Talk Elections

I was trying to redistrict that area and found that the county is only 40 percent white. But how come Obama only narrowly won it and Whitman won it by close to 10 points? Is there racialized voting patterns in that county?

Probably low Hispanic turnout.

While overall population is 45% Hispanic, 40% White, VAP is 45% White, 40% Hispanic.  Registered Voters is likely more white and less Hispanic than that, and turnout even more white and less Hispanic.  Just prior to last year's election, Republicans had a registration advantage of about 5.5% (approx 48,000)

Also most of the Hispanics are white.

This. Plus SoCal Republicans for the most part are somewhat more successful at recruiting Hispanic voters to the party than in the rest of the state, and country in general,  which explains the county's Republican lean.

That's pretty much the case, the more minority areas are the ones that voted more Democrats. Coachella, Moreno Valley, Perris and Riverside are minority-majority and voted for Brown. The majority white areas voted Republican. The polarization was pretty clear.

Is the proportion significantly different from Los Angeles County or the state at large?

And to answer the question, Whites in these areas are pretty Republican and the Hispanics are sort of swing voters. They usually end up voting Democrat, but look at how they vote on propositions. And I'm not talking just about social issues..... Definitely the sort of place Republicans will do very well  in when it's their year.

Also, Hispanic voter turnout in SoCal is dreadful. And, yes, the whites in Riverside County outside of Palm Springs are very Republican, similar to Orange County.

I thought CA had the highest Hispanic turnout in the country. How else were they able to topple B1 Bob? When you consider that that was 15 years ago and that there is probably even more hispanics eligible to vote, they are easily the second most important voting bloc behind Anglos.

The old 46th contained a lot of the Democratic areas of Orange County. The only really Republican area in that district would be Garden Grove and I can't tell if it sticks into Irvine, but if it dd then that portion of the district. The rest is heavily Hispanic today and must have had a lot of Hispanics in the mid-90s as well. Not as many, sure, but it's not as if there are that many Hispanics in Riverside County today either.

Also I'm sure it helped that Sanchez's opponent was Bob Dornan. A better candidate might have survived a few more cycles.

i was playing around on Dave's Redistricting App. The precincts in Riverside County that are majority white gave McCain 56 percent of the vote. The precincts in Riverside County that are not majority white gave Obama 58 percent of the vote. So there's obviously a difference, but compared to the country as a whole I would say it isn't all that polarized, especially compared to parts of the south.

It's definitely not polarized based on race solely. The whites just happen to be very Republican, like in neighboring Orange County and San Bernadino County (which has almost the exact same racial demographics as LA County), and the Hispanics sometimes vote Republican.