California post-election analysis thread

[Aurelius]

Merced and Amador counties, and possibly others, have certified their 2022 election results. I'll be doing some analysis as the totals roll in, mostly comparing 2022 to past results at the city and county level. Others are welcome to join in, of course.

In 2018 Amador voted for Cox 64.5% - Newsom 35.5%. In 2022 Amador voted for Dahle 67.7% - Newsom 32.3%. That's a margin trend of 6.4% rightward.

In 2018 Merced voted for Newsom 52.0% - Cox 48.0%. In 2022 Merced flipped, voting for Dahle 54.4% - Newsom 45.6%. That's a margin trend of 12.8% rightward.

The final votes statewide aren't in yet, but Dahle will finish with 40-41% of the vote, for a 2-3% vote share improvement over Cox and a rightward margin trend of 4-6%.

Neither of the above counties has yet released a SOVC in a user-friendly format where city-level results are tabulated for you. I might do some poking around with precinct results anyway. Some counties release horribly messy SOVCs (looking at you, Imperial) and you just have to wait for the final statewide report to get their city-level data.

I'm especially interested to see the remaining vote out of my own SLO county. Either there's a big redshift in the outstanding vote or it trended in the reverse direction of the rest of the state for some reason.

[Aurelius]

Madera County has posted final results. Dahle wins 64.1% to Newsom's 35.9%. In 2018 Cox won 61.0% to Newsom's 39.0%. 6.2% margin swing rightward. No SOVC yet that I can see.

In 2018 the Madera raw votes were 23488 R - 15037 D for a margin of 8,451. In 2022 Madera raw votes were 23678 R - 13283 D for a margin of 10,395.

[Aurelius]

Really wanna see Gov and Sen by House district to see how sh**tty Newsom and Padilla did.

I can't remember whether the state's final Statement of Votes Cast includes congressional district breakdowns for statewide races. If not we'll have to wait for the data nerds to do their thing.

[Aurelius]

An example of the kind of data I'm looking forward to seeing is on page 5 of this very large PDF.

[Aurelius]

Big vote dump out of SLO County last night, taking it from 74% reported to 89% reported. Bruce Jones now trails Bruce Gibson in the supervisorial race by only 37 votes - before this vote dump he was trailing by a few percentage points. A virtual tie with ~9,000 votes still outstanding. The votes contained a substantial redshift overall, taking Dahle's share from 47% to 49%. I doubt the remaining votes are enough to close the 2,700+ vote gap still remaining, but we'll soon find out.

After the vote dump, SLO has no longer swung leftward from 2018 gov, but it's still much smaller than the rightward swing in most of the rest of the state. There may be more redshift hiding in the last 9k ballots, but even if not, this wouldn't necessarily be surprising. SLO County is the whitest county in Southern California and one of the whiter parts of CA.

[Aurelius]

What is your take on the Orange County, CA results?

1. There are a lot of ancestral Republicans in California, especially in places like Orange County. Downballot Republicans consistently overperform Republican candidates for President and Senate. This gives Republicans a higher floor than in presidential races. (Thus when redistricting it's more useful to look at the 2018 gov numbers than the 2020 prez numbers)
2. 2018 was probably the high water mark for Dems in California. Tons of white suburbanites had fled the GOP already, accelerating from 2016-18, and Hispanic and Asian trends in the opposite direction hadn't really started yet. This, plus some dead-cat-bounce suburban reversion, probably explains the swing from 2018 to 2022. I predict that if the Republicans nominate DeSantis in 2024, he'll get around 37-38% of the vote in California, compared to Trump's 32% and 35%. Trump is harder to predict because it's hard to say how insane he'll be the next few years.

[Aurelius]

Mono County has certified. Newsom defeated Dahle 54.5% to 45.5%, for a 9.0% margin. In 2018 Newsom defeated Cox 55.8% to 44.2% for an 11.6% margin. That's a 2.6% margin swing rightward, which will almost certainly be a smaller rightward swing than the state as a whole, for a leftward trend. However, I can't calculate trends until the state as a whole certifies - there are still a quarter million ballots remaining statewide.

Mono County helpfully broke out the results for their only incorporated municipality, Mammoth Lakes. Newsom beat Dahle 63.2 to 36.8%, for a 26.4% margin. In 2018 Newsom beat Cox 63.9% to 36.1%, for a 27.8% margin. This is only a 1.4% margin swing rightward from 2018 to 2022. Again, almost certainly a leftward trend. Not surprising that a very white tourist town trended leftward compared to the state.

Inyo County also certified. For the county as a whole, Dahle defeated Newsom 54.8% - 45.2%, for a 9.6% margin.  In 2018 Cox defeated Newsom 55.3% to 44.7%, for a 10.6% margin. Thus Inyo County had a 1.0% leftward margin swing, and its leftward trend will be larger once the statewide numbers are finalized. This suggests Inyo's leftward lurch in the 2020 election is here to stay. Like Mono, Inyo is heavily dependent on tourism, but it's much less white.

However, they didn't provide a breakdown by city in the SOVC, so I'll have to calculate the swing for Bishop by manually adding precincts together. That won't happen until I'm back from Thanksgiving travel.

[Aurelius]

Merced County breakdown by municipality. I calculated this in a spreadsheet based on raw vote totals, rounding may result in percentages not adding up perfectly.

Atwater - 57.1% Dahle, 42.9% Newsom. 14.2% R margin. 2018: 51.9% Cox, 48.1% Newsom. 3.8% R margin. 10.4% rightward margin swing.
Dos Palos - 53.8% Dahle, 46.2% Newsom. 7.7% R margin. 2018: 51.4% Cox, 48.6% Newsom. 2.7% R margin. 5.0% rightward margin swing.
Gustine - 57.8% Dahle, 42.2% Newsom. 15.7% R margin. 2018: 51.9% Cox, 48.1% Newsom. 3.8% R margin. 11.9% rightward margin swing.
Livingston: 60.7% Newsom, 39.3% Dahle. 21.5% D margin. 2018: 73.5% Newsom, 26.5% Cox. 46.9% D margin. 25.4% (!!) rightward margin swing.
Los Banos: 53.1% Newsom, 46.9% Dahle. 6.1% D margin. 2018: 58.3% Newsom, 41.7% Cox. 16.7% D margin. 10.6% rightward margin swing.
Merced: 53.9% Newsom, 46.1% Dahle. 7.9% D margin. 2018; 58.3% Newsom, 41.7% Cox. 16.5% D margin. 8.7% rightward margin swing.
Unincorporated - 65.9% Dahle, 34.1% Newsom. 31.9% R margin. 2018: 57.6% Cox, 42.4% Newsom. 15.2% R margin. 16.7% rightward margin swing.

[Aurelius]

City-level data from Amador and Inyo, from adding precincts together. I'm not going to bother doing this manually for larger counties.

Code:

City          Newsom  Dahle  Newsom  Dahle  R Margin  Newsom  Cox    Newsom  Cox    R Margin  R Swing
Bishop        691     568    54.9%   45.1%  -9.8%     675     580    53.8%   46.2%  -7.6%     -2.2%
Uninc. Inyo   2691    3527   43.3%   56.7%  13.4%     2569    3438   42.8%   57.2%  14.5%     -1.0%
Amador City   80      39     67.2%   32.8%  -34.5%    43      28     60.6%   39.4%  -21.1%    -13.3%
Ione          620     1840   25.2%   74.8%  49.6%     428     970    30.6%   69.4%  38.8%     10.8%
Jackson       861     1339   39.1%   60.9%  21.7%     655     807    44.8%   55.2%  10.4%     11.3%
Plymouth      170     361    32.0%   68.0%  36.0%     70      171    29.0%   71.0%  41.9%     -5.9%
Sutter Creek  551     784    41.3%   58.7%  17.5%     400     542    42.5%   57.5%  15.1%     2.4%
Uninc. Amador 3745    8265   31.2%   68.8%  37.6%     1596    2518   38.8%   61.2%  22.4%     15.2%

[Aurelius]

Stanislaus has certified. Dahle beat Newsom 57.8%-42.2% (15.6% R margin). In 2018 Cox squeaked out a narrow win, 50.8%-49.2% (1.6% R margin). That's a 14% margin swing rightward - pretty big. Worth noting that R votes dropped only very slightly, and D votes plummeted. Haven't looked enough at precincts yet to determine how much of this is persuasion vs turnout.

[Aurelius]

Stanislaus city-level results and swings:



Ceres in particular surprised me.

[Aurelius]

As of a couple days ago, the deadline has passed and all ballots have been reported. Many counties have still not posted their SOVCs though. Newsom won 59.2%-40.8%. Dahle's share of the vote exceeded Cox's share of the vote by 2.7% (40.8% vs 38.1%). He flipped five counties: Lake, San Joaquin, Merced, San Bernardino, and Orange. Contrary to my prediction, he did not flip San Luis Obispo. Turnout was significantly lower than in 2018, and the dropoff seems to be especially high in Hispanic areas. Of course, Newsom still won very comfortably, with a margin of slightly over 2 million votes.

Most of the trends were unsurprising - Hispanics shifted hard right, rural whites shifted further right, Asians shifted right but not as fast as Hispanics; affluent UMC suburbs shifted left, especially affluent white suburbs in the Bay Area which shifted hard left, especially relative to the state.

On the other hand, I noticed an interesting counter-trend in two particular types of affluent suburb. The first is "country lifestyle"/horse-oriented places like Bradbury, which actually flipped from Newsom 2018 to Dahle 2022, and Wildomar. These had a pretty strong shift rightward. The other was places that are not simply affluent but rather flat out rich, like Hidden Hills (Dahle came within 1 point of flipping), and Newport Beach. In these, the shift was usually less extreme than in the first group. Beverly Hills also shifted hard right, but that could be due to Iranian Jews in particular.

Note that this trend does not carry over to the Bay Area. For example, affluent Orinda went from 71.0% Newsom in 2018 to 73.8% Newsom in 2022. Uber-rich Atherton went from 59.5% Newsom in 2018 to 62.5% Newsom in 2022.

Actually, looking at the data further, it might simply be that NorCal whites swung left and SoCal whites swung right, but there's also significant data suggesting the opposite - for example, many of the historically deep red suburbs in south/southeast Orange County either swung left or barely swung right, and everything that happened in San Luis Obispo County (which is a bit closer to SoCal than NorCal).

[Aurelius]

This state is becoming red-pilled. I live in San Francisco and voters here are turning on the Democratic Party over concerns about crime and homelessness they've been tricked into thinking are the result of democratic or progressive leadership.

My favorite question to local: any Republicans elected on county and city (>-10000) posts in Bay Area? Perusing 9 counties results i don't see any - Democrats and Indies only.....

The shift largely isn't seen in the Bay Area.  The medium term risk for CA Dems is the rest of the state rising up against the Bay Area.

Any GOP victory or close miss in California would have to result from a regionalist factor. This was already somewhat present in 2022, where the Bay shifted but not as much as the rest of the state. It would have to pit a left-wing Bay Area figure against a popular SoCal figure in a Dem midterm.

Ro Khanna or Kounalakis vs. Mike Garcia in 2026 after Biden wins is the best matchup the GOP could get. They would need someone with Bay Area slime like Khanna that is easy to paint as a too Silicon-Valley oriented and alien to the rest of the state.

And the GOP would still be lucky to lose by 12. California is probably glacially trending right, but that doesn't mean it's going to be a competitive state anytime soon.

[Aurelius]

Wow no wonder Democrats lost the congressional race there. Really awful results for Democrats in Stanislaus County which doesn't surprise me given my anecdotal experiences there, but it demographically is surprising given general trends of tech worker exodus from the Bay Area. Maybe those who are moving to the Central Valley represent more anti-establishment voters?

Then again Newsom is just a terrible fit for the Central Valley and Southern California overall so it may just be him.

It was my perception that tech workers are moving more into San Joaquin County than Stanislaus. Josh Harder did well in San Joaquin, and that may be a reason, but Stanislaus was quite bad for Dems this cycle.

How far from the Bay would tech workers actually live? If you're living in Tracy, you're already pushing the daily commute limit and it's still a lot for the occasional commute. Someone living in Modesto would have to be near remote, in which case they might want to live somewhere more amenable than Modesto.

Obviously this is only my personal perspective - but all the people I know from Modesto are Bay Area commuters or formerly commuters (now work remotely full or part-time). However these are all conservatives who sought out Modesto to get away from the Bay Area while still having amenities such as good schools, access to medical care, etc.

I agree that Tracy and maybe Manteca are the outer limits of daily commuters - but parts of Stanislaus County like Salida are definitely drawing commuters. Obviously not enough at this point to overpower the other trends that are occurring.

https://www.protocol.com/silicon-valley-tech-shuttles

All that being said - every metro area has its exurbs that tend to be quite strongly GOP relative to the core city. The Bay Area is one of the few places that doesn't really see this trend in any direction except in Oakley, parts of San Joaquin County, and I would argue Stanislaus County as well. It just surprises me that this area is trending so strongly towards the GOP relative to other exurban areas in CA like Placer County or the Inland Empire.

Stanislaus County is not in any meaningful sense a Bay Area exurb. Outside of maybe Patterson, Bay Area commuters are only a tiny minority. The economy is mostly a typical Central Valley ag-based economy.

The Salida bus mentioned in the article you linked is for blue-collar workers at Tesla's factory, whose starting pay when the article was published was $19 an hour. Tech workers are going to be making a lot money than this, and therefore tech supercommuters presumably live closer to the Bay than places like Salida. (plus, tech workers mostly work 9-5 or similar. The hour-and-a-half journey from Salida to Fremont for the 4am shift involves no traffic. It would take twice as long during normal commute times.) I imagine the blue-collar workers at Tesla's factory who live in the Valley are much more conservative than the techies who live in the Valley.

Stanislaus city-level results and swings:



Ceres in particular surprised me.

Wow no wonder Democrats lost the congressional race there. Really awful results for Democrats in Stanislaus County which doesn't surprise me given my anecdotal experiences there, but it demographically is surprising given general trends of tech worker exodus from the Bay Area. Maybe those who are moving to the Central Valley represent more anti-establishment voters?

Then again Newsom is just a terrible fit for the Central Valley and Southern California overall so it may just be him.

It was my perception that tech workers are moving more into San Joaquin County than Stanislaus. Josh Harder did well in San Joaquin, and that may be a reason, but Stanislaus was quite bad for Dems this cycle.

How far from the Bay would tech workers actually live? If you're living in Tracy, you're already pushing the daily commute limit and it's still a lot for the occasional commute. Someone living in Modesto would have to be near remote, in which case they might want to live somewhere more amenable than Modesto.

Stanislaus County probably actually has fewer Bay Area commuters than either of San Joaquin or Merced counties. In Merced County, Los Banos is a fast-growing town that's become a bedroom community for South Bay supercommuters.

The Central Valley is mostly a mix of Hispanics and downscale rural/exurban whites - both GOP-trending groups - in an agriculture-oriented economy. That's all the ingredients for a rapid rightward trend nowadays.

[Aurelius]

Most of the trends were unsurprising - Hispanics shifted hard right, rural whites shifted further right, Asians shifted right but not as fast as Hispanics; affluent UMC suburbs shifted left, especially affluent white suburbs in the Bay Area which shifted hard left, especially relative to the state.

Actually, looking at the data further, it might simply be that NorCal whites swung left and SoCal whites swung right, but there's also significant data suggesting the opposite - for example, many of the historically deep red suburbs in south/southeast Orange County either swung left or barely swung right, and everything that happened in San Luis Obispo County (which is a bit closer to SoCal than NorCal).

What were the raw vote counts and percentages from 2018, 2020-PRES, and 2022 for: East San Jose, Cupertino, Milpitas, Fremont, Daly City, Oakland, Vallejo, the Excelsior and Sunset Districts/neighborhoods of San Francisco, Rancho Cordova, Folsom, Fresno, Hacienda Heights, Arcadia, Rosemead, Torrance, Long Beach, Signal Hill, Irvine, Riverside, La Jolla, Poway, and National City?

I’m also curious what if any shifts there were among Hmong in the Central Valley and among San Diego Asians, and to what extent there were turnout/persuasion shifts among the Chicanos of LA County, the Inland Empire, and San Diego.

The way California counties report results makes it easier to determine results for cities than for neighborhoods of cities. Some counties have also not yet released granular results (some counties don't release their Statement of Votes Cast right away after certifying, and a few don't post these documents on their website at all), or have released them in such a messy way I haven't yet been able to make sense of it. Some municipalities will probably have to wait until the state SOS office releases the Supplement to the Statement of Votes Cast in a few months. Here's what I have so far:



If you want to take a look at Fresno's 4,500 page Statement of Votes Cast or San Diego's 80 MB Excel spreadsheet, have fun I guess.