1960 study on the demographics of California's political parties

[OSR stands with Israel]

Some things are similar to how things are today, including age and religious party preferences (mostly). But, this is what stood out to me the most: Have some college: Republican- 46% Democrat- 25%

Well remember much of the educational gap is an age gap as now you have to go to college to get a good job while it wasn’t true before so many middle class voters over 40 are non college educated due to that

[OSR stands with Israel]

Very interesting. The immediate post-New Deal era was the closest the US ever got to class-based voting. How did you happen to come across this?

I am no expert on this, but I would say this was especially the case in "newer" areas, like many in California, where regional and historical ties were weakest.  For example, the GOP pretty clearly won plenty of working class voters in places like the Great Plains states and rural Vermont, while I am guessing there was a sizable upper-middle class Democratic bloc in major cities, especially somewhere like New York.  However, I imagine a state like California would have had one of the biggest class divides between the two parties at this point, as it was truly a different place than it is now.  I am always reminded of the song The Last Resort by The Eagles, which paints a not-so-complimentary picture of California as somewhat of a materialistic, right-wing escape and ground zero for environmental damage for the sake of capitalism.  Crazy how it just might be the most liberal state in the nation now.

I don't think it's that crazy. When I try to imagine 1960s-1980s California, the image that pops into my head is a place full of hippies, stoners, and surfers. Not exactly a conservative crowd. California may have been politically conservative at the state or national level, but culturally I get the sense that it was always a bit "out there". In the movie Taxi Driver, there's a scene where one of the cab drivers talks about how he doesn't like having to drive around gay people in his taxi and remarks that they should "go to California" because "they're way ahead out there." That was in 1976, and already there was this idea of California as some freewheeling progressive hotspot. It's not for nothing that one of the first nationally prominent gay politicians, Harvey Milk, was from there.

California was socially liberal but it was not economically, culturally liberal or liberal on national secuirty.

California was extremely anti tax, hardline on crime issues, and very conservative on immigration too.


Much of this was due to the "Wild Wild Left" culture

[OSR stands with Israel]

Very interesting. The immediate post-New Deal era was the closest the US ever got to class-based voting. How did you happen to come across this?

I am no expert on this, but I would say this was especially the case in "newer" areas, like many in California, where regional and historical ties were weakest.  For example, the GOP pretty clearly won plenty of working class voters in places like the Great Plains states and rural Vermont, while I am guessing there was a sizable upper-middle class Democratic bloc in major cities, especially somewhere like New York.  However, I imagine a state like California would have had one of the biggest class divides between the two parties at this point, as it was truly a different place than it is now.  I am always reminded of the song The Last Resort by The Eagles, which paints a not-so-complimentary picture of California as somewhat of a materialistic, right-wing escape and ground zero for environmental damage for the sake of capitalism.  Crazy how it just might be the most liberal state in the nation now.

I don't think it's that crazy. When I try to imagine 1960s-1980s California, the image that pops into my head is a place full of hippies, stoners, and surfers. Not exactly a conservative crowd. California may have been politically conservative at the state or national level, but culturally I get the sense that it was always a bit "out there". In the movie Taxi Driver, there's a scene where one of the cab drivers talks about how he doesn't like having to drive around gay people in his taxi and remarks that they should "go to California" because "they're way ahead out there." That was in 1976, and already there was this idea of California as some freewheeling progressive hotspot. It's not for nothing that one of the first nationally prominent gay politicians, Harvey Milk, was from there.

The people who dominated elections though were not that Progressive crowd, at least until the 1990s.

The people who dominated the elections were older, much more conservative and more Republican and they were augmented by droves of people moving in from the Midwest.

Quite true. A lot of those hippie types were probably non-voters, or too stoned to care. Regardless of politics, they are what one thinks of when one thinks of California in those years, so I suppose they were more successful in shaping California in the popular imagination.

Very interesting. The immediate post-New Deal era was the closest the US ever got to class-based voting. How did you happen to come across this?

I am no expert on this, but I would say this was especially the case in "newer" areas, like many in California, where regional and historical ties were weakest.  For example, the GOP pretty clearly won plenty of working class voters in places like the Great Plains states and rural Vermont, while I am guessing there was a sizable upper-middle class Democratic bloc in major cities, especially somewhere like New York.  However, I imagine a state like California would have had one of the biggest class divides between the two parties at this point, as it was truly a different place than it is now.  I am always reminded of the song The Last Resort by The Eagles, which paints a not-so-complimentary picture of California as somewhat of a materialistic, right-wing escape and ground zero for environmental damage for the sake of capitalism.  Crazy how it just might be the most liberal state in the nation now.

I don't think it's that crazy. When I try to imagine 1960s-1980s California, the image that pops into my head is a place full of hippies, stoners, and surfers. Not exactly a conservative crowd. California may have been politically conservative at the state or national level, but culturally I get the sense that it was always a bit "out there". In the movie Taxi Driver, there's a scene where one of the cab drivers talks about how he doesn't like having to drive around gay people in his taxi and remarks that they should "go to California" because "they're way ahead out there." That was in 1976, and already there was this idea of California as some freewheeling progressive hotspot. It's not for nothing that one of the first nationally prominent gay politicians, Harvey Milk, was from there.

California was socially liberal but it was not economically, culturally liberal or liberal on national secuirty.

California was extremely anti tax, hardline on crime issues, and very conservative on immigration too.


Much of this was due to the "Wild Wild Left" culture

I just described what I thought to be quite a liberal culture, so I don't see how they weren't culturally liberal. California was also home to a large anti-nuclear and pacifist movement, so I'm not sure how conservative or not they were on national security. Regardless, it's rather meaningless to make sweeping generalizations about a state so large and diverse. In such a place, there can be all sorts of conflicting and contradictory ideologies present at once. It all depends on where in the state you are. San Francisco was one of the most liberal places in the country, while Orange County was fanatically right-wing. There was even talk of an "Orange Curtain" separating Orange County and Los Angeles at the time.

Most of the people lived in SoCal though which was extremely right wing .


California was culturally conservative in a way that they were hardline on crime , and for stronger immigration enforcement