California Is Getting More and More Republican

Donald Trump significantly outperformed his 2020 and 2016 presidential election performances in the state of California on Tuesday, while progressives were unseated as mayor of San Francisco and Los Angeles County district attorney.

The results provide evidence of what University College London (UCL) political scientist Thomas Gift called a “right-shift” in the Golden State, which has seen Republicans making something of a revival.

As of 10 a.m. ET on Friday Trump was on 39.8 percent in the Golden State, behind Democratic rival Kamala Harris on 57.6 percent, with 59 percent of the votes counted. By comparison Trump only received 34.3 percent of the vote in California when he lost office in 2020, and 31.5 percent when he won the presidency in 2016. Newsweek analysis published on Wednesday showed California had the joint biggest swing towards Trump of any state in 2024, at 12 percentage points, along with New York.

Overall Trump convincingly won the 2024 election with at least 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, significantly above the 270 needed for victory. This number is likely to be extended further as Trump leads in Arizona and Nevada, the only two states AP has yet to call, and he looks on track for a popular vote victory for the first time.

Tuesday also saw Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, a progressive Democrat, unseated by Nathan Hochman, an independent former Republican who promised a major crackdown on crime. Gascón, who took office in 2020 vowing criminal justice reform in the midst of the George Floyd protests, lost with 38.5 percent of the vote against 61.5 percent for Hochman.

Separately, San Francisco’s progressive mayor, London Breed, was defeated by Daniel Lurie, a more moderate Democratic-affiliated candidate who promised “clean and safe streets for all” and to tackle “our drug and behavioral health crisis.” Lurie, heir to the Levi Strauss clothing empire, won 56 percent of the vote against 44 percent for the incumbent.

Breed was blamed by critics for worsening San Francisco’s ongoing problems with crime and homelessness, though her office claimed the city’s homeless population has fallen by about 3.5 percent over the past three years.

California voters also backed Proposition 36, which significantly increased penalties for certain theft and drug offences, partly undoing a 2014 law that downgraded certain non-violent felonies to misdemeanors. Supporters said the move would held cut the state’s prison population, but critics blamed it for a surge in homelessness and theft.

Speaking to Newsweek, Gift, who heads the Centre on U.S. Politics at UCL in the U.K., said: “California’s right-shift is the result of years of Democratic governance that have been dominated by structural indebtedness, high taxes, burdensome regulations and an exorbitant cost of living.

“The uptick in Republican voting doesn’t even capture the great exodus of many disillusioned Republicans who’ve fled California for states like Texas, Arizona, Nevada and Florida.”

In the year to July 2022, the population of California declined by 0.3 percent, while the U.S. population as a whole grew and some Republican-controlled states such as Florida and Texas saw considerable population increases.

However, in an interview with Newsweek, Dafydd Townley, an American politics expert who teaches at the University of Portsmouth in the U.K., questioned how sustainable the Republicans’ gains in California are.

“The increased Republican support in California is concerning to Democrats, but the districts that flipped to Trump have flip-flopped since 2004, when they were last all red,” he said.

“California voters also showed hesitancy in supporting the state’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom‘s progressive agenda that was up for grabs too. They rejected a progressive prosecutor in LA County, supported tougher punishments for criminal sentences, and voted against expanding rent control across the state.

“Is this a sign that California is turning red or even purple? Unlikely. Harris still comfortably won the state and Democrat Adam Schiff was elected to the Senate. It’s likely that many voters will flip back blue now that the Republicans are the incumbents in the White House and control Congress. If Republicans make further gains in the 2026 midterms then perhaps a discussion can start to be had about the state turning red.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday responded to Trump’s election victory with a post on X vowing to “defend our Constitution and uphold the rule of law” and emphasizing the importance of federalism.