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Recently I have been doing some research into major metropolitan areas within California and their suburbs from a political perspective. I'm really interested in getting more info from people living in the Sac suburbs especially the Folsom/ EDH/ SS corridor and then the Roseville/ Rocklin/ Granite Bay/ Lincoln corridor.
It appears the areas I mentioned are ground zero for the republicans/ Red's holding the line against the surge of Blue that are pushing from these major metropolitan into the suburbs.
I looked up the voting record from the last election in the entire area and noticed that things get much more red as you move away from Sacramento and into these suburbs, although it looks like the Dems are starting to make a push into Folsom as some part of Folsom did vote majority for Clinton.
Does anyone see a pretty strong line in these communities as far as holding Red for the future?
The recent and heavy influx from former Bay Area residents would lead me to believe there will be a real liberal push into these communities.
Those communities are in fact very red. If you cherish big homes, lack of personal connection to the community and a focus on promoting and protecting your wealth, you'll love it. I lived in that area for 3 or 4 years and personally I thought it sucked. People literally race each other to get the last parking spot at Starbucks or the ATM. These are "red" qualities, so if you identify with them it may be a great fit.
Those communities are in fact very red. If you cherish big homes, lack of personal connection to the community and a focus on promoting and protecting your wealth, you'll love it. I lived in that area for 3 or 4 years and personally I thought it sucked. People literally race each other to get the last parking spot at Starbucks or the ATM. These are "red" qualities, so if you identify with them it may be a great fit.
The trend over most of the suburbs has been a drop in registered Republicans to unaffiliated. Areas that would have had solid votes for Republicans are trending toward Democrats. The holdouts in the urbanized areas of Sacramento County are the places like Rio Linda and the area just south of Granite Bay. These are mainly older people who have been there for decades.
I went in search of a map of the last election results, but couldn't find a really good choropleth. I did find this one. The areas in Roseville/Rocklin and Folsom would have been solid red 20 years ago, but now some of the precincts are 50/50. Carmichael went Democrat in the last election. That used to be a solid Republican community.
You also have to understand that the influence the military bases had made a lot of those areas very conservative. Many retirees from the military settled here, so it takes some time before they get so old they just can't be bothered to vote, or pass on.
Most of the predominantly Republican areas left are semi-rural and have low population densities, so when you see a large red area keep in mind that precinct may only have 25 voters, while a tiny precinct in Arden-Arcade might have 200 voters.
El Dorado County doesn't appear to be broken down into precincts on this map. If I remember correctly, part of the City of Placerville voted Democrat, as did some 'off the grid' hippy type community near Pleasant Valley.
If you look at Congressional results, they may seem to conflict. You have to keep in mind those districts are intentionally gerrymandered to keep incumbents in office.
Re: Political Landscape in the Sac Burbs- Shifting Landscape or not?
Quote:
Originally Posted by KC6ZLV
The trend over most of the suburbs has been a drop in registered Republicans to unaffiliated. Areas that would have had solid votes for Republicans are trending toward Democrats. The holdouts in the urbanized areas of Sacramento County are the places like Rio Linda and the area just south of Granite Bay. These are mainly older people who have been there for decades.
I went in search of a map of the last election results, but couldn't find a really good choropleth. I did find this one. The areas in Roseville/Rocklin and Folsom would have been solid red 20 years ago, but now some of the precincts are 50/50. Carmichael went Democrat in the last election. That used to be a solid Republican community.
You also have to understand that the influence the military bases had made a lot of those areas very conservative. Many retirees from the military settled here, so it takes some time before they get so old they just can't be bothered to vote, or pass on.
Most of the predominantly Republican areas left are semi-rural and have low population densities, so when you see a large red area keep in mind that precinct may only have 25 voters, while a tiny precinct in Arden-Arcade might have 200 voters.
El Dorado County doesn't appear to be broken down into precincts on this map. If I remember correctly, part of the City of Placerville voted Democrat, as did some 'off the grid' hippy type community near Pleasant Valley.
If you look at Congressional results, they may seem to conflict. You have to keep in mind those districts are intentionally gerrymandered to keep incumbents in office.
Thanks for the good info KC6ZLV, appreciate it.
The numbers for the last presidential election kind of play out to what you said:
Placer County: 52.5% Trump/ 41.2% Clinton
El Dorado County: 53.4% Trump/ 39.5% Clinton
Sac County: 58.6% Clinton/ 34.9% Trump (Most of Folsom itself had a Trump majority, but not all)
The trend over most of the suburbs has been a drop in registered Republicans to unaffiliated. Areas that would have had solid votes for Republicans are trending toward Democrats. The holdouts in the urbanized areas of Sacramento County are the places like Rio Linda and the area just south of Granite Bay. These are mainly older people who have been there for decades.
I went in search of a map of the last election results, but couldn't find a really good choropleth. I did find this one. The areas in Roseville/Rocklin and Folsom would have been solid red 20 years ago, but now some of the precincts are 50/50. Carmichael went Democrat in the last election. That used to be a solid Republican community.
You also have to understand that the influence the military bases had made a lot of those areas very conservative. Many retirees from the military settled here, so it takes some time before they get so old they just can't be bothered to vote, or pass on.
Most of the predominantly Republican areas left are semi-rural and have low population densities, so when you see a large red area keep in mind that precinct may only have 25 voters, while a tiny precinct in Arden-Arcade might have 200 voters.
El Dorado County doesn't appear to be broken down into precincts on this map. If I remember correctly, part of the City of Placerville voted Democrat, as did some 'off the grid' hippy type community near Pleasant Valley.
If you look at Congressional results, they may seem to conflict. You have to keep in mind those districts are intentionally gerrymandered to keep incumbents in office.
Thanks, those are good points. I wasn't aware of most of them. However, I did explore an entire corporate complex just off of the Latrobe exit in EDH when I first moved there. When I began to ask questions and did some research on the businesses, I discovered that the majority of them were owned by Bay Area transplants. I am guessing the majority of them lean conservative. There was a vibe in that entire area (including Folsom) that I could never connect with.
I've been seeing a trend of Bay conservatives fleeing that area and coming to EDH, Roseville, and Rocklin specifically because they're seeking out a conservative community to live in. I wouldn't count on Placer and El Dorado Counties to swing true blue anytime soon.
But that's a-ok by me, Sac City can take the SF and Oakland transplants and EDH and Rocklin can have the Danville and Orinda folks.
I've been seeing a trend of Bay conservatives fleeing that area and coming to EDH, Roseville, and Rocklin specifically because they're seeking out a conservative community to live in. I wouldn't count on Placer and El Dorado Counties to swing true blue anytime soon.
But that's a-ok by me, Sac City can take the SF and Oakland transplants and EDH and Rocklin can have the Danville and Orinda folks.
TheFlats,
That is the kind of info I was looking to get from people who live in the area. While I am a staunch libertarian and don't much care for either party, we lean more right especially from a fiscal perspective and the very far left liberalism (i'm ok with centrist liberalism) that surrounds us in our current area (tech heavy) is so negative it feels like a foreign nation to us at times.
Someone mentioned San Diego in an earlier post and there are strong pockets that are very red, but they are literally surrounded by blue and I just don't see that changing. Even Republican central Orange County leans democratic now as demographics shift rapidly in that county as well.
Thanks and I know a few people from Danville that I would more than welcome in my neighborhood.
I think most of California has a very libertarian bent underlying their politics, left or right. The Sierra foothills certainly do, I think as a product of being relatively self sufficient as communities due to their rural nature. The more populated eastern parts of Placer and El Dorado are decidedly less libertarian and more traditional conservative "family, church, wealth, traditional lifestyle (no gays or weed), suburban castles" types.
I feel like the recent tech influx in the Bay has brought a much more libertarian vibe than a "very far left liberalism". The techies aren't clamoring to tax themselves heavily to pay for social benefits. They really just want folks off their backs and could care less about others doing drugs or living non traditional lifestyles.
I've been seeing a trend of Bay conservatives fleeing that area and coming to EDH, Roseville, and Rocklin specifically because they're seeking out a conservative community to live in. I wouldn't count on Placer and El Dorado Counties to swing true blue anytime soon.
But that's a-ok by me, Sac City can take the SF and Oakland transplants and EDH and Rocklin can have the Danville and Orinda folks.
Maybe not in most of El Dorado County, but the trend in Roseville and Rocklin has been moving toward the left. The trend has been slow, but it is there nonetheless. I don't think it will ever be as democratic as the Bay Area, but will end up somewhere in the moderate left or right. For that matter, most of what appears to be blue in Sacramento County is really made up of moderate liberals. You really need to step away from the binary left/right that people think of because liberal and conservatism falls on a scale somewhere, like this:
The real question is, where does a community fall on this scale? I would guess about 60% to 70% are moderate and 30% to 40% are far left or far right.
And what is liberal and conservative can be very different in different parts of the country. In the South, being conservative includes a lot of imaginary religious values that some feel needs to be put into legislation to force others to abide by their 'values.' In the western part of the country, religion plays an almost non-existent role, and when it does it is usually because people are parroting what is 'supposed' to be conservative values according to Fox News and partisan politics. The reality is being conservative in most of California can be compared more to libertarian values. That is, they really don't care what other people do as long as they don't have to pay for it. Likewise, there are plenty of liberals in Sacramento (even quite a few in the Bay Area) who are against open borders type immigration policies. What we see in the media regarding the two opposing values are really the extremes and a portrayal that if you want to call yourself a conservative you have to be against minimum wage increases, abortion, and for tax cuts for the wealthy, or in the case of being liberal, you must be pro-immigration, ready to call just about anything racist or harassment if someone finds it inconvenient for them, and so on. At any rate, within the next ten years I think Roseville and Rocklin will probably be like a 'swing state' wherein the total vote there could go for either party. A little to the north up in Lincoln, maybe not. That city has been soliciting the type of people who like gated communities so they can have a lot of input into their neighbour's business. A lot of baby boomers seem to like that area. Which brings up another consideration. At some point some of these conservative baby boomers are going to shift their life priorities from enforcing their conservative convictions at the ballot box to the daily issues of old age. Or, at the rate things are going, the GOP might just **** them off enough to stop voting for them if they keep pulling this crap about cutting back healthcare.
LOL you live in CA, right? If San Diego and OC is even too liberal because it's "surrounded by liberals" there's likely not anywhere in the entire state that will satisfy you. The entire state as a whole leans left. I lean left too but I honestly considered SD despite its conservative voting history. It factored mildly into my thinking only because conservative voting folks also tend to be socially conservative as well, but in the end it was nothing close to a deal breaker. The beauty of our state is that no matter where you are, you are surrounded by diversity of all sorts - cultural, political and otherwise. It's actually the hallmark of CA.
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Re: Political Landscape in the Sac Burbs- Shifting Landscape or not?
