On November 5, Donald Trump expanded his coalition throughout the United States, and he did so even in deep California.
While Kamala Harris Unsurprisingly, he beat Trump in the Golden State – receiving around 60% of the vote – the former president nevertheless eked out a victory, winning eight counties that supported Joe Biden in 2020.
It may take years to fully understand the dynamics that contributed to this shift, but experts and political observers have so far pointed to the economy and waning voter enthusiasm as key elements.
Known for taking weeks to fully tally election results, California is still finishing its countdown. With more than a million ballots to sort through, the results could change, but as of Friday evening, Trump appears to have flipped eight counties from Democratic to Republican in the presidential race: Butte, Merced, Stanislaus, Fresno , San Joaquin, Inyo. , San Bernardino and Riverside.
The counties are concentrated in the interior of the state, from the Inland Empire east of Los Angeles to the agricultural heart of the Central Valley. They are generally more rural and less progressive than the coast’s population centers, and several are closely divided along party lines while others are overwhelmingly Democratic. Half of the counties supported a mix of Democrats and Republicans in elections to the U.S. House of Representatives, while only one – Merced – supported a Democrat in its only House race.
More than a million people voted for Trump in these regions, which are home to nearly 7 million people.
Survey by the Associated Press and Norc of the University of Chicago suggest that California voters viewed the economy as the most important issue facing the country, ahead of immigration, climate and access to abortion.
It’s a trend seen across the country, said Mark Baldassare, director of the Public Policy Institute of California’s survey of voters. feeling negative about the economy and being angry and dissatisfied with those currently in power.
As in other parts of the United States, Trump appears to have succeeded in winning over a larger share of young and Latino voters than before – although advocacy groups disagree on the precise size of his gains. In California, a decisive majority of Latino voters voted for Harris. Still, Trump managed to increase his vote share in most of California’s majority-Latino counties, according to CalMattersincluding Fresno and Riverside.
Perceptions of the economy played a major role in this change, organizers said. “The most powerful driver of the election was economic discontent, expressed in President-elect Donald Trump’s gains across most demographics,” said Clarissa Martínez de Castro, vice president of Latino UnidosUS Vote Initiative, in a press release. statementwhile emphasizing that most Latino voters supported Harris.
Meanwhile, it appears California’s turnout rate has dropped compared to 2020, especially among those who rarely vote, Baldassare said.
“This suggests that rarer voters probably did not succeed (and) did not feel motivated as they were in 2020, which of course was during the pandemic and a time of considerable political angst,” he declared.
Low-propensity voters who went to the polls may have been more motivated by the economy, Baldassare added.
“That meant some people were voting for change in quite large numbers,” he said.
Lisa Pruitt, a rural law expert at the University of California, Davis, said the findings suggest some Californians think state politics have ventured too far to the left. Along with Trump’s gains, state voters supported a measure to enact harsher penalties for theft and drug crimes, and rejected efforts to ban forced labor in prisons. The progressive prosecutors of Los Angeles And Oakland have lost their place.
“I think a lot of Californians think the state has moved too far to the left on crime, on so-called law and order issues. And they are seeking correction,” she said, adding that transgender rights have also become a point of contention for some voters.
A state law prohibiting school districts from requiring parental notification if a child changes their gender identification has sparked intense interest. backlash in conservative parts of the state and drawn national attention.
“California is a bellwether for progressive politics and we’re seeing a pushback from that in our own state,” Pruitt said.
But Trump’s victory in the United States more broadly is part of a pattern that can be seen across the world, said James Adams, a political science professor at the University of California, Davis. Ruling parties across the West, from Portugal to Finland to Germany, are being rejected and populist candidates are gaining support, Adams said.
“Donald Trump’s Republican Party is essentially a populist party whose message is that the system is rigged, serves the interests of the rich and powerful and ignores ordinary people,” he said. “This message seems to resonate across all Western democracies. »
High inflation has eroded support for ruling parties and confidence in their abilities to manage the economy, he added.
Butte County, in the far north of California, split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, went to Trump. In Chico, the county’s largest city, however, voters supported Harris on par with Biden in 2020 and progressives were poised to secure a city council majority not seen in years.
Addison Winslow, a progressive on the Chico City Council, attributes Trump’s gains to the Democratic Party’s failure to recognize voters’ economic realities and run a candidate people trusted.
“The anecdotal information I am receiving does not mean that people are more conservative, more racist or more hostile to progressive policies, but that the Democratic Party has failed to come up with national numbers that the public trusts,” said Winslow.
“What the Democrats did was say, ‘Inflation isn’t so bad anymore, the economy is actually really good,’” he said. “Maybe they can pull out some economic indicators and say, ‘Look, I’m right,’ but that just hasn’t been people’s personal experience.”