Thursday, December 15, 2016

California Congressional Districts by Presidential and Congressional Vote

Donald Trump cratered in California. I've already covered the reason why Trump did worse than Romney in California but better elsewhere. I've figured out the Presidential vote by congressional district. A few of these are approximated, because every county hasn't broken down their Presidential vote by district yet. The approximation is likely off by only a few tenths of a percentage point and shouldn't matter when rounding.

CA-1: Romney 57%-40%, Trump 56%-37%
2012: Doug La Malfa 57%-43%, 2016: Doug La Malfa 59%-41%

Donald Trump lost California by 30, while Mitt Romney lost it by 23 points. There aren’t many districts where Trump did better but this is one. It makes sense. Trump did very well in rural America and this district is rural with small towns. LaMalfa likely benefitted, doing better in 2016 than in 2012.

CA-3: Obama 54%-43%, Clinton 53%-40%
2012: John Garamendi 54%-46%, 2016: John Garamendi 59%-41%

This district is largely rural, with some Sacramento suburbs mixed in, so it’s not surprising that the Presidential margins were so close. John Garamendi’s voters were willing to split their tickets and he more than doubled his 2012 win.

CA-7: Obama 51%-47%, Clinton 51%-40%
2012: Ami Bera 52%-48%, 2016: Ami Bera 51%-49%

Hillary Clinton didn’t do better than Barack Obama in this suburban district, even though Donald Trump didn’t match Mitt Romney’s percentage. Clinton doing better didn’t help Bera, as his close call in 2012 was even closer in 2016. Maybe the vote was influenced by Bera’s father being convicted of illegal campaign contributions and the district won’t be that close in the future. After three tight races I don’t think Bera will count on an easy win in 2018.

CA-4: Romney 58%-40%, Trump 54%-39%
CA-8: Romney 56%-42%, Trump 55%-40%

These are the other two rural districts in the state and Trump did a little better than Romney in CA-8 and a little worse in CA-4.

CA-9: Obama 58%-40%, Clinton 55%-37%
2012: Jerry McNerney 56%-44%, 2016: Jerry McNerney 57%-43%

This district mixes some of the rural Central Valley and is centered in Stockton. I haven’t looked at the precinct data but Trump likely did better than Romney in the more rural parts of this district and worse around Stockton. Jerry McNerney wasn’t helped, but his win was comfortable.

CA-10: Obama 51%-47%, Clinton 48%-45%
2012: Jeff Denham 53%-47%, 2016: Jeff Denham 52%-48%

This district is just south of CA-9, centered in Modesto. Trump did a couple of points better than Romney but Jeff Denham had another close call. Like Bera, he can’t get comfortable.

CA-12: Obama 84%-13%, Clinton 86%-9%
CA-13: Obama 88%-9%,Clinton 87%-7%
CA-29: Obama 77%-21%, Clinton 78%-17%
CA-34: Obama 83%-14%,Clinton 84%-11%
CA-37: Obama 85%-13%,Clinton 86%-10%
CA-40: Obama 82%-17%,Clinton 82%-13%
CA-43: Obama 78%-20%,Clinton 78%-17%
CA-44: Obama 85%-14%,Clinton 83%-12%

These urban mostly majority minority districts are the most Democratic in the state. It would’ve been tough for Hillary Clinton to do much better than Barack Obama and she did about the same as he did. For the most part Donald Trump lost more from Mitt Romney than Clinton gained from Obama.

CA-16: Obama 59%-39%, Clinton 61%-34%
2012: Jim Costa 57%-43%, 2016: Jim Costa 58%-42%

Democrat Jim Costa had a close call in 2014, but did just as well as he did in 2012 this year. He didn’t come close to matching Clinton or Obama. It’s tough for a Democrat down ballot to match the Presidential vote in the Central Valley.

CA-21: Obama 55%-44%, Clinton 53%-41%
2012: David Valadao 58%-42%, 2016: David Valadao 57%-43%

There aren’t many places in America where Democrats win the Presidential race by double digits and lose the congressional race by double digits. Democrats haven’t run a quality challenger to Valadao yet, but there’s no evidence they can even make him sweat.

CA-24: Obama 54%-43%, Clinton 57%-37%
2012: Lois Capps 55%-45%, 2016: Salud Carbajal 53%-47%

Hillary Clinton won the district by 20 points while Barack Obama won by 11. That’s a bigger improvement than the state overall. Despite a big improvement by Clinton Salud Carbajal had a tighter race than Lois Capps. It may have been due it being an open seat, but that’s a lackluster win in a district where Clinton voters were the ones voting.

CA-25: Romney 50%-48%, Clinton 50%-44%
2012: Buck McKeon 55%-45%, 2016: Steve Knight 53%-47%

Hillary Clinton improved the margin by 8 points, flipping the seat from Romney to her on a Presidential level. Unfortunately for the Democrats their congressional improvement was smaller and didn’t result in flipping the seat. They did improve in the down ticket state senate race, but not enough to win. Democrats won one of the assembly districts in this congressional seat in 2012 but the GOP took it this time. CA-26: Obama 54%-44%, Clinton 57%-35%
2012: Julia Brownley 53%-47%, 2016: Julia Brownley 60%-40%

Elton Gallegly held the Ventura county seat for 26 years. It isn’t a Republican stronghold any more. While the GOP gave Julia Brownley a scare in 2014, she coasted to victory this time. In most cases Democrats down ballot didn’t see Clinton like improvement but they saw that in the congressional, state senate, and assembly races in Ventura county.

CA-27: Obama 63%-35%, Clinton 66%-28%
CA-28: Obama 70%-26%, Clinton 72%-22%
CA-30: Obama 65%-32%,Clinton 69%-26%
CA-32: Obama 65%-33%,Clinton 67%-28%
CA-33: Obama 61%-37%,Clinton 68%-27%
CA-38: Obama 65%-33%, Clinton 67%-24%
CA-47: Obama 60%-37%, Clinton 62%-31%

These LA county districts are mostly whiter than the minority majority districts above and bit less blue. Similar to those, however, Clinton improved just a bit over Barack Obama while Trump suffered bigger declines compared to Mitt Romney. The districts with the two biggest changes, CA-30 and 33, are wealthier and more suburban. Those were where Hillary Clinton made her biggest gains throughout the country.

None of these districts were competitive on a congressional level in 2012 and they weren’t again this year. Democrats showed several points of improvement across the board.

CA-31: Obama 57%-41%, Clinton 58%-37%
2016: Pete Aguilar 56%-44%

CA-35: Obama 67%-31%, Clinton 68%-27%
2016: Norma J. Torres 72%-28%

San Bernardino showed only a small improvement for Clinton over Obama. Trump did about the same as Romney in CA-8, but in these two, like in many of the LA county districts, he was off Romney’s percentage. In 2012, both districts had interparty contests, so there’s nothing to compare them to. After a 3 point win in 2014, Aguilar had a more comfortable victory this year. There may have been some coat tails here.

CA-36: Obama 51%-47%, Clinton 52%-43%
2012: Raul Ruiz 53%-47%, 2016: Raul Ruiz 62%-38%

CA-41: Obama 62%-36%, Clinton 61%-33%
2012: Mark Takano 59%-41%, 2016: Mark Takano 65%-35%

CA-42: Romney 57%-41%, Trump 53%-41%
2012: Ken Calvert 61%-39%, 2016: Ken Calvert 59%-41%

Riverside county produced interesting results. Hillary Clinton did just a little better than Barack Obama here but Democrats Raul Ruiz and Mark Takano dramatically increased their margins. These two are now popular incumbents and the GOP isn't going to challenge either district. Ken Calvert's district closely followed the Presidential race. Donald Trump did a bit worse and so did Calvert.

CA-39: Romney 51%-47%, Clinton 51%-43%
2012: Ed Royce 58%-42%, 2016: Ed Royce 57%-43%

CA-45: Romney 55%-43%, Clinton 49%-44%
2012: Tom Campbell 58%-42%, 2016: Mimi Walters 59%-41%

CA-48; Romney 55%-43%, Clinton 47%-46%
2012: Dana Rohrabacher 61%-39%, 2016: Dana Rohrabacher 58%-42%

CA-46: Obama 61%-36%, Clinton 66%-28%
Orange County was a disaster for Donald Trump. It’s heavily suburban, the type of cities and towns where he dropped off from Mitt Romney most. It shows in the results. While Clinton didn’t improve over Obama in other majority minority districts her improvement over him in CA-46 was large.

The Presidential results didn’t show better results for Democrats in congressional races, however, and that wasn’t uncommon in suburban districts. Hillary Clinton had similar stunning improvements in similar districts like GA-6, GA-7, IL-6, and MN-3and Democrats didn’t come close to winning any of them. As I mentioned earlier, Republicans did very well in the county’s assembly races. Call me skeptical that Orange County is going blue.

CA-49: Romney 52%-46%, Clinton 50%-43%
2012: Darrell Issa 58%-42%, 2016: Darrell Issa 50.3%-49.7%

CA-50: Romney 60%-38%, Trump 54%-39%
2012: Duncan Hunter 67%-33%, 2016: Duncan Hunter 63%-37%

CA-51: : Obama 69%-29%, Clinton 71%-23%
2012: Juan Vargas 72%-28%, 2016: Juan Vargas 73%-27%

CA-52: Obama 52%-46%, Clinton 57%-35%
2012: Scott Peters 51%-49%, 2016: Scott Peters 57%-43%

CA-52: Obama 61%-36%, Clinton 64%-29%
2012: Susan Davis 61%-39%, 2016: Susan Davis 67%-33%

San Diego county, on the other hand is definitely getting bluer. While Darrell Issa slipped in Orange county, San Diego county was much worse for him. He won the county by 22k votes in 2012 and lost it by 16k votes this year. Scott Peters won a narrow victory in 2012, but won easily this year. Duncan Hunter lost 8 points off his margin. He’s not going to lose his district but Issa will be in trouble in future elections and CA-52 is likely out of reach for the GOP.

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