Nearly 40% Of CA Voters Backed Trump So Far: See County Shifts, Trends

CALIFORNIA — Liberal California is seeing a notable shift rightward this year as voters backed tough-on-crime measures, flipped some counties red and turned out for a Republican presidential candidate in higher numbers than in the last two elections, according to ongoing ballot counting.

Although the results are far from final, Republicans in California appeared to gain ground in a number of races. The latest returns Tuesday show that 38.1% of voters in California— or 4,993,862— people, backed President-elect Donald Trump. In 2020, Trump garnered 34.3% of the vote when he lost to President Joe Biden and 31% of the vote when he won the presidency in 2016.

There's still room for Trump's near 40% margin to shift in the Golden State as the Associated Press estimates elections officials have only counted about 76% of the vote. Vice President Kamala Harris currently leads Trump by 20.8 points in California, with 58.9% of the total — or 7,721,839 — votes.

As votes continue to be counted this week, Harris has made up ground and now has nearly 72 million votes nationwide, a number that will continue to grow.

The race was unsurprisingly called for Harris in California almost as soon as the polls closed on Election Day, winning her the state's coveted 54 electoral votes, but the preliminary election data shows counties have shifted rightward in 2024.

Compared to the 2020 election, at least eight counties appear to have flipped red, according preliminary data. The following counties appeared to shift toward Trump this year: Riverside, San Bernardino, Butte, San Joaquin, Inyo, Merced and Stanislaus.

As of the latest vote tallies on Tuesday, Nov. 12, the counties with the highest share of Trump votes were Lassen (75.6%), Modoc (71.7%) and Shasta (67.3 percent).

Even in the Bay Area, often considered the Golden State's most liberal stronghold, nine counties garnered more votes for Trump this year compared to the 2020 election based on early returns, according to an analysis from ABC7 News.

Although the results are not final, San Francisco also appeared to show a 7-point swing toward Trump. He received the highest total of votes in the southern and western reaches in the city, where the highest population of Asian communities live, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The city also ousted its progressive mayor, London Breed, whom critics say was worsening San Francisco's crime and homelessness crisis. A more moderate Democrat, Daniel Lurie, won Breed's seat after promising voters that he would clean up the city's streets.

See how your county voted this year:

And while Republicans have won a majority in the U.S. Senate, the fate of the U.S. House of Representatives still hung in the balance on Tuesday while the nation's most populous state worked to finish counting its ballots.

As of Monday, the Republican Party was only four seats away from gaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives, positioning the party to hold power across all branches of the federal government in the upcoming term. In California, five races remain too close to call after Republican Mike Garcia in Los Angeles County lost his lead to Democratic challenger George Whitesides.

What's more, the latest tallies show Republicans gaining ground in the Golden State on everything from statewide measures to unseating a Democratic District Attorney in the state's largest city.

Californians voted "yes" for this election's most hot-button measure, Prop. 36, the tough-on-crime measure will make shoplifting a felony and increase penalties for some drug charges, including those involving fentanyl.

“It was clear to us in the last year that this is desperately needed for Californians,” said Anne Marie Schubert, co-chair of the coalition supporting the measure. “This is a resounding message that Californians are ready to have safer communities.”

Voters also chose to retain involuntary servitude, or forced labor, in California's jails and prisons when they struck down Prop 6, which would have banned California from forcing prison inmates to work. It also would have amended the state constitution to remove the last remnants of legal slavery in the state.

The race, called by the Associated Press on Sunday, marks a setback for the Golden State's reparations effort, a movement that seeks to abolish remaining forms of slavery. The California Black Legislative Caucus previously proposed the amendment.

Voters also rejected a pair of measures that aimed to ease the housing crisis in California. Prop. 5 would have made it easier for cities to raise taxes to build more affordable housing and public infrastructure. Meanwhile, Prop. 33, which also failed, would have rolled back state restrictions that prevent cities from limiting rent increases and enacting rent control.

In another upset for Democrats at a local level, a predominantly Latino community in Southern California — Santa Ana — rejected a measure that would have allowed noncitizens to vote in local races.

“This is kind of in line with trends we’ve been seeing in both polling and elections of the Latino community getting more conservative on issues of immigration,” said Jon Gould, dean of the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine.