The 2024 United States presidential election in California was held on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, as part of the 2024 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated.[2]California voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote. California has 54 electoral votes in the Electoral College, the most in the country.[3]
The most populous state in the union, California is considered a strong blue state, having voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1992. In these contests, it has supported Democratic candidates by double digits in each of them except for 2004, when John Kerry won it by 9.95 percentage points. It was widely expected that California voters would maintain this trend, particularly with Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. Harris, a native of California, served as the state's Attorney General from 2011 to 2017 and later represented California in the U.S. Senate from 2017 to 2021 before assuming the vice presidency. She is the first Californian to be featured on a major party presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Although Kamala Harris won in California by a margin of 20 percentage points, it represented a significant decrease compared to Joe Biden's 29-point victory in the state in 2020. This trend of diminished Democratic voter turnout was also evident in other traditionally Democratic strongholds, including Massachusetts, New York and Illinois.[4] Harris's performance in California was the worst for a Democratic candidate since 2004, failing to receive at least 60% of the vote in the state for the first time since then.
The California Democratic primary was held on Super Tuesday, March 5, 2024. President Biden won all 424 pledged delegates with nearly 90% of the vote, the largest share of delegates awarded by any contest in the 2024 primaries.
Popular vote share by county
Biden
80–90%
>90%
California Democratic primary, March 5, 2024[5][6]
The electors of the Democratic Party are chosen by the candidates who received the most votes in the primary election in their respective congressional district.[7]
The California Republican primary was held on Super Tuesday, March 5, 2024. Former president Donald Trump was challenged by Nikki Haley, the only other major candidate remaining in the Republican primaries. Trump won the state in a landslide, defeating Haley by 60 points and earning all 169 delegates.
The electors of the Republican Party are their nominees for the main offices of the State of California and for Senator at the last two elections as well as their leaders in the state legislature and party committee.[7]
Jill Stein, the Green Party's nominee for president in 2012 and 2016, was the only candidate on the California primary ballot, although she was followed by three write-in candidates.[11][12] Stein won the primary and earned all 59 of the state's delegates.
The sole candidate of the American Independent Party primary was James Bradley, who was simultaneously running for the U.S. Senate as a Republican in the blanket primary held on the same day.[11][16] Andrew George Rummel also qualified as an official write-in candidate.[12]
In California, six political parties have qualified for ballot access in the 2024 election. On August 29, 2024, California secretary of stateShirley Weber published the certified list of candidates for the general election:[17]
Weber's office published the list of write-in candidates on October 25, in which Peter Sonski was the only certified candidate listed, alongside his running mate Lauren Onak.[18]
Trump flipped 10 counties that were won by Biden in 2020: Butte, Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Lake, Merced, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus. Of these 10, all except Butte and Inyo were also won by Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trump’s wins in Fresno, Merced, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus marked the first time they voted for a Republican since George W. Bush in 2004, although all are fairly consistently Republican at the state level. Trump's win in Imperial (which is over 80% Hispanic) marked the first time it voted Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988, while his win in Lake marked the first time it voted Republican since Ronald Reagan in 1984. Trump was also the first Republican since George W. Bush in 2004 to win at least 30% in Los Angeles County. Trump managed to flip four congressional districts, two of which split tickets and elected Democrats. Trump's gains with Hispanics allowed him to cross 40% in Southern California for the first time since 2004 as well as trended the region to the right of the state. Trump’s gains among Hispanics in California also helped improve his margins in the state, also allowing him to carry 9 of the state's 11 Hispanic majority counties.[77] Trump also gained ground with Asian American voters in California, with Asian Americans being almost entirely responsible for the rightward shift in areas lacking significant Hispanic populations, such as San Francisco.[78] In majority-Chinese Arcadia and Temple City, both communities in the San Gabriel Valley, Harris's margin dropped by 10% and 13% respectively.[79] Trump also gained in mostly Filipino Daly City by 15%.[80] Trump became the first Republican since 2004 to win the Inland Empire, California's third largest metropolitan area and a blue collar majority-Hispanic region that had been economically struggling.[81]
Trump achieved significant gains in Los Angeles, receiving 27% of the vote, the highest for a Republican candidate in the city since 1988. This was a marked improvement from 2020, when Trump garnered only 21%, and 2016, when he received just 16% of the vote in the city.[82] According to the New York Times 2024 precinct map, Trump's substantial gains in Los Angeles were largely attributed to increased support in Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods, although he made gains in nearly every single precinct in the city regardless.[83] These communities, which have traditionally leaned Democratic, showed growing support for Trump, especially in areas where economic concerns, cultural values, and opposition to some policies of the Democratic Party resonated with voters. Donald Trump also saw an increase in Latino support in California, garnering 38% of the Latino vote, compared to 29% in the 2020 election, according to Fox News voter analysis.[84] Trump won 42% of Latino Males compared to Harris's 54% and Trump received 34% of Latina Females compared to Harris's 63%—both major improvements from 2020.
Despite these results, Harris was able to hold onto historically Republican Orange County by a narrow margin. Harris also won every California county on the West Coast except for Del Norte County. She is also the first Democrat since John Kerry to win California despite carrying a minority of counties, winning 25 out of 58. Whereas Harris underperformed Biden's 2020 total by nearly 2 million, Trump narrowly surpassed his vote total from 2020, solidifying his base of support in the state at just over 6 million votes; this marked his third-highest vote total from any state in the country in 2024, only behind 6.4 million in Texas and 6.1 million in Florida. The swing in the presidential contest to Republicans in California was accompanied by a swath of conservative down-ballot measure results, as state voters endorsed increasing penalties for certain theft and drug crimes and restricting spending of prescription drug revenues by certain health care providers. Furthermore, Californians rejected lowering the vote needed to approve bonds for housing and infrastructure, eliminating the constitutional provision allowing slavery and involuntary servitude (i.e., prison labor), raising the minimum wage to $18/hour, and repealing the ban (Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act of 1995) on local rent controls. Republican Senate candidate Steve Garvey was one of the few Republican senate candidates that outran Donald Trump, possibly owing to his large celebrity status within the state.
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