Walters: The Golden State drifted toward Trump in 2024. Will right turn last?

For the last eight months, ever since Donald Trump walloped Kamala Harris to reclaim the presidency, Democratic politicians, political interest groups and media pundits of all stripes have debated what happened and why.

Deep dives into who voted, and sometimes why, have generally concluded that Harris lost decisive ground — compared to Joe Biden’s 2020 unseating of Trump — among younger male voters, especially Latinos and Black Californians, and could not generate enough support among other demographic groups, such as women, to offset the losses.

“Overall, Harris performed six points worse among men than Biden did,” an extensive analysis by the Cook Political Report declared. “But that falloff was significantly more pronounced among Latino men (-12) and Black men (-7). Among white men without a college degree — a group that is traditionally the least friendly to Democrats — the slippage was least dramatic (-3).

“Despite the historic nature of her candidacy as the first woman of color to be nominated for president, women greeted that fact with more of a shrug,” Cook continued. “Harris’ vote share among women was basically the same as the share Biden got in 2020, except for a noticeable decline in support from Latinas. She also slightly underperformed Biden among Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women (-4) and failed to do any better with Black women than Biden did.”

California, one of the nation’s bluest states, was not immune to the political hemorrhage that doomed Harris’ campaign, even though she is a Californian who was the state’s attorney general and a U.S. senator before becoming Biden’s vice president.

Voters in 10 California counties which had backed Biden against Trump in 2020, switched to Trump last year, and a new analysis of California’s vote indicates that the state saw the same dynamics as the nation as a whole.

“After years of declining shares of registered voters selecting Republican as their party registration, young Californians have begun to move towards the Republican party in recent election years while older Californians continue to move away,” the analysis by the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California declares.

“Young registered voters of all racial and ethnic groups saw notably larger shifts towards the Republican party compared to their older counterparts. Latino youth, however, saw particularly large growth in Republican party registration between presidential elections.”

It continued, “While Vice President Kamala Harris received 58.5% of all votes cast in California’s 2024 general election, President Donald Trump received 38.3% of the votes, the smallest difference in the vote by party (20.2 percentage points) since before 2008.”

While Republicans obviously gained ground in California last year — and did reasonably well in congressional and legislative elections — the new data generate two questions: Why did it happen, and what does it bode for the future?

“Inflation is probably the biggest thing,” Eric McGhee, a political analyst for the Public Policy Institute of California, said during a webinar to introduce the study.

That comports with the widespread belief that sharp increases in the cost of living during the Biden-Harris administration were a big factor in the pro-Trump shift, as younger voters felt the pinch of inflation more than their elders.

Make no mistake. California is still a very blue state. It’s highly unlikely that Republicans, who were once dominant themselves, would regain enough ground to again award the state’s electoral votes to a GOP presidential candidate in the foreseeable future.

However, were the rightward surge of young voters of color to continue, for whatever reason, as baby boomer Democrats exit the political stage, California politics could become a lot less predictable and a lot healthier.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.