New Faces, Same Politics in O.C.

Although whites are no longer a majority in Orange County because of a sweeping demographic tide led by Democratic-leaning Latinos, the famously conservative region remains as Republican as ever.

The reason: Many of the new minority residents are newborns or newcomers who have yet to become citizens -- which means any profound political effect probably won’t become evident for years.

Even then, it’s unclear whether newcomers will change Orange County or Orange County will change the newcomers. Assimilation, complex forces behind political identification and the reasons people move to Orange County make clear predictions of a changing political personality unreliable.

“I don’t believe demographics are destiny,” said Stan Oftelie, a Democrat who is CEO of the Orange County Business Council. “The type of person who lives in Orange County is determined by reputation and reality. Our reputation is a conservative place, and, the reality is, this is a conservative place.”

Barry Goldwater’s presidential ambitions caught fire here in suburban kitchens, where housewives in coffee klatches began the grass-roots efforts that helped him win the 1964 California Republican primary, though he lost the election to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Richard Nixon was born -- and is buried -- in Yorba Linda and Ronald Reagan’s early money backers were Orange County’s wealthy business elite.

Orange County’s conservatism has had its dark side too. Ku Klux Klansmen, running on anticrime platforms, won municipal elections in Anaheim and Santa Ana in the 1920s. And the virulent anticommunism of the John Birch Society found wide support there in the early 1960s.

But Orange County is changing. The U.S. Census Bureau reported last week that for the first time in the county’s 115-year history, non-Latino whites are no longer a majority. Most of the change is due to rapid growth of the county’s Latino population, up 55% from 1990 to more than 875,000 in 2000. The Asian population, though smaller, is growing even more quickly: up 63% since 1990 to more than 240,000 in 2000.

Orange County’s changing demographics have had subtle effects as Latinos and Vietnamese have gained seats on municipal commissions, city councils and school boards.

More dramatically, Democrats began to win legislative contests in ethnically diverse central Orange County in the late 1990s. Best known was Loretta Sanchez’s surprise 1996 victory over incumbent Rep. Robert K. Dornan, a fixture of the right occupying what was believed to be a seat safe from Democratic inroads. Two years later, Democrats also won state legislative seats -- Lou Correa to the Assembly and Joe Dunn to the Senate -- previously held by Republicans.

Still, the county’s 694,000 Republicans -- about 49% of registered voters -- far outnumber the 435,000 enrolled Democrats, who make up about 30% of registered voters. Of Orange County’s 34 cities, only three have Democratic voter majorities: -- Brea, Santa Ana and Stanton. Of 176 city council members countywide, only 26 are Democrats.

Though Republicans, who once accounted for well over half of the registered voters, have lost ground in Orange County, so too have Democrats as an increasing share of voters register with minor parties or declare themselves independent.

Even coastal cities defy convention. In Los Angeles County and other parts of the state, coastal communities are consistently liberal, and environmental Democrats do well. In Orange County, development-minded Republicans tend to win.

“Santa Monica and Newport Beach are very different places,” Oftelie said. “One of the tests for how the county changes over time will be whether Democrats start winning in the coastal areas.”

Neither Democrats nor Republicans predict significant change in that imbalance for years to come. Analysts see a lessening of Republican dominance, but more significant will be a growth among independent voters as party loyalty weakens.

“It’s a real cultural melting pot, and I think it will become a political melting pot too,” said longtime Democratic activist John Hanna of Santa Ana. “You’re going to see the county become more heterogeneous, more like the rest of the state.”

The political future, experts say, probably will be determined by who is better able to draw new voters -- both the newly naturalized and second-generation immigrants coming of age.

History would seem to give Democrats the advantage. Immigrant communities have tended to align with the Democratic Party, lured by urban political machines and the party’s focus on social welfare issues.

But in recent years many new immigrants have come from higher social classes than previous generations -- such as software engineers from south Asia -- which are more receptive to Republican Party policies, experts say.

And some ethnic communities that immigrated for political reasons -- such as Vietnamese in Orange County and Cubans in Miami -- identify with Republicans, viewing them as more strongly against the communist regimes they fled.

A lag between immigration trend and political affiliation should be expected, said Alan Kraut, a history professor at American University in Washington and author of “The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society, 1880-1921.”

“It takes time for people who move into a new area, much less a new country, to really get a sense of what their interests are and how best to express those interests,” Kraut said. “It depends on their own political past. And citizenship is harder to get today than it was in the 1840s when Democratic machines naturalized Irish immigrant voters en masse.”

Lack of political engagement has made recruiting minority voters a lower priority, said John J. Pitney, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and a former national Republican party strategist.

For example, Orange County’s 1st and 5th supervisor districts have roughly the same populations, with the 1st including Santa Ana, Westminster and parts of Garden Grove, and the 5th including much of the south county. But turnout in the heavily minority -- and Democratic -- 1st District runs about 40,000 compared with 130,000 in the mostly white and Republican 5th District.

Though Republicans nationally have sought to reach out to Latinos, local party officials continue to tailor messages primarily to whites because that’s what has worked in the past.

“Republicans don’t feel a sense of urgency, but as elections get closer [in margins], they will,” Pitney said.

Chris Hammer, 45, who has enrolled more than 1,000 voters for the Democratic Party since March, staffed a table at Saddleback Community College last month and said about two-thirds of registrants were minorities. He saw a similar split among those signing up at a weekend table he runs at the Orange County Marketplace swap meet at the fairgrounds.

“They like our positions on the issues, and we seem to be inclusive where the other guys seem to be exclusive,” Hammer said, adding that most new registrants don’t seem to be driven by a single issue, such as the Iraq war. “The war is one of the topics, but it’s not the only topic. There’s the right to choose and other issues.”

Republicans say they too have had success registering minorities, but not as much.

“To be honest, I don’t think we’re making a lot of progress,” said Manny Padilla, the county GOP’s volunteer Latino outreach coordinator. “There are still people in leadership positions of the [state] party who don’t see the threat of more Hispanics voting Democratic down the road.”