Will California Ever Go Red? (Los Angeles, San Diego: military, suburban, farm)

[youngmoney]

.. like it did in 1984 with Reagan?

The majority of land in CA is red. It is only the cities which are making CA blue. SF is declining in population. Suburban areas (Riverside County, San Diego County) which tend to be more conservative are growing.

..hmm. Prop 8 passed. sign of things to come?

[pittsteelers247]

Actually, only about six or seven of the counties in California are still red. In 2000, that number was a lot higher, so no I don't believe that California will go red considering it is more blue now.

[tangodoodles]

God I hope not.

[OC Investor2]

Not in the near future. Perhaps if the state's finances finally collapse under the colossal mismanagemnt of the Democrat dominated state legislature we'll see a change in State level politics, but is doubtful. All the state and federal legislative districts are gerrymander to ensure no change. This state isn't really a functioning democracy.

And don't read to much into Prop 8. Prop 8 won with 52% of the vote. A similar initiative a few years ago was in the 60%+ range, so while it passed, the trend is to the more liberal.

[FresnoFacts]

Neither red nor blue. Can we come up with another color?

Both major parties are losing registered members in California. Many people in California feel neither party represents them.

The fastest growing segment of voters is Decline to State (non-partisan), now representing almost 20% of the registered voters.

Minor parties like Greens or Libertarian are about 4% of California voters.

In 1980, the registration numbers were:
Dem 6,043,262 (53.2% of registered voters)
Rep 3,942,768 (34.7%)
Other (non-partisan and minor parties combined) 1,375,593 (12.1%)

In 2008
Dem 7,683,495 (44.4% of registered voters)
Rep 5,428,052 (31.4%)
Decline to State 3,444,923 (19.9%)
Minor parties 747,621 (4.3%)

[1979]

Originally Posted by youngmoney

.. like it did in 1984 with Reagan?

The majority of land in CA is red. It is only the cities which are making CA blue. SF is declining in population. Suburban areas (Riverside County, San Diego County) which tend to be more conservative are growing.

..hmm. Prop 8 passed. sign of things to come?

This was primarily due to the black and hispanic population.

How ridiculous! If you looked at the electoral map after the election you would have notice something peculiar. Almost every state had blue on its major metropolitan areas, with the red areas almost exclusive to the rural areas. For example if you looked at Texas, you would have noticed that Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth and El Paso were all blue. So, when you consider that the these metro areas continue to increase in population, (some rather dramatically) you might wonder if Texas could turn blue, which it quite possible could. You could do that on most of the larger states. Even a traditionally blue state like Massachusetts, was actually quite pink, toward its west border. Same with New York. NYC was completely blue, but upstate was red. As California's population continues to push near a whopping 40M, it will likely top 60 electoral votes by 2012.

Also, San Francisco's "landlocked" population has been holding pretty steady fluctuating around 775K.

[wehotex]

Originally Posted by pittsteelers247

Actually, only about six or seven of the counties in California are still red. In 2000, that number was a lot higher, so no I don't believe that California will go red considering it is more blue now.

No! Not even close. There are 58 counties in calif. only 1/3 of them are Blue, always the coastal ones except orange & san diego. The remainder are all RED. Don't be fooled by the vote on Prop 8. The Yes on 8 side had very deceitful ads which brought about the worst fear in california voters, alot of them very uneducated and gullible. Most out-of-staters would be shocked to see how conservative most of california is. if you drive across calif, you would see how "texas/oklahoma-like" a lot of it really is. in fact, some parts of so cal are the descendants of dust bowl okies, texans & louisianians and others from the Midwest. But, california is better dead than red.

[JakeDog]

No. If anything, more and more places will become blue.

[bhcompy]

its cyclical in nature. it will turn red and blue back and forth over time as values change

[happ]

Originally Posted by wehotex

No! Not even close. There are 58 counties in calif. only 1/3 of them are Blue, always the coastal ones except orange & san diego. The remainder are all RED. Don't be fooled by the vote on Prop 8. The Yes on 8 side had very deceitful ads which brought about the worst fear in california voters, alot of them very uneducated and gullible. Most out-of-staters would be shocked to see how conservative most of california is. if you drive across calif, you would see how "texas/oklahoma-like" a lot of it really is. in fact, some parts of so cal are the descendants of dust bowl okies, texans & louisianians and others from the Midwest. But, california is better dead than red.

California propositions: Proposition 8, county-by-county map, margin of victory - Los Angeles Times

Above are the results county by county in last week's election. All population centers went Democratic w/ the only coastal exceptions being Orange & Del Norte counties. What surprised many was that San Diego county also went Blue & that the military vote was much stronger for Obama then what had been expected.

The Bay Area & Los Angeles county hold about 2/3rds of the state population. Those red counties are farm areas w/ low population & less educated people [figures they would be a Republican stronghold