Far-leaning locales

Most liberal and most conservative cities in California

This article was published on 06.04.09

Think Chico is pretty liberal and elsewhere in Butte County is pretty conservative? That may be, but based on voter breakdowns, other places across the state have greater imbalances between Democrats and Republicans. The California Secretary of State’s Office released registration information for the May 19 special election, and the Sacramento Bee compiled it into lists of the cities (population over 5,000) that lean most to the left and most to the right. Not too surprisingly, the spots with the fewest Republicans are mostly in the East Bay and South Central Los Angeles, while those with the fewest Democrats are pretty much in affluent SoCal towns. Below are the top five in each, with the representation of the minority party (GOP in left-leaning enclaves, Dems in right-leaning).

Most liberal
(percent GOP)

1. Berkeley (4.5%)
2. Oakland (5.9%)
3. Emeryville (6.9%)
4. Inglewood (7.1%)
5. Albany (7.6%)

Most conservative
(percent Democrats)

1. Canyon Lake (21.1%)
2. Newport Beach (21.9%)
3. San Marino (22.5%)
4. Yorba Linda (22.6%)
5. San Clemente (24.1%)

Source: www.sacbee.com