California post-election analysis thread

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Also decided to see how Chen did, seems like he really did improve his post primary vote share by a decent amount. Currently losing by a tad under 11. Basically there seems to be little no overperformance of Dahle in Inland counties but he did improve in coastal/bay area counties .  The biggest overperformance of Dahle seems to be actually San Francisco where he nearly doubled Dahle's vote share from 14.6 to 24.1.  He still overperformed in Coastal Socal by a few points but not by much.

There's a scattering of SF precicnts in the SW and SE which are the most Asian along with the Marina district where Chen got to the lower 40's.

I remember hearing the argument that people should vote for Chen because it's better to have a member of the opposite party in a non-policy setting auditing role. No idea how many votes that swayed but it's food for thought.

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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.

1 should be fairly obvious to the kind of person who'd be on Atlas, especially if they're 🇺🇸.

Agree with 2 given the domestic population decline we've seen in CA in the last several years (thankful for Abdullah and his PG&D threads on this topic!) I definitely buy the hot take that demographically more D-favoring segments of the Latino and Asian CVAP would be more inclined to move out of the state; this is probably starting to show up in Southland voting trends.

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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.

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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:

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

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.

So Dahle's 2022 raw vote count was lower than Cox's 2018 numbers everywhere. Newsom got 15-25% less votes than in 2018 in most places (dropoff was smaller in wealthier and more educated places)

Bay Area-

Fremont (Alameda, $112k median household income [$51k-$196k], 60.1% college+ [7.0% <HS], 56% Asian (23.5% Indian, 18% ethnic Chinese) + 22% White + 13% Latino (10% Mexican)): 2022 percentage margin 1-2% more R than 2018 but overall turnout down at all levels. Gubernatorial 70-30ish, but 74-25ish Biden

Daly City (San Mateo, $79k median household income [$36k-$142k], 44.3% college+ [14.4% <HS], 57% Asian (32% Filipino, 19% Chinese) + 23% Latino + 13% White): 2022 percentage margin 1-2% more R than 2018 but overall turnout down at all levels. 78-22 Newsom 2018 and Biden 2020 but 76-23 Newsom 2022 (wonder how much of this shift could be mediated by Chinese moving in from SF)

Vallejo (Solano, $60k median household income [$23k-$112k], 34.5% college+ [12.7% <HS], 25% White + 24% Asian (20% Filipino) + 23% Latino (17% Mexican) + 22% Black): 2022 percentage margin 1-2% more R than 2018 but overall turnout down at all levels. Gubernatorial 77-23 to 75-25, Biden 78-22

LA County-

Arcadia (San Gabriel Valley, $84k median household income [$30k-$169k], 60.7% college+ [8.1% <HS], 59% Asian (44.5% ethnic Chinese, 3.7% Korean, 2.5% Filipino) + 23.5% White + 12% Latino): 2022 percentage margin 1-2% more R than 2018. 53-47 to 52-48.

Rosemead (San Gabriel Valley, $45.5k median household income [$20k-$90k], 22.8% college+ [34.4% <HS], 60% Asian (36% Chinese, 14% Vietnamese, 4% Mixed) + 34.5% Latino (30% Mexican) + 4% White): the 2018-2022 R swing invovled a 8% drop in R turnout and a 30% drop in D turnout. Newsom's 2022 %tage was close to Biden 2020 (66-67%)

Torrance (South County, $81k median household income [$33k-$152k], 56.0% college+ [6.3% <HS], 40% White + 34% Asian (10.2% Japanese, 6.9% Korean, 5.1% ethnic Chinese) + 17% Latino (11.3% Mexican)): 2022 percentage margin 1-2% more R than 2018 but overall turnout down by ~10%. Both round to 56-44 lol

Long Beach (South County hub, $55k median household income [$22k-$112k], 37.2% college+ [20.5% <HS],  42% Latino (35% Mexican), 28% White, 13% Black, 13% Asian (4.5% Filipino, 3.8% Cambodian, 1.0% ethnic Chinese, 0.9% Vietnamese)):  2022 percentage margin 3-4% more R than 2018 but overall turnout down by ~20%. 69-31 Newsom 2022

Signal Hill (enclave of Long Beach, $70k median household income [$30k-$132k], 46.3% college+ [15.2% <HS],  38% Latino (32.5% Mexican), 26% White, 21% Asian (8.1% Filipino, 4.5% Cambodian, 1.8% ethnic Chinese, 1.5% Japanese, 1.2% Vietnamese), 11% Black): 2022 percentage margin 3-4% more R than 2018, slightly more D than Long Beach.

Rest of SoCal-

Irvine (Central Orange County, $94k median household income [$36k-$175k], 74.7% college+ [3.4% <HS], 42.4% White, 41.4% Asian (13.8% ethnic Chinese, 8.0% Korean, 6.1% Indian, 3.7% Vietnamese, 3.5% Filipino), 9.4% Latino (6.5% Latino)): <10% dropoff in turnout from 2018-2022 (62-38 to 61-39).

Riverside (SE Inland Empire, $73k median household income [$24k-$111k], 29.9% college+ [21.0% <HS], 52% Latino (46% Mexican), 32% White, 7% Asian (1.5% Filipino, 1.4% ethnic Chinese, 1.0% Vietnamese, 0.9% Indian, 0.8% Korean), 6% Black): R turnout down ~12% from 2018, D turnout down by 26%, hence going from Newsom 56-44 to Newsom 52-48.

Do you know why San Joaquin has a lot of Filipino, Hmong, Vietnamese immigrants? When I first looked at DRA I thought the high Asian population in west San Joaquin, where commuting could happen, was from Indians working in tech, but that is not the case.

Central Valley agriculture. Hmong are definitely refugees. This part is me talking out of my ass but Filipinos might be healthcare workers, and Vietnamese possibly a mix of both?

Tbh the whole concept of moving out all the way to the Central Valley just to commute to the Bay Area for white-collar tech work strikes me as absurd given how prevalent remote work is for that industry nowadays. I know housing is prohibitively expensive in California but still...

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https://twitter.com/schlagteslinks/status/1604914357736902656
Christy Smith barely managed to outperform the Dem auditor candidate who barely won by double digits statewide.

Lanhee Chen was probably the best possible R candidate for the statewide office that would’ve had the least negative political impact for Dems/the Left if it were held by a Republican.

I have no idea who is paying 600k+ to buy homes in San Joaquin and Stanislaus County. I just assumed these newcomers must have tech jobs or are selling real estate in the Bay Area to find more space.

Wonder if they could be foreign nationals looking to buy property on US soil? I don’t understand why China’s rentier class would want to purchase real estate in the boonies, away from the Bay Area or Metro LA but I guess they don’t have to be rich PRC folks or even ethnic Chinese? Guess demand creates its own supply…

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Governor 2022 - Controller 2022  (Chen +7.8 )

Biggest Dahle overperformances
1.  Lassen                   Dahle  +6.8
2.  Modoc                   Dahle   +6.0
3.  Glenn                    Dahle   +4.6
4.  Colusa, Tehama     Dahle   +4.4

Biggest Chen overperformances
1. San Francisco           Chen +19.0
2. Santa Clara              Chen +13.4
3. Marin                       Chen +13.2
4. San Mateo                Chen +13.0
5. Alameda                   Chen +11.4

What was the overperformance margin for LA County?

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Kudos to Xahar for compiling this list of swings and trends in the last two CA-GOV races

Instead of just airily gesturing at "traditional values" of Asian voters, let's look at hard data about Asian voters in California. I've presented here in a convenient table the results of the 2018 and 2022 gubernatorial elections in every majority-Asian municipality in California. They're even helpfully arranged by Asian percentage for you to see. There's also a trend column which shows the swing between 2018 and 2022 compared to the statewide swing between 2018 and 2022.

City	Pct Asian	2018	2022	Swing	Trend
BAY AREA
Milpitas	73.4%	D+38.9	D+33.9	R+5	D+0.5
Cupertino	69.9%	D+43.4	D+41.2	R+2.2	D+3.4
Fremont	64.7%	D+42.3	D+39.5	R+2.8	D+2.8
Union City	61.9%	D+54.8	D+47.6	R+7.3	R+1.7
Daly City	61.0%	D+56.9	D+53.1	R+3.8	D+1.7
Foster City	54.7%	D+43.5	D+45.6	D+2.2	D+7.7
Saratoga	54.4%	D+30.2	D+30.3	D+0.2	D+5.7
Millbrae	53.9%	D+33.2	D+33.3	D+0.1	D+5.6
Dublin	53.7%	D+37.9	D+38.6	D+0.7	D+6.2
Sunnyvale	52.4%	D+49.5	D+50	D+0.5	D+6
San Ramon	51.2%	D+29.9	D+32.2	D+2.3	D+7.8
Hercules	50.6%	D+56.3	D+55.4	R+0.9	D+4.6
LOS ANGELES
Monterey Park	69.6%	D+36.1	D+33.1	R+3	D+2.6
Walnut	69.2%	D+13.6	D+11	R+2.6	D+2.9
Rosemead	67.0%	D+44.4	D+32.7	R+11.6	R+6.1
San Gabriel	66.4%	D+32.1	D+24	R+8.1	R+2.5
Arcadia	65.9%	D+6.6	D+4	R+2.6	D+3
Cerritos	65.2%	D+19	D+16.4	R+2.6	D+3
Temple City	65.1%	D+11.8	D+7.9	R+4	D+1.6
San Marino	62.9%	R+3.3	D+1.4	D+4.8	D+10.3
Diamond Bar	60.8%	D+9.4	D+4.9	R+4.5	D+1.1
Alhambra	54.9%	D+43.8	D+38	R+5.8	R+0.3
Westminster	54.4%	R+2.2	R+7.5	R+5.3	D+0.3
La Palma	53.4%	D+1	D+3.3	D+2.3	D+7.8

As you can see, even though Newsom's performance was meaningfully worse in 2022 than in 2018, many majority-Asian municipalities actually swung toward him, and the ones that did not showed a smaller swing than the state as a whole. Based on these findings, if you must say something about trends among Asians in California, it would be much more honest and accurate to conclude that Asians are a Democratic-trending demographic.

I'm aware of Rosemead in Metro LA and how working-class/blue-collar/non-college it is thanks to sbane's commentary on 2020-PRES. San Gabriel is in the eponymous San Gabriel Valley which is known for being heavily ethnic Chinese, but its school district has received accolades for outstanding academic performance which implies the city's citizens are at least decently well off, so that confounds the partial socioeconomic class realignment explanation we see with Rosemead.

I'm not familiar enough with the East Bay to have a good sense of why Union City trended R, but a quick glance at the city's Wiki page says the city's Asian popuation is plurality Filipino. The city doesn't seem particularly poor or affluent relative to other cities in Alameda County, but I'm sure the Bay Area locals know better than I do.