Talk Elections

is often correlated with income. It seems that in the high income areas, particularly on the coast, you have the highest % of voters who don't want to be labeled under either party. In the more lower and middle income areas, there aren't very many DTS voters.

In particular, I noticed how the northside of San Diego (much of the turf in the 90s 49th and 51st districts) had huge DTS populations while the areas with the lowest DTS populations were in the Inland Empire and especially the Central Valley.

My main hypothesis is that in middle or working class areas, particularly in small or mid-sized cities, politics is mostly about alliegance. The owners, bosses and managers vote republican and the workers vote democrat and nobody really thinks twice when voting. In an area like Silicon Valley or North San Diego, voters have a hell of a lot of different ways of expressing themselves politically.

As a DTS voter it makes sense. A lot of people in these well to do areas in the Bay Area, the beach cities, north SD and parts of OC to a certain extent are socially liberal but don't feel totally comfortable with Democrats on everything. They will maybe vote for the Democrats because they hate the Republicans more but at the same time vote no on all taxes. And in years like 2010 they might vote Republican. I didn't vote Republican in 2010 but I did vote no on all taxes.

The wave sort of missed California in 2010.

If you look at the Boxer-Fiorina race, the swing back from Obama was 14 points which is the same as the nation. And the areas that swung back the most are the ones I mentioned.

What is the actual correlation between %DTS and median income?

California seems to have many fewer Democrats than 30 years ago but far more partisans. As a result the possibility of Pete Wilson and such winning statewide went away with it.

The possibility of Pete Wilson being elected went away with prop 187.....though not immediately obviously.

0.4286 according to my calculations.

The Democrats picked up the governor's seat, another statewide office, and increase their members in the state Assembly to a 38 year record, and none of the 66 Democrats to go down in the House was in California. A wave may have hit California in 2010, a small Democratic one.

In the California state assembly Democrats won by 58-40 in 2008, so an under performance compared to Obama. In 2010 it went down to 54-44 but the Democrats actually gained a seat. The Sacramento area should be interesting to watch going forward....The state senate didn't change much. There was definitely a swing back to the Republicans in California in 2010, but it was not as visible in the state races since a lot of these DTS voters who voted for Obama usually vote Republican and did in the state races. In spite of the ridiculous "Obamacans" meme, the real reason why Obama almost won OC, won in wealthy north SD cities and ran up the numbers in the beach cities, Silicon Valley and the inland east bay is due to these DTS voters. Of course this is not to say there aren't a lot of DTS voters elsewhere (as the correlation provided above proves) but in these areas you have a lot of former Republicans/ leaners hanging about and there is a slight correlation between these wealthier areas and higher DTS registration.