The San Joaquin Valley Electoral Politics Project, Part 1: 2010-2018 Gubernatorial Results
Introduction: When I was a graduate student at the University of Maryland (within the Beltway) and told many of my fellow students (many of whom were from the DC/Baltimore urban axis) that I was originally from "Fresno, California," I would sometimes get asked, "Isn't that area very conservative?" My usual response was "Yes overall, but the Valley is slowly becoming more purple, even light blue, and portions are already trending blue." Even before starting my undergraduate program at UC Merced, I had already realized that the San Joaquin Valley (SJV) is a relatively conservative and Republican place, with some increasing blue blemishes at the micro- and macro-levels. Having this blog will allow me to research, analyze, and comprehend historical and current political trends in the Valley, and place them in the larger national- and state-level contexts.
The inspiration to want to explore the Valley's electoral history mostly stems from watching the 2018 midterm results come in that night (and in the following weeks), where several significant results occurred that seemed to defy traditional thought that the Valley is a conservative land. Granted, the Valley still is very conservative and Republican compared to the state and nation, but as will be explored throughout this project, 2018 is where Democratic candidates running in the Valley (or statewide) began to see a newfound strength in a place that has been strongly Republican for a while. I will start out this project exploring more recent electoral results, as they are the ones I am more familiar with and where more external research is available. I don't know how many parts this project will have in the end, as the first few posts will only make a scratch on the Valley's electoral history.
Methodology and Data Sources: In conducting analysis of past electoral results from the San Joaquin Valley, I will spatially define the area using county borders for simplicity, especially because election results at the county level are widely available. As such, I will be using the list of counties that the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) used as part of their 2020 Census blog post on Census reporting in the Valley to define which counties belong in the Valley. The counties included in their analysis are (from North to South) San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, and Kern counties (Bohn et al.). A simple Tableau map below illustrates these counties. While some of these counties (Madera, Fresno, Tulare, Kern) contain areas that are not in the Valley per se., glancing on Google Maps and the Statistical Atlas reveals that a vast majority of the population of these counties live on the Valley floor. As such, while I will use county-wide results throughout this project, I will also keep this fact in mind when analyzing county-level trends.
Map 1: Counties Included in This Project's Analysis:
Data for all three gubernatorial elections analyzed here came from the California Secretary of State's website, where all certified election results are available. Data was manually extracted into Excel, and I calculated the winner and raw vote margin for each county manually. Data visualizations (including maps, charts, and graphs) for this post (and the rest of the project) will be produced through Tableau, and will display county-level results, unless otherwise noted. I intend for most of the electoral maps used in this project to be similar to New York Times-style election maps, where county results can be shown using bubbles that are color-coded by winner and whose size varies based on the number of raw votes each county's winner is leading by. In the future, once I learn how to utilize precinct-level data in Tableau, I may also start producing maps and analysis of precinct-level election results from the valley. As used on other maps, blue and red will represent the Democratic and Republican parties and candidates, respectively. Any exceptions or third-party results will be specified when a situation requiring it comes up.
Brief County Overviews: All population totals listed here are from the Census Bureau's 2018 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year estimates ("Explore Census Data"). Details about the urban/suburban/rural makeup of each county was created through personal experiences from the Valley and extensively surveying the valley through the online Statistical Atlas and Google Maps.
- San Joaquin: Located at the northern-most end of the valley, San Joaquin County has around 762,000 residents ("Explore Census Data"). Overall, the county is largely suburban-dominated, especially with cities that have grown with Bay Area commuters such as Tracy, Lathrop, Manteca, Ripon, and Mountain House. The county also contains the older city of Stockton, home to the Valley's only seaport.
- Stanislaus: Like San Joaquin, Stanislaus County has recently become dominated by suburban Bay Area commuters, especially the cities of Patterson, Turlock, Modesto, and Ceres. There were 550,000 residents in 2019 ("Explore Census Data").
- Merced: Merced County sits at the transition between the "North Valley" and "South Valley", with Los Banos on the western half being similar to Stanislaus and San Joaquin, with many suburban Bay Area commuters. The central strip of the county contains the college town of Merced (home to U.C. Merced, my alma mater) and the former military town of Atwater. Merced County has around 277,000 residents as of 2019 ("Explore Census Data").
- Madera: Stretching from near-sea-level to the Sierra Nevada's high peaks, Madera is much more rural than the "Northern Three" described above, with only two small cities, Madera and Chowchilla, several smaller towns and settlements, and extensive rural and agricultural land. The 2019 population was 157,000 ("Explore Census Data"). In the next decade or so, eastern Madera County's population will increase drastically as the Rio Mesa suburban development project progresses just across the San Joaquin River from Fresno. In the long-term, these developments will likely become an incorporated city when their combined population is large enough (Castellon).
- Fresno: The most populated county in the Valley, Fresno County's 2019 population is a thousand short of 1,000,000 ("Explore Census Data"). The county is dominated by the City of Fresno and its neighboring suburb of Clovis, which contain around 531,000 and 115,000 people, respectively ("Explore Census Data"). In addition to its urban core, Fresno contains an extensive amount of suburban development on all sides, and stretches up the San Joaquin River. The county also contains extensive exurban development around Fresno (especially to the west, east, and north, and within Fresno's "unincorporated islands"), many small farming towns and small-to-medium-sized cities, and rural agricultural land. Part of the county also extends into the Sierra Nevada mountains.
- Kings: The least-populated county in the Valley, Kings has around 152,000 people ("Explore Census Data"), and is dominated by two small cities, Hanford and Lemoore, with extensive agricultural land. The county has a military vibe due to the presence of Lemoore Naval Air Station.
- Tulare: Straddling the Valley and mountains, Tulare has around 466,000 people ("Explore Census Data"), with two medium-sized cities (Tulare and Visalia), several smaller cities and large towns, and agricultural land.
- Kern: At the southern end of the Valley, this 900,000-person ("Explore Census Data") county stretches from the Coast Ranges across the Valley floor to the Sierra Nevada mountains and a portion of the High Desert. While dominated by the City of Bakersfield, there are several small cities, large towns, exurban development, and rural agricultural land that also define the county's residents.
Results and Analysis:
Map 2: 2010 SJV Gubernatorial Results by County
2010: Coming out of "Governator" Schwarzenegger's (R) second term, Democrats were salivating to win back Sacramento despite the fact that in midterms, the president's party usually suffers losses, as the Democrats were holding the White House at the time. Because his first two terms were served before California's term limits law was enacted that exempted Governors serving before 1990 (a "grandfather clause"), former Governor (and then-Attorney General) Jerry Brown (D) ran for a non-consecutive third term (Parkerberry). Facing him was eBay CEO Meg Whitman (R), who recently spoke at the Democratic National Convention in support of Joe Biden (D) (Curto). Despite pre-election analysis indicating that retaking California's Gubernatorial seat would be more difficult than expected for Democrats, Brown won statewide (Caulfield).
In the San Joaquin Valley, all counties except San Joaquin voted for Whitman, who otherwise won the Valley 51%-42% (7% went to other candidates). Despite Obama winning Fresno County in 2008, it voted similarly to the Valley, 40%-50% for Whitman.
Map 3: 2014 SJV Gubernatorial Results by County
2014: After President Obama won his second term, Democrats began to fret about the 2014 midterms, with anxiety growing that the party would suffer another crushing blow. Simultaneously with this, Gov. Brown chose to run for a fourth term, and was faced by Republican Neel Kashkari. This was the first gubernatorial election under California's "Top 2" primary law, where all primary candidates appear on one ballot and the top two go to the general election (Green). Despite the night otherwise being disastrous for national and state-level Democrats across the country, Brown won a fourth re-election (Mandaro).
The San Joaquin Valley swung slightly towards Gov. Brown, but still voted for Kashkari 54%-46%. However, Brown flipped Merced (by 97 votes) and Stanislaus counties, which had voted for Whitman four years earlier, and brought Fresno County close to purple, as it voted 52%-48% in favor of Kashkari. On the other hand, Madera, Kings, Tulare, and Kern counties moved more Republican relative to 2010. As will be extensively noted in future project posts, these four counties are the most conservative and Republican in the Valley.
Map 4: 2018 SJV Gubernatorial Results by County
2018: With a Republican President (Trump) in the White House, Democrats were optimistic about the possibility of 2018 being a big year nationwide. In California, with Gov. Brown ineligible for another term, his Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom (the former Mayor of San Francisco) ran for the top post. Newsom and Trump-backed businessman John Cox (R) made it to the general election, which Newsom ultimately won by a wide margin (Garofoli).
The Valley continued to trend more Democratic at a snail's pace from 2014, voting 53%-47% in favor of Cox. The most notable county-level change is Fresno County, which voted narrowly Republican, 51%-49%. Stanislaus County swung back to voting Republican (narrowly) after voting for Brown in 2014. Otherwise, there was little change in county-level results relative to 2014, despite the Valley continuing to creep slightly towards the Democrats.
Table 1: Combined County Results Table
Conclusion: In California's last three gubernatorial elections, the Valley has slowly backed from the heavy Republican lean it showed in the Schwarzenegger era and become more light-red. Nonetheless, as pointed out above, such growth has been slow and uneven across the valley, as San Joaquin and Merced Counties have not been voting Democratic at the state-level compared to the Federal-level (to be explored later). Despite inching towards the blue end of the spectrum as well, and voting Democratic in the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Presidential elections, Fresno County has not shed its state-level Republican tendencies yet. In addition, the southern trio of Kings, Tulare, and Kern barely budged between 2014 and 2018, despite the former being a Republican wave midterm, and the latter a Democratic one. As will be explored in future posts related to this project, these three counties are the most conservative in the valley (and are among the most in the state), and (especially Kern) often tilt the valley towards the Republicans at the macro-level.
See you all in the next edition of this project!
Data Sources:
"Statement of Vote: November 2, 2010 General Election." California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, 6 Jan. 2011, elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2010-general/complete-sov.pdf, 23-25. Accessed 30 Aug. 2020.
"Statement of Vote: November 4, 2014 General Election." California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, 12 Dec. 2014, elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2014-general/pdf/2014-complete-sov.pdf, 19-21. Accessed 30 Aug. 2020.
"Statement of Vote: November 6, 2018 General Election." California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, 14 Dec. 2018, elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2018-general/sov/2018-complete-sov.pdf. Accessed 30 Aug. 2020.
Works Cited:
Bohn, Sarah, Vicki Hsieh, and Tess Thorman. "2020 Census: Counting the San Joaquin Valley." Public Policy Institute of California, 30 Aug. 2020, www.ppic.org/blog/2020-census-counting-the-san-joaquin-valley/. Accessed 30 Aug. 2020.
Castellon, David. "Madera County Housing Boom Could Spur at Least One New City." The Business Journal, 25 Oct. 2018, thebusinessjournal.com/madera-county-housing-boom-could-spur-at-least-one-new-city/. Accessed 30 Aug. 2020.
Caulfield, Philip. "Meg Whitman loses California governor race despite $160 million tab; Jerry Brown wins for 3rd time." New York Daily News, 3 Nov. 2020, www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/meg-whitman-loses-california-governor-race-160-million-tab-jerry-brown-wins-3rd-time-article-1.450512. Accessed 30 Aug. 2020.
Curto, Justin. "Quibi CEO Meg Whitman’s DNC Speech Was the Quickest Bite of All." Vulture, 18 Aug. 2020, www.vulture.com/2020/08/quibi-ceo-meg-whitman-dnc-speech.html. Accessed 30 Aug. 2020.
Finnegan, Michael. "Jerry Brown makes history, wins fourth term." Los Angeles Times, 4 Nov. 2014, www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-california-polls-close-20141104-story.html. Accessed 30 Aug. 2020.
Garofoli, Joe. "California governor race: Gavin Newsom cruises to victory, faces big challenges." San Francisco Chronicle, 7 Nov. 2018, www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-governor-race-Gavin-Newsom-headed-to-13369334.php. Accessed 30 Aug. 2020.
Green, Matthew. "Making Sense of California's Top-Two Primary System." KQED, 6 Jun. 2018, www.kqed.org/lowdown/2014/californias-new-top-two-primary-explained. Accessed 30 Aug. 2020.
"Explore Census Data." United States Census Bureau, data.census.gov/cedsci/. Accessed 30 Aug. 2020.
Parkerberry, Summer. "Jerry Brown in historic role." Capitol Weekly, 23 Oct. 2013, capitolweekly.net/503/. Accessed 30 Aug. 2020.
Nathan Parmeter
Author and Host, The Parmeter Politics and Policy Record
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