’s obviously true, but did anyone really deny this? Anyway, I wouldn’t say that only a small chunk defected in 2016 given the absurdly large D swing from 2012. The county also swung + trended R in 2012, so I’m not sure if continued demographic change was the most relevant reason here like you seem to suggest.

[RINO Tom]

Demographic changes + Romney voters dying off en masse since 2012

Not sure if this is a joke based off my post, but my point is the vast majority of Romney voters in wealthy suburban counties across the country were Trump voters.  It only takes a relatively small chunk defecting or staying home plus continued demographic change to make a very big difference.

Well, that’s obviously true, but did anyone really deny this? Anyway, I wouldn’t say that only a small chunk defected in 2016 given the absurdly large D swing from 2012. The county also swung + trended R in 2012, so I’m not sure if continued demographic change was the most relevant reason here like you seem to suggest.

First of all, I was not simply talking about Orange County.  As someone pointed out above, a huge part of OC was also Vietnamese voters abandoning Trump like no Republican before him.  Obviously, there were enough Romney-Clinton voters in OC to make for a big swing, but I think I did a pretty good job showing how even the tiniest siphoning off of Romney voters to Clinton's side makes for a giant swing (when coupled with demographic change and generational turnover).  I feel like you are insinuating that wealthy Whites in Orange County went from like 60/40 Trump to 60/40 Clinton, and if that were the case she would have won the county by a LOT more.  Period.  It is just a matter of statistics.  Trump still won White voters with a majority in Orange County, and he didn't do it simply by winning, like, 100% of *White Working Class* voters in the county.

You'll roll your eyes and deflect and throw out the line "it's not about what I WANT to happen" again, but I'm simply telling you that it comes across like you strongly prefer a nice, clean political alignment of working class, rural Republicans vs. cosmopolitan Democrats (and the minorities they graciously shepherd to enlightenment), and because of this you simply make jokes out of the legitimate underlying factors that help explain the story a lot more; isn't digging deeper than "D+7 state in Trump midterm!!!!" what this site is all about?  Isn't it here for people who want to look at things a bit more analytically?  To see the amount of effort you put into a post about New Hampshire or Montana or something and then to simply drop into topics like these to make fun of those who challenge the Atlas status quo on everyone's favorite topic of 2016/2018 trends without giving them the legitimate, well-reasoned responses that they are throwing out there indicates you would rather leave it at the surface level.  "County voted for Romney and then for Clinton, so it is stock full of Romney-Clinton voters" is incredibly lazy analysis and a complete disregard of how statistics work.  Now, before you say anything, I did not say you said that; I am saying that when you leave your post at a one sentence jab, that is what you imply.

(Disclaimer: should be obvious, but this next section is not talking about Orange County specifically.)
 Since I missed your first question: no, no one explicitly, in black and white language, *denied* that a majority of wealthy, White Romney voters were Trump voters, too ... but by solely focusing on TRENDS and acting as if they will last forever, you are effectively treating deep red counties as Democratic turf simply because they're less Republican than they were and you predict them to continue to be that way.  This is why people get annoyed with all of the trends talk; it only matters so much that Hamilton County, IN voted by only 6% for Mike Braun compared to its landslide margins of the past ... it's still a Republican county, and it is not referred to that way.  Hamilton voted GOP while all of the "WWC" counties in NW Indiana voted Democratic and it voted as Republican or to the right of "WWC" areas like Evansville and Fort Wayne, yet I am guessing someone on this site would assume a White guy from Hamilton County is more likely to be a Democrat than someone from Porter County simply because of our stereotypes of Trump voters and obsession with Obama-Trump and Romney-Clinton defectors.

I am not denying the trends of 2016 and 2018 and their potential to continue; I AM denying that it can be explained solely with people changing their party preference, as it quite obviously cannot.