Costa Mesa went blue in presidential race; is it ‘flipping’ like other O.C. cities?
Democrat Hillary Clinton collected more votes in Costa Mesa than Donald Trump, her Republican rival in last month’s presidential election — even as most Costa Mesans voted for Republicans in other races, according to voting data.
In Costa Mesa, Clinton tallied 21,528 votes, or 49.2% of those cast, while Trump, who ended up as president-elect, received 17,219, or about 39.4%.
That’s despite the fact that there are about 1,500 more registered Republicans than Democrats in Costa Mesa. Just under 80% of the city’s registered voters cast ballots in the Nov. 8 general election.
In the same election, however, most Costa Mesa voters backed Republicans such as U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, state Sen. John Moorlach and state Assemblyman Matthew Harper over their Democratic opponents.
Such “ticket-splitting” is not unheard of but is increasingly uncommon, said Matthew Jarvis, an associate professor of political science at Cal State Fullerton.
For instance, in the neighboring cities Huntington Beach and Newport Beach, most voters went with the Republican candidates for president, House of Representatives, state Senate and Assembly.
Meanwhile, voters in Laguna Beach threw their support to the Democrats in those races, according to data from the Orange County registrar of voters office.
“I think what you’re seeing is a little bit more of a Trump phenomenon than a ticket-splitting phenomenon,” Jarvis said Thursday, noting that some Republicans on the ballot likely benefited from being incumbents running for reelection. Rohrabacher, Moorlach and Harper were all incumbents.
“In a fairly well-publicized race, Donald Trump lost himself some votes in the more cosmopolitan areas of the country,” Jarvis said.
Political figures at the local and county levels also said Trump’s candidacy might have fueled Costa Mesa’s split ticket this year.
“There were a lot of Republicans I know who crossed over and voted for Clinton because they didn’t want Trump,” said Greg Ridge, secretary-treasurer of the Costa Mesa Democratic Club. “But just because they’re not going to vote for Trump doesn’t mean they’re not going to vote for John Moorlach.”
Costa Mesa City Councilman Jim Righeimer, a Republican, agreed.
“You have all this negative stuff that comes out, all these hits on Trump, so maybe people don’t feel good about him or they feel uncomfortable about him,” Righeimer said. “But they don’t feel that way about the other Republicans on the ballot.”
But Costa Mesa’s split didn’t apply only to the presidential race. It also spilled into the City Council election, which officially is nonpartisan. The two non-incumbents elected along with returning Councilwoman Sandy Genis, a Republican, are Democrat John Stephens and Republican Allan Mansoor.
The presidential campaigns largely ignored heavily Democratic California, Righeimer said, so there weren’t many opportunities for Trump to make his pitch to local voters or to combat any negative press surrounding him.
Trump did make a campaign stop in Costa Mesa in April, but his rally at the Pacific Amphitheatre was largely overshadowed by a subsequent protest that snarled traffic and left police cars vandalized near the OC Fair & Event Center.
Henry Vandermeir, chairman of the Democratic Party of Orange County, said Trump may have turned off some county Republicans, who he said tend to be more socially moderate than those in other areas of the country.
Costa Mesa’s voting percentages in the presidential race were similar to the county as a whole, where Clinton garnered 50.9% and Trump 42.3%.
“This county went blue for the first time in 80 years, and I think it’s not necessarily because we have a lot more Democrats, per se,” Vandermeir said Thursday. “I think overall he [Trump] didn’t fit with the social values of this county.”
Julian Babbitt, executive director of the Republican Party of Orange County, said Trump’s election performance in the county “is not indicative of the Republican Party’s strength here.”
“It is important to note that two-thirds of the locally elected positions in Orange County remain held by Republicans,” Babbitt said Thursday. “Furthermore, even though President-elect Trump underperformed in Orange County, Republican voter turnout still surpassed Democratic voter turnout.”
Ridge of the Costa Mesa Democratic Club said voter registration trends in Costa Mesa and some other Orange County cities have favored Democrats in recent years.
“Cities of [Richard] Nixon’s Orange County are flipping blue,” he said. “And we’re just a hair’s breadth away in Costa Mesa.”
Twitter: @LukeMMoney
