What kept California in the GOP column for the final time in 1988?

[sg0508]

Was it really "the final gift from Reagan" as many have said over the years, or was suburbia (in CA) still strong enough for Bush to slide him past Dukakis? It's also possible that we don't really know given that the race was over by around 10pm. 

It is interesting though that CA was somewhat more Republican than OR and WA in '84 (due to Reagan's home state), but stayed aligned with the GOP that one last time in '88, while WA and OR switched.

[darklordoftech]

Good economy, still-present military-industrial complex

[Mr. Smith]

Suburbanites still worried about crime in numbers that simply weren't there in OR or WA, that and the reliably Democratic tech sector was yet to hit its stride.

Also, he [Dukakis] didn't clear Los Angeles or Santa Clara by enough and lost Sacramento, Monterey, Imperial, and Napa...freaking Napa County.

[darklordoftech]

Also, Clarence Thomas and Pat Buchanan hadn't entered the picture yet.

[Sir Mohamed]

Dukakis' pretended weakness on crime gave Bush strong numbers in the suburbs to edge out a win. Also a main reason Pete Wilson twice got elected governor in the 1990s. Reagan's popularity obviously played a role as well.

[twenty42]

CA was only D+4 in 1996, and Bush and Gore both hit it hard in 2000. Bush really didn’t need it in 2004 so it wasn’t contested, but it still came in under 10% for Kerry. It really wasn’t solidified as the solid D behemoth it is today until 2008. Bush could’ve probably carried it narrowly in a hypothetical post-9/11 election.

[Zaybay]

For most of CA's history, it was a reactionary paradise. The Suburbs ruled and modern conservatism was practically born from this state. You can still see this period with the OC Republicans that the Democrats are trying to take out. In 1988, the state was still leaning R, so it voting for the popular VP instead of Dukakis makes sense. The state really started to go blue with the rise of cities like LA and the subsequent immigration that took place. The state GOP was and is also very inept, so that also contributed.

[Liberalrocks]

It may not have been solidly blue in 1988 but it was still very close and quite winnable for Dukakis with a slightly better campaign. I think Dukakis proably needed more time he campaigned here in the closing days and the clock ran out on him flipping it. He won Los Angles county by 5 but needed a bigger margin of victory there to offset O.C/SD republican margins- strongholds at the time.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

A fun fact is that 1988 marked the switch of Los Angeles County from a national bellwether to a Democratic stronghold.

[Sumner 1868]

Military-industrial aerospace pork. The end of the Cold War was the end of the California GOP and later immigration just cemented it in stone.