The most conservative and liberal cities in California

[cboy4]

By Phillip Reese
[e-mail]
Published: Monday, May. 11, 2009 - 7:43 pm
Last Modified: Sunday, May. 17, 2009 - 11:39 pm

Just before an election, the Secretary of State's Office releases lots of voter registration data. With an election coming up Tuesday, this season's data dump seems like a perfect excuse for a fun look at which cities are the most politically polarized.

The ground rules: To figure out the most conservative cities, we looked for the places with the lowest percentage of voters registered Democrat; for the most liberal, those with the lowest percentage of Republicans. To keep small numbers from masquerading as big trends, we excluded cities with fewer than 5,000 registered voters.

A few pretty obvious patterns emerge from these lists: The more conservative cities tend to be in Southern California; the more liberal, in the north.

The liberal cities, with a few notable exceptions, (hello, Marin County!) are blue collar and home to a high proportion of minorities.



#1: Berkeley (Alameda)
Registered Voters: 80,285
Republicans: 3,610
Percentage of Voters Registered Republican: 4.5%
Fun Facts: Are you really surprised?

Photo Credit: Randall Benton

The conservative cities tend to be wealthy. Really wealthy.


#2: Newport Beach (Orange)
Registered Voters: 63,573
Democrats: 13,951
Percentage of Voters Registered Democrat: 21.9%
Fun Facts: The largest city on the list, it is one of the wealthiest cities in America.

Photo Credit: Flickr user TravOC under a Creative Commons license. No sales.

And it's easier in California to find a city with few Republicans than with few Democrats.

The complete list with photos------------------> http://www.sacbee.com/1098/story/1853135.html

[mitchtv]

1. Sonoma very liberal

not very working class. retirees from the SF area and professionals less than 10K people.
Palm Springs the only city in riversideco with a pot outlet, only city in Riverside to reject propH8

[mackerel]

2. Only one Norcal for Reps in the top 10

[BeeBee]

5. Santa Rosa and all of Sonoma County are very liberal...

Hell, Lynne Woolsey's our rep!

[Nikki Stone1]

3. Palos Verdes, Coronado

Riverside, Palos Verdes, Coronado, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Clemente, Yorba Linda, San Marino, Newport Beach, Canyon Lake (riverside county)

Wealthy:
Palos Verdes, Coronado, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Marino, Newport Beach, Canyon Lake

FIgures.

[BeeBee]

4. Delete

posted to wrong place...

[Dramarama]

6. The Rep. areas seem to have low populations too

[David Zephyr]

7. Fascinating article. Thanks for posting it.

Thanks.

[mp9200]

8. Temecula is Republican

And that's why it's crap

[discocrisco01]

9. Mission Viejo

As a whole, South Orange County is the king area for being a Republican in the OC. The only winning a Dem can win down there is to be a Blue-Dog and can pull strings with the Christian right. One can be progressive, but they need to talk the language of fiscal responsibility and strong family values.

[krabigirl]

10. Yeah, it's all a bunch of BS, though. At least Irvine often elects Dems.

[beck47]

11. What no Redding?

A lot of Fox News loving WalMarters

[mackerel]

12. Last time I was in Redding was about 3 years ago and

I was surprised to see how much it has grown. Real boomtown.