The Sacramento Bee published this story recently that highlighted the plight of Republicans in California. The main point — the GOP is bleeding registered voters and California is turning bluer by the minute. San Francisco has lost nearly a third of its registered Republicans in the last decade meaning the city of Brea has more registered Republicans than San Francisco does. In OC, there were 412 GOP voters for every 1,000 voters, down 15 percent from 2004 when it was 486 Republicans per 1,000 voters. The story has a fun county-by-count graphic, so give the Bee some hits and check it out.
From the story: “About 28.6 percent of the state’s voters are registered as Republicans, down from 35.7 percent a decade ago, according to the latest figures from the California Secretary of State. The proportion of voters registered as Democrats — 43.5 percent — has fluctuated during that period but today stands equal to where it was in 2004.
The percentage of voters declining to state a party preference — 21.1 percent — has grown significantly. If the trends of the next decade mirror the last, “no party preference” voters will outnumber Republicans in California by 2024.
Traditionally Democratic areas like San Francisco and Marin counties saw the largest proportional drop in Republican voters. No county in the state is now majority Republican. Only two small counties — Lassen and Modoc — increased the proportion of voters registered as Republicans over the last decade.”
Last week, the LA Times reported that traditional GOP donors were supporting Democratic Governor Jerry Brown for re-election. From the story: “…many donors who gave Republican candidates more than $37 million in the last gubernatorial contest are now keeping their hands in their pockets.
But those who are writing checks are largely giving them to … Jerry Brown.
The governor has received nearly $2 million, a Times analysis of campaign reports found, from donors who fueled Meg Whitman’s and Steve Poizner’s Republican gubernatorial bids in 2010. That’s more than three times as much as his current GOP rivals have received from these donors.”
This has to be a pretty sobering statistic that even Republicans are finding that a combination of spending cuts and selective tax increases have pretty much solved the financial crisis because there were just enough Republicans in the state legislature to block meaningful budget measure if there was a tax increase of any sort — never mind that costs keep going up. While it’s clear there are still pockets in OC where Republicans are going to win, Democrats have been making steady inroads.
No question about it, Conservatives are “SOL” in California. Give it another twenty years and you will not be able to distinguish southern California from Baja Mexico. Hope that your Spanish is up to date Dan. At the same time, the anti-business, high tax environment will cause more and more Corporations to depart for other states taking jobs with them? If you look at the most depressed States in the country today, most are under Democrat rule. Be careful what you wish for Dan, that may well be the future for the Peoples Republic of California.
and the dumbest, least educated states tend to be Red States, Pat. Do you realize what a racist thing you just said? I’m sure Choi and Shea join you in wanting to make sure the only brown people in Irvine are the ones picking our strawberries. How amazingly short sighted that statement is….
Where will the corporations go that flee business-unfriendly California? Certainly not Texas, which, in 20 years, will be as blue as the Golden State. The GOP is living on borrowed time. Their bid to control the Senate is a last-ditch effort for a party doomed to lose the White House in 2016 and 2020. And the most “depressed” states in the Union, undoubtedly, are the ruby-red Southern states, which lay claim to the highest rates of unemployment, teen pregnancy and chronic diseases.
GOP registration is down; No Party Preference registration is up. Conservatives are finally realizing that the Republican Neo-Cons are worse than the socialists Democrats. Democrats are National Socialists the Republican Neo-Cons are International Socialists. Example: there’s more support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership from the GOP than from the Democrat Party. “Partnership” means transferring sovereignty.
Your false premise is that the GOP is conservative.
Free Trade is GOP and British for curtailing economic development. The Balanced Budget Amendment is a path to a new Constitutional Convention. More Republicans voted to kill Glass-Steagall, 1933-1999, than Democrats. There are more Democrat co-sponsors to reinstate Glass-Steagall. “Favored Nation Trading Status” and diplomatic recognition was granted to Communists China by Nixon. The first amnesty was under Reagan.
Sherree, add to that most of those red states receive far more in federal tax dollars than they pay.
With most blue states it is just the opposite. CA being the largest donor state in the country.
It’s the height of irony that the anti-government, liberal hating rubes in places like Mississippi and South Carolina are in fact subsidized by the groups they despise.
Dan, my paternal grandmother was a Mexican National in Texas illegally, so don’t presume to lecture me about racial comments. I have the greatest respect for citizens from other countries who come to America for a better life, but do it the right way. I have no respect for illegals who crowd the schools, cost the taxpayers money for entitlement care and who in increasing numbers are hard core criminals. You on the other hand Dan are much like myself. Living in America’s Safest City, we are not exposed to illegals, nor are your kids crammed into a classroom with children who speak no English. They are not in Irvine because they cannot afford to live in Irvine. How racist is that? Look around you Dan in places like Santa Ana and other centers of Mexican demographics and you will see what the future holds for southern California. I’d get to work on learning Spanish, if you don’t already speak it.
Then, why do state and federal governments invite undocumented workers into this country? Where’s the punishment for employers who employ undocumented workers? You don’t want them in this country illegally, don’t hire them and don’t take deductions out of their paychecks for social security and other benefits they can’t collect because they’re not U.S., citizens!
“Illegals” is a racist term Pat. Undocumented immigant is perhaps better choice. Human beings are not illegal in any sense. Have to hand it to you; a blank comment page is a signed confession of your racism in this case. Tell me, does your friend Christina use terms like “gays” or “lesbians” or does she call them “homosexuals.”
“Illegals” is a racist term Pat. Undocumented immigant is perhaps better choice.
I prefer “foreign nationals”
Cook:
“Illegal Aliens” is a legal term found in “Black’s Law Dictionary”
I prefer “Undocumented Democrats” as in “Importing Poverty” a study from the “Center for Immigration Studies”
“Importing Poverty: Immigration’s Impact on the Size and Growth of the Poor Population in the United States”
By Steven A. Camarota
http://cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/articles/poverty_study/povstudy.pdf