Analysis of 2008 California municipal results

[Torie]

Bush/No on Prop. 8 (Bush margin, Prop. 8 margin)
Aliso Viejo (Orange) +17.66 -3.09
Amador (Amador) +10.85 -8.47
Atherton (San Mateo) +2.27 -23.06
Clayton (Contra Costa) +5.92 -0.64
Costa Mesa (Orange) +12.64 -0.95
Danville (Contra Costa) +4.80 -9.76
El Segundo (Los Angeles) +8.06 -8.75
Ferndale (Humboldt) +13.53 -0.84
Grass Valley (Nevada) +5.68 -0.42
Hidden Hills (Los Angeles) +5.39 -35.93
Hillsborough (San Mateo) +4.64 -14.48
Irvine (Orange) +5.63 -2.20
Westlake Village (Los Angeles) +6.23 -7.63

All but three are affluent suburbia.  Ferndale is a swing town in Humboldt County, which seems weirdly Republican for its demographics and locale.  I think Grass Valley is an old gold town that's now panning to tourists.  Sort of weird it voted Bush in the first place, really.

Amador City is completely inexplicable, for all I can tell.  It had no apparent business voting no on Prop. 8.

No McCain municipalities failed Prop. 8.  The closest was Rancho Mirage (Prop. 8 +2.04%, McCain +6.91%).

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I should go asleep before I start writing even more incoherently.  Taking requests for tomorrow on any state issues.

Hermosa Beach and Costa Mesa are not that wealthy, particularly the latter, although it has some upper middle class census tracts.

[Torie]

I would have guessed that Beverly Hills wasn't so pro-Obama.

How did the city vote?

Beverly Hills:

Obama    McCain
10,331    6,801

Prop 8/No  Yes
10,921    5,789   


You know one thing that occurs to me about this Obama/McCain, Yes/No on Prop 8 comparison, is that it may be that those GOP leaning independents and Republicans who voted for Obama, also probably by a huge majority  voted against Prop 8, ala e.g. Torie.  Thus in higher income areas it is hard I would think for the No on 8 totals to be higher than Obama's. Meanwhile, it would not take too many Hispanics in such areas to make the totals lower. That is what happened in my town.  McCain won 17K to 15K, while Prop 8 won 17.5K to 14.5K. I suspect that movement was mostly from the few odd Hispanic voters in town, along with maybe a few Asians.

[Torie]

Bay Area towns dominate this list, either for ethnic diversity, "Bay Area liberalism," or both.  A few other lefty enclaves make the list, including several in affluent Marin County. 

Marin County will be interested in knowing that it isn't part of the bay area.

Haha.  I'm quite aware that Marin County is in the Bay Area (unlike the Central Valley, the Bay Area is a place I know); that's just what happens when you write stuff at 1 AM.  The point was to contrast the liberalism there with, say, Oakland, Union City, Emeryville, Fremont, etc., leading up to the Prop. 8 stuff.  Which was kind of useless since I wrote "Bay Area liberalism" and made that super-vague, but whatever. 

I'm intrigued by what makes Villa Park so Republican.  It's wealthy, but if $81k MHI doesn't go so far in Hermosa Beach, I can't imagine Villa Park's $116k is that flashy.

The homes are pretty big, big yards, and a fairly low cost per square foot of living space (it's inland, the air quality is not all that great, and in general no views, and some rather marginal (but certainly not terrible) neighborhoods not that far away), and and a pretty elite school system which just takes in upper middle class housing tracts. It's also almost all Anglo (with next to no Jews). You stir that all together, and what you get are conservative oriented upper middle class parents with kids - the perfect storm for max GOP performance.

Then go to my street - views, expensive per square foot (smaller homes but not really much cheaper than those in Villa Park), excellent air quality, and not one kid on the block (23 homes).  My zone is becoming rather marginal GOP territory these days.