One interesting metric to compare is the gay marriage vote - Imperial County in 2008 voted strongly for Obama and then very strongly Yes on Prop 8. Today it's only up no on Prop 3 by about 5 points, yet only up for Harris by 1.7 which shows that there's much more alignment between who's voting Democratic and social issues than there was 15 years ago.
It also voted less than 55% pro-choice on the 2022 abortion amendment!
I think in these heavily Hispanic areas where Dems have lost ground, looking at how much Harris is overperforming liberal positions on ballot initiatives around issues like abortion and gay marriage could help give a general picture of how much further Democrats theoretically have to fall in these places if these culture wars continuing being big issues. Currently in Imperial County there seem to be a good number of voters who voted for Harris but against gay marriage - these are voters the GOP may have potential to peel off in future cycles.
At the same time, Imperial County shows how these social issues are changing pretty quickly - gay marriage was opposed by nearly 70% off voters and now it's only 52% opposed in a similarly high turnout environment and a more Latino electorate. So even though Democrats are losing votes their supporters are much more aligned on these social and cultural issues than the past, and with time it appears that social liberalism is winning, just maybe slower than the pace of what we expect online.
