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educated Orange County,”
said Ioannides, whose group
held registration drives aim-
ed at young voters.
Shawn Steel, Republican
national committeeman for
California, blamed the GOP
decline on the large increase
in the number of voters who
register with no party pref-
erence, and on Republicans
leaving the state because of
high housing costs, poor
schools and lackluster job
opportunities.
“We’ve been an out-mi-
gration state for 20 years,
and that’s particularly acute
in the suburbs,” said Steel,
who predicted that the tide
would turn because of over-
reach by the Democratic
politicians who control ev-
ery arm of state government.
“There is an opportunity as
Democrats get more aggres-
sive in Sacramento and
alienate more people.”
Democrats gaining an
edge here over Republicans
is a watershed moment for a
place that has long been a
citadel of GOP strength —
and one that could have na-
tional implications for the
future of the Republican
Party.
What’s happened in Or-
ange County is also unfold-
ing in other large, affluent
suburbs that Republicans
have long counted on to off-
set Democratic votes in the
nation’s large cities, said
Stuart Rothenberg, veteran
political analyst and senior
editor at Inside Elections.
He described the areas as
mainly “upscale suburbs
with college-educated vot-
ers who have more suburban
and cosmopolitan con-
cerns.”
“They see the Republican
Party as intolerant old white
men,” he said.
Once covered with citrus
groves and ranches, Orange
County became a suburban
haven of tract homes and
master-planned communi-
ties full of white people flee-
ing Los Angeles, Midwest-
erners seeking warmth, and
workers with ties to the aero-
space and defense indus-
tries.
The ultraconservative
John Birch Society had doz-
ens of chapters in the county,
and the phenomenon of
megachurches was born
here. Orange County was
also home to a large commu-
nity of wealthy Republican
businessmen, including
Donald Bren of the Irvine
Co. and Carl Karcher of
Carl’s Jr., as well as famous
conservatives such as John
Wayne.
They preached a form of
“cowboy capitalism” — free
markets, low taxes, deregu-
lation — that made the
county a must-stop for GOP
candidates from across the
nation, said Fred Smoller, a
political science professor at
Chapman University in Or-
ange.
Reagan’s first political
fundraiser took place in An-
aheim in 1965, when he was
running for governor. In
1984, when he ran for reelec-
tion to the White House, he
won 75% of the county’s vote.
Former GOP strategist
Reed Galen, who registered
as a no-party-preference
voter after Trump won the
Republican nomination in
2016, recalled relying on the
county during campaigns
for President George W.
Bush, Gov. Arnold Schwarz-
enegger and presidential
candidate Sen. John Mc-
Cain.
“It was never a question
of whether or not you would
win Orange County,” he said.
“The idea that you could lose
it wasn’t even on the books.”
But the county has been
trending left in recent years,
largely because of changing
demographics — growing
numbers of college-educat-
ed voters as well as minor-
ities and immigrants.
Hillary Clinton beat Don-
ald Trump here by nearly 5
percentage points in the 2016
presidential election, the
first time a Democrat had
won the county since the
Great Depression. Franklin
D. Roosevelt won Orange
County in his 1936 contest
against challenger Alf Lan-
don.
In 2018, Democrats flip-
ped four Republican-held
congressional seats in the
county — wins that were key
to the party taking control of
the House of Representa-
tives.
Matthew Harper, a for-
mer Republican state as-
semblyman from Hunting-
ton Beach who lost his seat
to a Democrat by 5 percent-
age points in 2018, noted that
Democrats had success in
Orange County in the past.
In the 1970s, in the post-
Watergate era, they held a
majority of the region’s legis-
lative delegation, including
the seat he used to hold.
“It has been a cycle,”
Harper said. “It has been a
pendulum.”
He said he believed the
GOP could rebound in Or-
ange County once the na-
tion’s political environment
is less polarized.
“The Republican Party
has always been a center-
right party, and that’s the
natural inclination of Or-
ange County voters,” he
said.
Randall Avila, executive
director of the Orange
County Republican Party,
said many Democratic gains
were coming in swaths that
were already solidly blue. He
also pointed to the surging
number of voters who are
not affiliated with any politi-
cal party — a phenomenon
seen across the state.
“It just means we need to
step up our game; we need to
rise to the occasion and com-
petitiveness of the county
now,” Avila said, noting that
the GOP regularly registers
voters at naturalization cer-
emonies, the Department of
Motor Vehicles, and at
events like the Orange
County Fair and the Garden
Grove Strawberry Festival.
The changing voter pat-
terns in Orange County are
similar to those that have oc-
curred in places like Mont-
gomery County outside Phil-
adelphia and Fairfax County
in northern Virginia. Such
areas historically backed
moderate or even conserva-
tive Republicans, but in the
last 20 to 30 years have
trended more Democratic.
Although some of these
shifts have been propelled
by changing demographics,
they are also part of a
broader national political
realignment.
White, working-class vot-
ers without college educa-
tions are increasingly align-
ing with Republicans over
cultural and social issues,
while college-educated vot-
ers are increasingly at odds
with a national GOP that
has grown more hard-line on
issues such as immigration,
according to political ex-
perts.
Rothenberg pointed to
the Atlanta suburbs, the
North Carolina cities of
Charlotte and Greensboro,
and a number of areas in
Texas that could be primed
for a political turnaround
like that of Orange County.
Even though Democrats
have gotten their hopes up in
Texas and Georgia before,
only to see their expecta-
tions fall short, Rothenberg
said the tilt leftward in these
states may be speeding up.
“We’re starting to get
within spitting distance of
both of those states realign-
ing,” he said. “I would’ve dis-
missed the point eight or 12
or 16 years ago. We’re getting
to the point where I can’t dis-
miss it any more.”
The shift could immedi-
ately come into play in sev-
eral congressional races in
2020, notably in Texas.
Four GOP congressmen
in the Lone Star State have
signaled they will step down
at the end of this term, most
recently Rep. Kenny Mar-
chant, who announced on
Monday his plan to retire in
2020.
Marchant, who repre-
sents the suburban commu-
nities between Dallas and
Fort Worth, first won the
seat in 2004, beating his
Democratic rival by 30 per-
centage points. In 2018, his
margin of victory over his
Democratic challenger was
just 3 points.
Cal Jillson, a political sci-
ence professor at Southern
Methodist University in Dal-
las, said Marchant’s district
— as well as districts in the
Houston suburbs and along
the border that are being va-
cated by sitting Republicans
— will probably be very com-
petitive in 2020.
The political shift, Jillson
said, was “inevitable — but
Trump brought it on more
quickly.”
Democrats from Texas,
Arizona and Nevada have al-
ready been in touch with
their compatriots in Orange
County to discuss strategy.
“If it can happen in Or-
ange County, it can happen
anywhere,” said Ada Bri-
ceño, chairwoman of the Or-
ange County Democratic
Party. “This is a lesson not to
dismiss historically Republi-
can-dominated areas, but to
dig in deeper and engage
with people, especially those
who have never been en-
gaged in our political proc-
ess.”
Democratic Rep. Katie
Porter of Irvine, who un-
seated Republican Rep.
Mimi Walters in the 2018
election, was celebratory
about the voter registration
news, but said Democrats
should not grow compla-
cent.
“We owe this to the local
college student who knock-
ed on doors, the single mom
who phone-banked, and the
retired senior who volun-
teered to register voters. Be-
cause of all of their hard
work we now have more
voices from all backgrounds
included in our democratic
process than ever before,”
Porter said.
“We welcome this news as
we continue to build on the
progress of last year,” she
said. “We must keep the
pressure up as we fight to so-
lidify these gains in 2020 and
keep Orange County blue.”
VOLUNTEERSregister another new Democrat on Wednesday at the Orange
County Fair. Many see Republicans “as intolerant old white men,” one expert says.
Allen J. SchabenLos Angeles Times
GOP bastion now
has more Democrats
[Orange County,from A1]
‘This is a lesson
not to dismiss
historically
Republican-
dominated areas,
but to dig in
deeper.’
— Ada Briceño,
chairwoman, Orange County
Democratic Party