'The most misunderstood state': why California's not as liberal as you think

[marmar]

(Guardian UK) It took mere minutes after California polls closed on election night for networks to call the state for Joe Biden. Millions of votes in America’s most populous state were still to be counted, but Biden’s wide victory in California was guaranteed – the state is, after all, seen as a liberal bastion.

But zoom in on its sprawling 58 counties, and the solid-blue picture of California is blurred. Even with a rousing race for the White House luring new voters to the ballot box this year, congressional conservatives held on to their seats and Republicans are poised to pick up more in close races they lost in the last cycle. Californians sided with corporations on the future of gig work, decided against affirmative action, and nixed both stronger rent control and a new business tax that benefits schools and local governments.

“California is the most misunderstood state in the country,” said the political scientist Bruce Cain, who teaches on the American west at Stanford University. “It has always been that way.”

California continues to produce some of the most influential and oppositional politicians on both sides. The Golden state is home to some of the most prominent conservative voices, including the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and the Trump-allied congressman Devin Nunes. It is also home to the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the House intelligence committee chairman, Adam Schiff – all of whom secured new terms this election. .............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/10/california-ballot-proposition-22-liberal-congress

[drmeow]

1. no surprise to me

I lived in Orange County, Santa Barbara County, and Riverside County!

[Cirque du So-What]

2. I learned about California conservatives while visiting Orange County

ca. 1975, Huntington Beach was a reactionary bastion. i bet it still is.

[stopbush]

6. Nope. Ds won every Congressional seat in 2018. There are currently NO Rs

representing CA in the House.

[Cirque du So-What]

9. Excuse me

I know nothing.

[Celerity]

26. not anymore, we lost CA-48 (Rouda lost to Steel, a female Korean-American Rethug) just now

[SouthernCal_Dem]

19. I've lived in Southern California my whole life.

Orange County is definitely trending blue if not blue already, but Huntington Beach is definitely a reactionary conservative bastion. You’re correct. Even Newport Beach isn’t as crazy.

[Hekate]

3. Ah, someone noticed!

I keep trying to tell you guys: breaking us up into 3 states will not net 6 Democratic Senators — much more like 4 Repubs and 2 Dems.

[Celerity]

17. I have never seen (or almost never) any talk of a 3-way split, only a simple split, NoCal and SoCal

which would yield 4 Dem Senators.

[Hekate]

21. It often comes up at DU. I think some people have at least a rudimentary knowledge of our geography

Hence the tripartate idea.

What they don’t ever seem to grasp is how complex our humanity is — just like every place else?

[Celerity]

24. well, I have not seen it, and if I had I would have challenged it, as there is a way you could have

4 Dems and 2 Rethugs (Senators)

Not a chance it would yield 4 Rethugs though

Only way to get there would be to do something like make the coast from Mexico to Canada one state (long thin strip plus maybe Sacramento on an arm, as it is Blue) and then divide the Red east into 2 states (the Blue west state would have 32-34 or so million people and the 2 Rethug East states would have 3 or 4 million people or less each)


2 way, North/South split is the way to go

4 Dem Senators in the bag

and 2 large states , 20m or so people in each

not a fan of shrinking it down to 3 states of only 12 to 14 million pops each (plus possibly giving the Rethugs 1 or 2 Senators)

[Mike 03]

4. There's something to this.

I grew up mostly in a small city in Contra Costa County, an upper-middle class, fairly well-educated area about 15 minutes from Berkley, and it was majority but not exclusively conservative. At one point, there was talk about putting up a gate on one of the main roads in our area to keep out "undesirables." I was really young then, but to this day I have no idea who they were trying to keep out. There were none of the "usual suspects" you'd think of in that area when it comes to keeping people out. The gate was never approved and was a laughing stock for most people.

Yet, on the other hand, we lived three houses away from one of Barbara Boxer's higher-level campaign staffers.

I spent the next twenty years in Los Angeles/Pasadena/Hollywood. You couldn't make too many assumptions about where people stood politically. I learned to be more careful after making an embarrassing mistake shortly after George W. took office. I thought it was "safe" to say what I said, but it really offended somebody.

[still_one]

5. Years ago at a rally for Barbara Boxer I was at she was saying something similar how California

has a strong independence about it

[eissa]

7. We have issues, and we need to deal with them

My cousin owns a small ice-cream shop in SF. It has been broken into by the same homeless man several times. The cops come out, take him in and release him. My cousin says they’re not allowed to touch him because the homeless advocates would target their shop and harass them until they closed. We live about an hour outside of the city and as much as we love visiting, it has become dirtier and more dangerous. You don’t realize this until you take a European relative there for some touristy fun and see their reaction; they were stunned that a world-class city had deteriorated so much. And look, I adore SF, but we can’t keep ignoring these problems (and I know LA isn’t much different, but I’m closer to SF.)

Crime and safety are a bigger problem than the expense of living here. I’ve always defended the high cost of CA by saying it’s worth it. Those who complain about the expense are the same ones who walk into Neiman-Marcus or a Bentley dealership and whine about the price; yeah, it’s pricey but for good reasons; the strong economy (pre-COVID), climate, diversity, culture, etc. But when you’re talking a hike along the beautiful bluffs above Half Moon Bay and a homeless person emerges from the bushes to demand money, or you have to take the back roads to work because the bridge that connects to your job was set on fire (for the third time) by the homeless encampment living below it, it’s far past time that this matter be addressed.

[stopbush]

8. Bullshit article.

Rs have no power in the current CA legislature where they are hopelessly outnumbered.

Every House Rep from the OC is currently a D. OC is no longer a bastion of Republicanism.

Yes - Californians tend to vote against propositions put on the ballot. That’s because most opposition to props originates in RW circles and is designed as a way to do an end run around the D legislature. It helps that voting “no” on these props often supports the R position - people don’t really bother reading up on these props, and voting “no” is a way of leaving well enough alone, rather than voting “yes” on a prop that might adversely effect an ill-informed voter.

[greenjar_01]

11. The article is part of a larger campaign to split CA's electoral votes

Transparent.

[Celerity]

22. Almost 800m USD was spent on just the propositions, it is madness (and yes, RW manipulated)

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-11-04/california-november-2020-statewide-propositions-election-results

and yes, a BS article overall, it gives the impression that CA is few bad Dem moves away from the Rethugs taking over, which is patently ridiculous


one bad bit of news

Every House Rep from the OC is currently a D. OC is no longer a bastion of Republicanism.

is no longer true

[stopbush]

27. Re: Michelle Steel - that's why I said there are currently no Rs representing OC

in Congress. The newly elected Congress isn’t seated until January.

[Celerity]

30. yes technically, of course, but it not a solid deep blue area (I was born in LA and lived in

Marina del Rey whilst I attended UCLA) by any means yet. It will take some time still I fear.

[chia]

10. No surprise to me, I live here. Similar to WA and OR, the farther inland you go, the redder it gets

[Celerity]

18. The further inland you go the less people there are. The largest (pop) inland major area, Sacramento

is solid Blue overall. Fresno is a bit dicey, but if the state was divided into into North and South, it would always yield 4 Dem Senators. The entire coast was Blue, until we lost CA-48 (Rouda), who was just defeated narrowly (7000 or so votes with 2% still to be counted.)

From Canada to Mexico, only 2 districts that touch the Pacific Ocean are Red

WA-3 is the other

[chia]

23. Interesting map, I like it. Yes I know there are less people inland which is why we easily stay blue

but it's the reason why the OP sees CA as the most interesting state. I think because it's so big and so blue it's seen as way more monolithic than it is, and the sort of laid-back CA vibe that comes to a lot of people's minds belies the simmering racism that's as much part of the fabric here as it is in other red states more readily seen as having race issues.

[Yavin4]

12. California's conservatism is vastly different from say Alabama's conservatism. n/t

[MFM008]

13. CA. WA. OR

are still the left coast wall.
That wont change any time soon no matter how many whining
Conservabitches crawl out of their holes.
If they dont like it they can move to
Mississippi.

[JI7]

14. We need to do away with term limits for state legislature

[Aristus]

15. From what I understand, outside of the big cities, California is just Mississippi without the

Spanish moss...

[Hekate]

16. I've never been to Mississippi, but I do know that driving less than an hour inland from the Coast

...puts you in territory where you might want to remove your liberal bumper stickers and magnets to avoid unwanted conversations. Maybe even definitely.

My husband never had much to say about how I decorated my car until we started looking for a house in the conservative part of our county. We drove his car for all our excursions there, until we finally realized that we were never, ever going to fit in, and gave up.

We stayed on the coast but moved 40 miles south. It’s been fine, but — these last several weeks have us on edge. One manifestation of this is my husband is really uneasy about what my car says about my politics. The Trump administration is in its death throes, and things could get very ugly, even here.

I would hate like poison to have to retire my RBG magnet (VOTE. & tell them Ruth sent you.) and peel off my Planned Parenthood and Biden stickers. But there you have it.

[Xolodno]

20. You can't judge by the ballot initiatives.

There was one for more strict punishments for certain crimes...it was defeated. And there was a poorly worded one to eliminate cash bail...it was defeated. And one to let felons to vote again, it passed. The gig worker passed because it had a huge amount of money behind it.

But you know what, Fresno County is trending blue. In District 25 where we lost in the special election is still a toss up. Several other counties that used to be reliably red are now blue....people got tired of not having any say.

California can go red if the GOP moderates itself in the state. But they continue to act like they are from Alabama.

[Turin_C3PO]

25. Based on the county by county map,

it appears Vermont and Massachusetts are the most liberal states.

[stopbush]

28. I believe that honor goes to Hawai'i.

[Turin_C3PO]

29. Ah yes.

Forgot to look at Hawaii’s results.