Will California Ever Turn Red Again

How isolated are California Republicans? Let's become to the map

Sep. 17, 2019 Updated: Sep. 21, 2019 9:fifty a.m.

FILE - In this Sat, Sept. seven, 2019, file photo, a Trump supporter listens as Brad Parscale, campaign manager for Trump'south 2020 reelection campaign, speaks during the California GOP autumn convention in Indian Wells, Calif. State Republicans have approved a rule change intended to ensure the party can ship delegates to the GOP'south national convention next summer, even if President Trump is kept off the country'due south 2020 primary ballot. The measure is a response to a law signed by Democratic Gov. Newsom in July that requires presidential candidates to release their tax returns, a move clearly aimed at the Republican president. (AP Photograph/Chris Carlson, File) Chris Carlson / Associated Press

California is known as a deep-blue Autonomous state, one where Republicans are piddling more than an afterthought. Simply a map of voter registration by county shows just how rural California Republicans have become.

There's still plenty of red on that map, only it'due south almost all full-bodied in the far north and the Sierra, home of tiny counties with more trees than people.

Since the 2018 midterm elections, San Luis Obispo and Orange counties have flipped from Republican to Democratic in registration. Both Kern and Trinity counties are a single pct point from turning blue.

The 35% of voters who identified with the GOP in 1999 fell to 24% in the most recent registration numbers released in February, and Democrats concord every statewide part and supermajorities in both the Associates and the state Senate.

Nevertheless, Democrats already are planning registration drives, using President Trump'southward unpopularity in the country every bit a manner to bring more unregistered people and contained voters into the party and solidify the gains Democrats fabricated in Congress and the Legislature terminal year.

"The bottom line is that 2018 was a giant wave, but what is even more heady is that the enthusiasm nosotros saw in 2018 hasn't died down i bit," said Andrew Feldman, spokesman for Hold the House, a California political action committee chaired by former Democratic Rep. Mike Honda of San Jose. "People across California understand what is at stake and not only desire to exercise everything they can to hold onto the gains that nosotros fabricated information technology 2018, just expand into more areas across the state."

Todd Trumbull / The Chronicle

The GOP's isolation in the state is staggering. With the recent add-on of Orangish and San Luis Obispo counties to the Democratic fold, the party at present has a wall of blueish up the California declension, stretching from the Mexican border to the Republican's lone coastal outpost of Del Norte Canton, population 27,828, the last stop before Oregon.

The Republicans' biggest stronghold is the Cardinal Valley'southward Kern Canton, followed past neighboring Tulare County. But Kern is simply the 11th-largest canton in the state by population and Tulare is No. 18. Those two, forth with Placer Canton (22) and El Dorado County (29), are the only places in the top half of California's 58 counties where Republicans concur a registration border.

For many people in the sprawling metropolitan regions of the Bay Surface area and Southern California, the diminutive size of many of the land's GOP-friendly rural counties is hard to imagine.

Sutter County, the 37th-largest, has 96,807 residents, about 10,000 fewer than Daly City. Glenn Canton (48) is a chip smaller than Benicia, while Sierra County (57) is almost the aforementioned size as Yountville, California'southward 771st-largest city.

Physical size doesn't brand much difference. Inyo County, where Republicans have control, is the second-largest canton in the state at 10,181 square miles, while San Mateo County, where Democrats hold a commanding 50% to fifteen% lead in registration, is No. 56, at 520 square miles.

Just San Mateo County has 727,209 residents, compared with 17,987 for Inyo County.

The Democrats' domination of big, unbroken swaths of the state is an ongoing problem for the GOP, said Bryan Watkins, political managing director for the California Republican Political party.

"It's something we've got to focus on," he said. "Nosotros need a different approach in the bigger counties than nosotros take in rural areas. We're not talking virtually 'i size fits all.'"

The party'due south geographic woes don't mean information technology's impossible for Republicans to win in Democratic-leaning cities and counties. Republican Kevin Faulconer has been elected twice as mayor of San Diego, and last month, the GOP's John Lee'south won a seat on the Los Angeles City Council, despite the Democrats' 54% to 12% lead in the city.

"The all-time affair we tin practise is just keep showing up," Watkins said. "Nosotros tend to recollect in ii-year election cycles, but in bigger cities it'southward going to take a longer time" to testify results.

Republicans have plenty of places where they can examination their strategy. In California'south largest cities, the GOP is already an endangered species. Republicans brand up 12% of the registered voters in Los Angeles, 16% in San Jose, 15% in Sacramento, 6% in San Francisco and 4% in Oakland.

The biggest city where Republicans hold sway? That would be Huntington Beach in Orange County, California'southward 24th-largest city, with 200,641 residents.

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth

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Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/How-isolated-are-California-Republicans-Let-s-14446731.php