2016 in California: Why did Clinton do better than Obama or Biden?

[Skill and Chance]

Before 2020, you could just say that it was because the state was trending Dem, but now it's a legitimate conundrum why the Democrat with the lowest PV margin of the past 4 elections did the best in the largest state.  Who were the Romney->Clinton->Trump voters in CA?  It also seems there was a ton of Romney->3rd Party->Trump.  Who were they?

[支持核绿派 (Greens4Nuclear)]

I don’t think there were that many actual Romney-HRC-Trump voters. There are only so many Boomer Vietnamese refugees out there who normally vote R but perceived Hillary to be the more “conservative”/status quo choice. (This probably extends to other Asians, Mexicans, and other cultural/ethnic subgroups of note, so maybe there was a noticeable effect if you combine nonwhites/mixed race + Armenians + Persian Jews?)

The raw vote numbers at the precinct level (at least in heavily Latino and Asian urban/suburban areas) don’t suggest there were net HRC-Trump voters on balance. Biden didn’t really lose voters from 2016, it’s just that Trump gained.

Romney-3rd party-Trump might be different.

[Mr. Smith]

Only by margin, Biden still had the better raw percentage number, just like Romney still has the best raw percentage in NC.

[Chips]

Only by margin, Biden still had the better raw percentage number, just like Romney still has the best raw percentage in NC.

And the only majority in NC.

[Sir Mohamed]

Because Mr. Trump was a horrible fit for the state.

[Alcibiades]

Because Mr. Trump was a horrible fit for the state.

Doesn’t explain why Hillary got a larger margin than Biden.

Anyway, to answer the question it was basically a case of Biden’s gains among white voters (among whom Hillary had near maxed out) were smaller than his losses amongst various minority groups.

[Bootes Void]

-peak college educated white support along with Asians/Latinos support as well

[Sir Mohamed]

Because Mr. Trump was a horrible fit for the state.

Doesn’t explain why Hillary got a larger margin than Biden.

Anyway, to answer the question it was basically a case of Biden’s gains among white voters (among whom Hillary had near maxed out) were smaller than his losses amongst various minority groups.

Because a modest number of right-leaning voters couldn't bring themselves to vote for Trump and flocked to 3rd parties, especially Johnson. 3rd parties were much weaker in 2020, and Biden still increased HRC's vote share.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

My guess is that white voters in California continued to trend D in 2016, and Hillary's relatively strong support among Latinos got her over the 30% margin. Biden lost a lot of that Obama-Clinton Latino support and saw the margin go down.

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

For a state plenty of folks here considered "maxed out for Dems", there certainly seems to be a lot of (slightly) overblown analysis & questions regarding California 2020.

[SevenEleven]

Clinton did worse than Biden in California. Trump improving on his own 2016 numbers has nothing to do with the fact that a larger share of California voters cast a ballot for Biden than did for HRC.

[Calthrina950]

Across most of California, Biden did better than either Clinton or Obama. The only exceptions to this seem to be Imperial County (where he received a lower percentage than either of them) and Los Angeles County (where he roughly approximated Clinton's performance)-indicators, perhaps, of the Hispanic swing to Trump. Biden compensated for this by doing much better than the previous two nominees among white voters. He became the first Democrat since Roosevelt to break 60% in San Diego County, and flipped Inyo County, which neither Clinton or Obama ever won.

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

To add on to the above, amongst the counties that swung to Trump:


Counties where Biden improved on Obama/Clinton percentage & Trump improved on his 2016 percentage (But not McCain/Romney): Alameda, Colusa, Merced, San Francisco, San Joaquin, Sutter, Yolo

County where Biden did better than Obama (but not Clinton) & Trump improved on his 2016 percentage (But not McCain/Romney): Los Angeles, Santa Clara

County where Biden did better than Clinton (but not Obama) & Trump improved on his 2016 percentage (But not McCain/Romney): Stanislaus

Counties where Biden did worse than Obama/Clinton & Trump improved on McCain/Romney/2016 percentage: Calaveras, Imperial, Lassen


Biden did better than Obama & Clinton. It's just that Trump improved more from the abysmal bar he set himself in 2016.

When you break it down on the county-level, I'd be much more concerned for the GOP's position than the Dems right now. Clinton "did better" than Biden by a whopping 0.8% margin despite swings in LA & SF Bay. The Dem vote is becoming more spread out and you'd be a fool for thinking improvement in Imperial County + dead cat bounces in LA & SF are a worthy trade-off for growing Dem margins in formerly-GOP San Diego, Orange, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Fresno, San Bernardino & Riverside Counties.

And hell, all this talk about SF/LA/Imperial ignores the fact that Trump won Kern County & Bakersfield by the closest margin since 1976. That is as big of a warning sign for the CA GOP's current predicament as I've ever seen. Where's all the threads about that?

[Calthrina950]

Only by margin, Biden still had the better raw percentage number, just like Romney still has the best raw percentage in NC.

And the only majority in NC.

Aside from Romney, George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 is the only other candidate to receive a majority in North Carolina since the 1980s, and is the last to win the state by double digits.