Is it possible that November 5 was the start of a trend in California? Will a new, energized, GOP take advantage of the Trumnp playbook to expand support for the Republican Party?
“Long Beach voters have swung steadily more Republican over the last three presidential cycles, with a higher percentage backing Donald Trump each time he’s run.
In 2016, he received 22.5% of votes cast in the city. Four years later, it was 25%. This year, he’s so far garnered 30.5% of Long Beach’s ballots, according to preliminary data from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, which has yet to finalize the count.
The slight rightward march mirrors a similar pattern seen countywide and across the nation.
With 140,000 LA County ballots left to count as of Tuesday night, Trump earned 1.14 million ballots — or about 31.7% of the 3.67 million votes. That’s compared to 26.8% four years ago and 22.5% in 2016.”
The good news is that neither the LAGOP, the CRP or the Trump campaign did any work in Long Bech. Individuals did, but not the Party. Imagine how much better these numbers would be if the Party worked the area?
Even in deep blue Long Beach, there was rising support for Trump
by John Donegan, Long Beach Post, 11/13/24 https://lbpost.com/news/politics/elections/how-did-long-beach-vote-presidential-race-trum-kamala-harris?utm_medium=email&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_campaign=Today%20s%20Headlines%2011/13/24
Long Beach voters have swung steadily more Republican over the last three presidential cycles, with a higher percentage backing Donald Trump each time he’s run.
In 2016, he received 22.5% of votes cast in the city. Four years later, it was 25%. This year, he’s so far garnered 30.5% of Long Beach’s ballots, according to preliminary data from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, which has yet to finalize the count.
The slight rightward march mirrors a similar pattern seen countywide and across the nation.
With 140,000 LA County ballots left to count as of Tuesday night, Trump earned 1.14 million ballots — or about 31.7% of the 3.67 million votes. That’s compared to 26.8% four years ago and 22.5% in 2016.
Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, meanwhile, earned about 65% of the county’s votes. Even if she were to receive all remaining ballots, she would end up with 68% — several points less than her two Democratic predecessors.
Some of this year’s shift could be due to lower local turnout, but Cal State Long Beach Professor Matt Lesenyie said the results also signal a change in the electorate.
“California is getting more conservative,” he said. “And I would say the [Republican] party is likely expanding its ranks.”
To the professor, the race demonstrates a rebound of sorts toward conservative values and away from liberal ideas that have gone unchallenged for so long. For years, Democrats in California have operated the state with a supermajority, while the Republicans have been “missing in action,” he said.
“Republican partisanship has hit its low for this generation and is on the rise,” he said. “And that’s just a reflection of how things move. It’s in reaction to liberal excesses.”
Regardless of his policies and their projected impacts, some voters saw Trump as the agent of change, whereas Vice President Kamala Harris struggled to shake her link to President Joe Biden and the status quo, according to Lesenyie.
“It’s the change, the, ‘What we’re doing isn’t working,’” Lesenyie said, citing polls in which voters expressed pessimism about the country’s direction. Long Beach has a similar problem. The city recorded its worst numbers in years when it surveyed local voters this spring, with 51% saying it was headed in the wrong direction.
These feelings probably extended elsewhere on this year’s ballot, Lesenyie said, such as in the LA County District Attorney race where Nathan Hochman, an Independent who previously ran as a Republican for state attorney general in 2022, routed progressive incumbent George Gascón with more than 60% of the vote.
This was likely spurred by concerns over public safety and homelessness, which voters responded to with the DA vote but also with a landslide approval of Proposition 36, which will increase penalties for repeat drug and theft offenders — a reversal from when voters eased penalties through Proposition 47 in 2014.
It’s a sign, Lesenyie said, that more people feel California and Los Angeles County are heading in the wrong direction. But with 50 shades of Democrat across the county and state, there’s no “agreement on which way we’re heading in the wrong direction,” Lesenyie said.
“But that is to say people, when given two choices, are going to look to change there,” he continued. “I think that’s what plagued Gascón.”
Hochman, who polls predicted would oust Gascón, held a healthy lead in early returns and soundly defeated the progressive incumbent by 650,000 votes. Gascón called Hochman to concede last Wednesday.
“The rightward shift across America last night is heartbreaking,” Gascón said in a statement referencing the Presidential race. “Democrats have a long road ahead, but the work is more vital than ever and our commitment will not waver.”
