GOP’s inland California empire may be vanishing

<p>If you were to examine a 1958 political map of California, it would look much different from today’s version.</p><p>You’d find, for example, that Republicans were doing pretty well in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1950s. Caspar Weinberger, later Ronald Reagan’s secretary of defense, was then a state assemblyman from San Francisco. Today scarcely a Republican is holding office in the region.</p><p>The flip side was that Democrats dominated rural counties. </p><p>Every congressional seat and all but a few legislative seats in the 500-mile-long Central Valley, for instance, were held by Democrats. This was also largely true in inland Southern California.</p><p>As the state’s coastal areas evolved into Democratic strongholds during the 1970s and 1980s, the opposite occurred in the Central Valley and Southern California’s Inland Empire.</p><p>Today, the GOP holds six of the Central Valley’s 10 congressional seats and four of five in the Inland Empire. And the same pattern is evident in state legislative districts.</p><p>A curious thing has been happening, however— the GOP’s hold on inland politics has been slipping. Statewide Republican registration has dropped three percentage points in the past four years, from 35.6 percent to 32.5 percent. Slippage appears to be the strongest in inland areas, including four-point losses in Fresno, Merced and Riverside counties.</p><p>In the main, Republican losses have not been big gains for Democrats, whose voter share, after eroding for years, has stabilized at about 43-44 percent. The trend’s beneficiary has been the ever-growing category of “decline-to-state” or independent voters, who are up three percentage points over the past four years to nearly 20 percent of the electorate. </p><p>Why? An unpopular Republican president and an unpopular war contributed to the decline, as did increased voting among Latinos, antipathy among younger voters and an intense Democratic registration effort.</p><p>Meanwhile, a stonebroke state Republican Party pulled back on voter registration, although Steve Poizner, the state insurance commissioner and likely candidate for governor in 2010, is financing a new GOP voter drive.</p><p>Whatever the causes, it’s a fact, and it could cost Republicans heavily this year — especially with an angry electorate and the record-low approval of the current Legislature, just 15 percent in a new Field Poll. </p><p>As many as five inland Assembly districts now held by Republicans forced out by term limits could switch parties, thanks to GOP registration losses averaging three percentage points. And Democrats could pick up one state Senate seat. </p><p>Were all six districts to switch (and Democrats hold their one seat at risk), the political effect would be heavy. Democrats would be within one seat of having two-thirds majorities in both legislative houses, thereby eroding the GOP clout on the budget and taxes that is very much ondisplay during this year’s prolonged budget stalemate.</p><p>Dan Walters is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee. E-mail him at dwalters@sacbee.com.</p>