17 500 00 (AND COUNTING?)
Biden is the first candidate to top 10 million votes in the state; even in loss, Trump sets GOP record
With ballots still being counted and tight races still to be called, California voters appear well on their way to shattering records for the sheer number of votes cast.
So many Californians voted this year that Joe Biden — who won here in a landslide — became the first presidential candidate in the state to ever top more than 10 million votes. President Donald Trump eclipsed 5.5 million votes — a million more than he received four years ago and more than any Republican ever in a state that’s home to Ronald Reagan.
The Golden State is on track to top 17.5 million voters for the November election — nearly 3 million more than the 2016 presidential election.
And it appears about 70% of
those eligible to vote in the Golden State actually did, a turnout rate not seen since 1952, when 74% of eligible voters cast ballots and helped send Dwight Eisenhower to the White House.
But not everyone is so impressed with the turnout. In a year with a presidential race for the ages and the state making voting as easy as a trip to the mailbox by sending ballots to about 22 million registered voters because of the coronavirus, “I’m actually surprised it wasn’t higher,” said Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at Menlo College.
The 17.5-million ballot figure could go up slightly, since ballots can arrive by mail to election offices as late as Nov. 20 as long as they are postmarked Nov. 3 or earlier. And even if the number of ballots were to hold at 17.5 million, it would mean about 80% of the state’s registered voters weighed in, a figure not seen since Jimmy Carter won the presidency in 1976 after the Watergate scandal.
And already, 2020 eligible voter turnout is on pace to be among the highest in state history. But despite all the enthusiasm over Trump vs. Biden, turnout as a percentage of registered voters may only top the historic election of President Barack Obama by a whisker.
About 79% of California’s registered voters turned out to elect Obama in 2008, and about 75% of registered voters turned out in 2016, when Trump faced Hillary Clinton. But nothing so far has beat the 1960s, when more than 88% of registered voters turned out in both 1960, when John Kennedy beat Richard Nixon, and 1964, when Lyndon Johnson beat Barry Goldwater.
So why isn’t turnout that high now? Even with an easier voting process, some groups are less inclined to vote. Latinx and Asian Americans are less likely than White people to vote in California, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, and they make up a growing share of the state’s population. They are also more likely to be young, which is another group less likely to vote than older people.
And campaigns typically reach out to engaged, likely voters, which can further alienate already marginalized communities.
“The lack of outreach and mobilization are really important,” said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California. “It’s not like they’re uninformed. This is their assessment of a political system where they have a really hard time seeing how it benefits them.”
In the five- county Bay Area, overall turnout as a percentage of registered voters is above the state average, reaching at least 85% in San Francisco. Several rural counties along the state’s eastern border also had very high turnout this year: nearly 87% in tiny Sierra County; more than 88% in Amador County.
Along the southern border with Mexico, registered voter turnout in Imperial County, a high-poverty, largely Latinx region ravaged by the deadly coronavirus pandemic, hovered around 50%. In Lake County, just north of Napa County in an area devastated by wildfires, turnout stood this week at a paltry 29%, but registrar of voters Maria Valadez said she expected that figure to rise in the coming days as more ballots are processed.
Not surprisingly, Biden won by huge margins along California’s more populated coastal and urban areas, while Trump found pockets of support in the state’s rural northeast and in parts of the Central Valley.
Statewide, Biden has snagged roughly two-thirds of the vote so far, while Trump has received a third. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won about 62% of the vote in California, and Trump received just shy of a third.
While Biden won by huge margins in the Bay Area,
surprisingly, Trump appears to have done better in 2020 in some big population centers — picking up about four points from his 2016 performance, for instance, in Santa Clara County, where he won roughly 25% of the vote this year. He also gained some ground in San Francisco and Los Angeles counties.
In Imperial County, support for Trump appears to have shot up more than 14 points from 2016. It’s not yet clear which voters delivered Trump that support, but it’s likely some of it mirrored national trends of Latinx voters who believe he would do a better job of fixing the economy than Biden.
“We’re not a monolithic group,” said Eduardo Garcia, a senior policy fellow with the nonpartisan Latino Community Foundation, which worked on boosting Latinx voter turnout across California. “Campaigns need to speak to Latino voters recognizing that we don’t all vote the same way and that we still need to be reached out to and spoken to.”
Trump appears to have garnered his highest share of support in Lassen County, with roughly 75% of the vote. But after going for Trump in 2016, nearby Butte County this year became a blue island in an otherwise Republican region. To the south, Inyo County along the border with Nevada also appears set to narrowly flip blue after going for Trump four years ago.
Regardless of how people vote, the way Californians cast their ballots may shift to mail-in voting for good. California has been trending that direction for years and despite Trump’s unfounded allegations of mail-in voting being rampant with fraud, the state’s decision to mail all active, registered voters a ballot went smoothly. Already Assemblyman Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park, has proposed legislation that would cement mail-in voting as the norm.
Mail-in voting is easier, more f lexible and, since people can stop and research school board candidates, they’re more likely to vote in down-ballot races, Michelson said.
“Getting a ballot in the mail serves as a reminder that there’s an election,” she said. “I can’t think of anything bad to say about it.”