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Turnout | 72.81% (of registered voters) 2.12 pp 53.51% (of eligible voters) 5.57 pp [1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Elections in California |
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The 1988 United States presidential election in California took place on November 8, 1988, and was part of the 1988 United States presidential election. Voters chose 47 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
California voted for the Republican nominee, Vice President George H. W. Bush, over the Democratic nominee, Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis by a margin of 3.57 percent. Bush won forty-four of the state's fifty-eight counties, but the election was kept close by Dukakis’ strong performance in the Bay Area and his victory in Los Angeles, the state's most populated county. Also, Dukakis won at least 31% of the vote in every county and at least 40 percent in forty of them. Much like Vermont in the same year, California was seen by observers as a swing state in this year's presidential election cycle due to fairly close polling.
California weighed in for this election as 4.2% more Democratic than the nation at large. As of the 2024 presidential election, this is the last presidential election in which the state of California was carried by a Republican candidate. From the next election onwards, California would, like the other two states on the West Coast, transition from being swing states to voting consistently for Democratic candidates (Oregon and Washington even voted for Dukakis in 1988), forming a "blue wall" of sorts over the next three decades. In fact, this is the only time since 1948 that Oregon and California voted for different candidates. Bush is also the last Republican to carry the following counties in a presidential election: Monterey, Napa, Sacramento, San Benito and Santa Barbara, the last Republican to win any county in the Bay Area (Napa), the last Republican to secure at least one-quarter of the vote in San Francisco, and the last Republican to secure at least 40% of the vote in Los Angeles County.
Bush became the first Republican to win the White House without carrying Sonoma County, a Republican stronghold for most of the 20th century, [2] since Benjamin Harrison in 1888, as well as the first to do so without carrying Los Angeles County, a bellwether county from 1920 to 1984, since Rutherford Hayes in 1876. Due to Bush's victory in California, this was also the most recent presidential election when the state of Texas would not be the biggest electoral vote prize won by the Republican candidate, and likewise for the Democratic nominee in regards to California, which instead was New York.
1988 United States presidential election in California [3] | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
Republican | George Herbert Walker Bush | 5,054,917 | 51.13% | 47 | |
Democratic | Michael Stanley Dukakis | 4,702,233 | 47.56% | 0 | |
Libertarian | Ron Paul | 70,105 | 0.71% | 0 | |
Independent | Lenora Fulani | 31,180 | 0.32% | 0 | |
American Independent | James C. Griffin | 27,818 | 0.28% | 0 | |
No party | David Duke (write-in) | 483 | 0.00% | 0 | |
No party | Eugene McCarthy (write-in) | 234 | 0.00% | 0 | |
No party | Herbert G. Lewin (write-in) | 58 | 0.00% | 0 | |
No party | Write-in | 25 | 0.00% | 0 | |
No party | Larry Holmes (write-in) | 11 | 0.00% | 0 | |
Invalid or blank votes | — | ||||
Totals | 9,887,064 | 100.00% | 47 | ||
Voter turnout | — |
County | George H.W. Bush Republican | Michael Dukakis Democratic | Various candidates Other parties | Margin | Total votes cast | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
# | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
Alameda | 162,815 | 33.99% | 310,283 | 64.78% | 5,899 | 1.23% | -147,468 | -30.79% | 478,997 |
Alpine | 306 | 55.43% | 230 | 41.67% | 16 | 2.90% | 76 | 13.76% | 552 |
Amador | 6,893 | 55.87% | 5,197 | 42.12% | 248 | 2.01% | 1,696 | 13.75% | 12,338 |
Butte | 40,143 | 56.04% | 30,406 | 42.45% | 1,082 | 1.51% | 9,737 | 13.59% | 71,631 |
Calaveras | 7,640 | 56.28% | 5,674 | 41.80% | 260 | 1.92% | 1,966 | 14.48% | 13,574 |
Colusa | 3,077 | 59.49% | 2,022 | 39.10% | 73 | 1.41% | 1,055 | 20.39% | 5,172 |
Contra Costa | 158,652 | 47.86% | 169,411 | 51.10% | 3,448 | 1.04% | -10,759 | -3.24% | 331,511 |
Del Norte | 3,714 | 49.73% | 3,587 | 48.03% | 167 | 2.24% | 127 | 1.70% | 7,468 |
El Dorado | 30,021 | 59.33% | 19,801 | 39.13% | 781 | 1.54% | 10,220 | 20.20% | 50,603 |
Fresno | 94,835 | 49.95% | 92,635 | 48.79% | 2,400 | 1.26% | 2,200 | 1.16% | 189,870 |
Glenn | 4,944 | 62.06% | 2,894 | 36.33% | 128 | 1.61% | 2,050 | 25.73% | 7,966 |
Humboldt | 21,460 | 41.15% | 29,781 | 57.11% | 905 | 1.74% | -8,321 | -15.96% | 52,146 |
Imperial | 12,889 | 55.16% | 10,243 | 43.84% | 233 | 1.00% | 2,646 | 11.32% | 23,365 |
Inyo | 5,042 | 64.34% | 2,653 | 33.85% | 142 | 1.81% | 2,389 | 30.49% | 7,837 |
Kern | 90,550 | 61.48% | 55,083 | 37.40% | 1,660 | 1.12% | 35,467 | 24.08% | 147,293 |
Kings | 12,118 | 56.41% | 9,142 | 42.56% | 222 | 1.03% | 2,976 | 13.85% | 21,482 |
Lake | 9,366 | 48.03% | 9,828 | 50.39% | 308 | 1.58% | -462 | -2.36% | 19,502 |
Lassen | 5,157 | 58.59% | 3,446 | 39.15% | 199 | 2.26% | 1,711 | 19.44% | 8,802 |
Los Angeles | 1,239,716 | 46.88% | 1,372,352 | 51.89% | 32,603 | 1.23% | -132,636 | -5.01% | 2,644,671 |
Madera | 13,255 | 54.59% | 10,642 | 43.83% | 384 | 1.58% | 2,613 | 10.76% | 24,281 |
Marin | 46,855 | 39.73% | 69,394 | 58.85% | 1,671 | 1.42% | -22,539 | -19.12% | 117,920 |
Mariposa | 3,768 | 54.53% | 2,998 | 43.39% | 144 | 2.08% | 770 | 11.14% | 6,910 |
Mendocino | 12,979 | 41.94% | 17,152 | 55.42% | 816 | 2.64% | -4,173 | -13.48% | 30,947 |
Merced | 21,717 | 51.20% | 20,105 | 47.40% | 592 | 1.40% | 1,612 | 3.80% | 42,414 |
Modoc | 2,518 | 62.68% | 1,416 | 35.25% | 83 | 2.07% | 1,102 | 27.43% | 4,017 |
Mono | 2,177 | 61.38% | 1,284 | 36.20% | 86 | 2.42% | 893 | 25.18% | 3,547 |
Monterey | 50,022 | 49.83% | 48,998 | 48.81% | 1,361 | 1.36% | 1,024 | 1.02% | 100,381 |
Napa | 23,235 | 50.19% | 22,283 | 48.14% | 772 | 1.67% | 952 | 2.05% | 46,290 |
Nevada | 21,383 | 57.76% | 14,980 | 40.46% | 660 | 1.78% | 6,403 | 17.30% | 37,023 |
Orange | 586,230 | 67.75% | 269,013 | 31.09% | 10,064 | 1.16% | 317,217 | 36.66% | 865,307 |
Placer | 42,096 | 59.59% | 27,516 | 38.95% | 1,030 | 1.46% | 14,580 | 20.64% | 70,642 |
Plumas | 4,603 | 51.06% | 4,251 | 47.15% | 161 | 1.79% | 352 | 3.91% | 9,015 |
Riverside | 199,979 | 59.46% | 133,122 | 39.58% | 3,247 | 0.96% | 66,857 | 19.88% | 336,348 |
Sacramento | 201,832 | 51.01% | 188,557 | 47.65% | 5,301 | 1.34% | 13,275 | 3.36% | 395,690 |
San Benito | 5,578 | 54.11% | 4,559 | 44.23% | 171 | 1.66% | 1,019 | 9.88% | 10,308 |
San Bernardino | 235,167 | 59.99% | 151,118 | 38.55% | 5,723 | 1.46% | 84,049 | 21.44% | 392,008 |
San Diego | 523,143 | 60.19% | 333,264 | 38.34% | 12,788 | 1.47% | 189,879 | 21.85% | 869,195 |
San Francisco | 72,503 | 26.14% | 201,887 | 72.78% | 3,004 | 1.08% | -129,384 | -46.64% | 277,394 |
San Joaquin | 75,309 | 54.39% | 61,699 | 44.56% | 1,445 | 1.05% | 13,610 | 9.83% | 138,453 |
San Luis Obispo | 46,613 | 55.85% | 35,667 | 42.73% | 1,187 | 1.42% | 10,946 | 13.12% | 83,467 |
San Mateo | 109,261 | 42.94% | 141,859 | 55.74% | 3,360 | 1.32% | -32,598 | -12.80% | 254,480 |
Santa Barbara | 77,524 | 54.24% | 63,586 | 44.48% | 1,830 | 1.28% | 13,938 | 9.76% | 142,940 |
Santa Clara | 254,442 | 46.99% | 277,810 | 51.30% | 9,276 | 1.71% | -23,368 | -4.31% | 541,528 |
Santa Cruz | 37,728 | 36.77% | 63,133 | 61.53% | 1,750 | 1.70% | -25,405 | -24.76% | 102,611 |
Shasta | 32,402 | 59.36% | 21,171 | 38.79% | 1,012 | 1.85% | 11,231 | 20.57% | 54,585 |
Sierra | 860 | 50.71% | 791 | 46.64% | 45 | 2.65% | 69 | 4.07% | 1,696 |
Siskiyou | 9,056 | 50.88% | 8,365 | 47.00% | 376 | 2.12% | 691 | 3.88% | 17,797 |
Solano | 50,314 | 47.43% | 54,344 | 51.23% | 1,430 | 1.34% | -4,030 | -3.80% | 106,088 |
Sonoma | 67,725 | 41.91% | 91,262 | 56.48% | 2,596 | 1.61% | -23,537 | -14.57% | 161,583 |
Stanislaus | 51,648 | 53.07% | 44,685 | 45.92% | 982 | 1.01% | 6,963 | 7.15% | 97,315 |
Sutter | 14,100 | 67.47% | 6,557 | 31.09% | 241 | 1.14% | 7,543 | 36.38% | 20,898 |
Tehama | 9,854 | 56.52% | 7,213 | 41.37% | 367 | 2.11% | 2,641 | 15.15% | 17,434 |
Trinity | 3,267 | 54.63% | 2,518 | 42.11% | 195 | 3.26% | 749 | 12.52% | 5,980 |
Tulare | 46,891 | 59.61% | 30,711 | 39.04% | 1,067 | 1.35% | 16,180 | 20.57% | 78,669 |
Tuolumne | 10,646 | 54.00% | 8,717 | 44.22% | 352 | 1.78% | 1,929 | 9.78% | 19,715 |
Ventura | 147,604 | 61.64% | 89,065 | 37.19% | 2,804 | 1.17% | 58,539 | 24.45% | 239,473 |
Yolo | 22,358 | 41.89% | 30,429 | 57.01% | 585 | 1.10% | -8,071 | -15.12% | 53,372 |
Yuba | 8,937 | 61.37% | 5,444 | 37.38% | 182 | 1.25% | 3,493 | 23.99% | 14,563 |
Total | 5,054,917 | 51.13% | 4,702,233 | 47.56% | 129,914 | 1.31% | 352,684 | 3.57% | 9,887,064 |
Bush won 23 of the 45 congressional districts, including five held by Democrats.
California voted Republican in 1988 for the ninth time out of ten elections from 1952 on, confirming its status as a Republican electoral bulwark during this period. [5] However, George H. W. Bush won California by only 3.57% even as he won nationally by 7.72%; and Florida displaced it as the state providing the Republican with his biggest raw-vote margin in the nation. Signs of the phenomena that would come to make California a 'Blue Wall' state from 1992 on emerged in this election; for the first time since 1916, Los Angeles County voted for the loser of the national election. Bush was also nearly swept out of the Bay Area, losing populous former Republican strongholds such as Santa Clara, San Mateo, Sonoma, and Marin Counties (as well as Santa Cruz County, the northernmost Central Coast county).
While Bush continued to do well in San Diego, Orange, and Ventura Counties (and, to a lesser extent, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Monterey Counties, as well as in relatively thinly populated Napa County), this represented a significant erosion of the Republican Party's traditional base along the length of California's coast. [6] By 2016 and 2020, this process was complete, as every coastal county in the state save Del Norte voted Democratic two elections in a row.
On the other hand, in contrast to the 1976, 1968, 1960, and 1948 elections in California, all of which had been close (and which had been won by the Democrat in 1948), Dukakis carried little of inland California, which had traditionally been the Democratic base in the state. [6] Counties that had voted Democratic in all four of those elections, but voted Republican in 1988, included Sacramento, Fresno, Placer, Merced, Shasta, Madera, Amador, Lassen, Plumas, Trinity, and Sierra Counties. Apart from Sacramento, Fresno, and Merced Counties, these have continued to remain as Republican strongholds in the state even as overall it has become increasingly blue in the 21st century. Comparing 1988 directly with what at the time was the most recent close election in California, 1976, Dukakis carried only nine of the 27 counties Carter carried in the state. Three of these (Shasta, Plumas, and Sierra) had even voted for McGovern in the disastrous Democratic defeat of 1972.
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The 1982 California gubernatorial election occurred on November 2, 1982. The Republican nominee, Attorney General George Deukmejian, narrowly defeated the Democratic nominee, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. Incumbent Governor Jerry Brown did not seek reelection to a third term; he later successfully ran again in 2010 and 2014.
Districts in California geographically divide the U.S. state into overlapping regions for political and administrative purposes.
The 1978 California gubernatorial election occurred on November 7, 1978. The Democratic incumbent, Jerry Brown, defeated the Republican nominee Attorney General Evelle J. Younger and independent candidate Ed Clark in a landslide.
The 1958 California gubernatorial election was held on Tuesday November 4. Incumbent governor Goodwin Knight initially ran for re-election to a third term, but eventually withdrew and ran for election to the Senate. Incumbent senator William Knowland switched places with Knight to run for governor, but was defeated in a landslide by Democratic Attorney General Pat Brown, who won the first of his two terms as governor of California.
The 2008 United States presidential election in California took place on November 4, 2008, in California as part of the 2008 United States presidential election. Voters chose 55 electors, the most out of any of the 50 states, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1954California gubernatorial election was held on November 2, 1954. Incumbent Republican governor Goodwin Knight, who had ascended to the office after Earl Warren resigned to become Chief Justice of the United States the previous year, won a full term against Democrat Richard Graves.
The 1914 California gubernatorial election was held on November 3, 1914. The election saw Hiram Johnson re-elected in 1914 as governor of California on the Progressive Party ticket, nearly tripling his vote total from the 1910 California gubernatorial election.
The 2000 United States presidential election in California took place on November 7, 2000, as part of the wider 2000 United States presidential election. Voters chose 54 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1992 United States presidential election in California took place on November 3, 1992, and was part of the 1992 United States presidential election. Voters chose 54 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1980 United States presidential election in California took place on November 4, 1980, as part of the 1980 United States presidential election. State voters chose 45 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1976 United States presidential election in California took place on November 2, 1976, as part of the 1976 United States presidential election. State voters chose 45 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1968 United States presidential election in California took place on November 5, 1968, as part of the 1968 United States presidential election. State voters chose 40 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1964 United States presidential election in California took place on November 3, 1964, as part of the 1964 United States presidential election. State voters chose 40 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1932 United States presidential election in California took place on November 8, 1932 as part of the 1932 United States presidential election. State voters chose 22 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1920 United States presidential election in California took place on November 2, 1920, as part of the 1920 United States presidential election in which all 48 states participated. California voters chose 13 electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting Democratic nominee, Governor James M. Cox of Ohio and his running mate, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York, against Republican challenger U.S. Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio and his running mate, Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts.
The 1916 United States presidential election in California took place on November 7, 1916 as part of the 1916 United States presidential election. State voters chose 13 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1912 United States presidential election in California took place on November 5, 1912, as part of the 1912 United States presidential election. State voters chose 13 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1864 United States presidential election in California took place on November 8, 1864, as part of the 1864 United States presidential election. State voters chose five electors of the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1988 United States presidential election in Washington took place on November 8, 1988. All fifty states and the District of Columbia were part of the 1988 United States presidential election. Voters chose ten electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president. The State of Washington was won by Democratic Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who was running against incumbent Republican Vice President George H. W. Bush of Texas. Dukakis ran with Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen, and Bush ran with Indiana Senator Dan Quayle.