California: 2nd* Most Democratic State

[politicallefty]

As it stands right now, California is the 2nd most Democratic state in the country, with Hillary Clinton at 61.5% and Donald Trump at 33.2%. Hillary's percentage and margin are the highest for a Democrat since 1936, when FDR won every county and carried the state with a supermajority. With at least 4.4 million votes to count (not including what's remaining out of San Diego County), I think Hillary will cross 62% and maybe even 63% (conceivably being the most Democratic state in the nation). I would not rule out a 2-1 margin in California, which (other than the anomalous 1912 election) would be the worst Republican performance in California since before the Civil War, if not ever. Her performance in the state has easily exceeded Barack Obama in either of his elections.

For the first time since 1936, a Democrat has won Orange County, and so far by at least a 5% margin. I just want to point out how much California has rejected Trump by noting some county results, which are almost insane by any historical standards:

Orange County: 49.9-44.7
Los Angeles: 71.5-23.4
San Diego: 55.9-38.9
San Francisco: 85.3-9.9
Alameda: 79.5-15.1
Santa Clara: 73.3-23.3
Marin: 78.9-16.1

If you know anything about California politics, you'd know these kind of numbers are unheard of. And if history tells us anything, the remaining vote will increase the Democratic margins even more. I know a lot of people, including myself, were predicting a Hillary win in Orange County, but did anyone predict at least a 5% margin and what will probably end up being an absolute majority when all votes are counted?

And for all those that talking about a high third party vote, Gary Johnson stands at 3.2% and Jill Stein at 1.7%. I don't consider either of those to be particularly impressive.

[politicallefty]

This is mostly because Vermont had a lot of Sanders write-ins.

The NYT results has Hillary at 61.1% in Vermont. Dave's counting of write-ins is sort of arbitrary and weird, especially considering how we do predictions. Granted, my predictions were far off this year, but any other source would have validated my >60% D prediction for Vermont.

Just to update the counties from above:

Orange County: 51.0-43.3
Los Angeles: 71.4-23.4
San Diego: 56.1-38.1
San Francisco: 85.6-9.4
Alameda: 79.4-14.8
Santa Clara: 73.3-20.9
Marin: 78.15.9

Those are all historical margins.

[politicallefty]

The Dem margin of victory in CA is only surpassed by the 1936 FDR landslide.

That's interesting because the most Republican county in California now was the most Democratic county back then: Lassen County.

Another interesting fact that CA has trended Dem every election since and including 2000.  Same is true for VA.  This result is a long time coming.

That may be true, but it seems like the trend has massively accelerated this year. If Texas had experienced this sort of shift, it might have flipped.

With the exception of the anomalous 1912 election, Trump's vote total for a Republican in San Francisco is the lowest since 1908 (and even lower than 1904). In terms of actual percentage, it is the worst ever and Hillary's percentage is the best ever in a presidential election.

To update from above once again:

Orange County: 51.4-42.8
Los Angeles: 71.22.8
San Diego: 56.5-37.5
San Francisco: 85.6-9.3
Alameda: 79.4-14.8
Santa Clara: 73.4-20.8
Marin: 78.15.7

Hillary's margin of victory in Orange County is just under 100k. Even in San Diego County, the margin from four years ago has gone from 7.5% to 18% and from 90k to 230k. Both of those are unprecedented margins.

[politicallefty]

A lot of upset Californians want to secede now. The same thing happened in Texas in 2012. I know they won't actually leave, but I'd support letting them go. I think California is large enough to do it (so is Texas, but I'd like them to stay for their oil).

It would be interesting to see what new parties would form in an independent country of California. I suspect you would see the democrats dividing on racial lines like how they did in the Senate race. Harris won every group by far except for hispanics. Republicans would likely morph into a single-issue center-right party focused on rejoining the US.

That's a valid point, but Obama had numbers far higher than Trump has in California. And, to be perfectly honest, I personally would vote for California independence. But if the state were to ever leave, I couldn't really foresee a party movement to reverse that decision.

As to your second point, we may be seeing the buddings of something along those lines. As a state becomes a one-party state, the other party breaks down and the larger party grows to the point of having multiple factions. We're not there yet, but California has seen the Democratic Party registration grow from about 8% (or 1.3 million) in 2003 to 19% this year (about 3.7 million voters). With the Democratic Supermajority back in place, we'll have to see what happens.

TBH, if there had been a Republican senatorial candidate, more Republicans would have been willing to cast a ballot...

I don't know about that. How many people do you know that would actually think that?

If you compare apples to apples, Hawaii without write-ins and California without write-ins, California is indeed the most Democratic state in the nation by a very slim margin.