Bernie Sanders Won California--What that Means for the State & the Nation

With the east coast states reporting first and all the Biden hype, the fact of the largest state in the union voting decisively for Bernie Sanders has been glossed over in the news.  So let’s take a moment to celebrate Bernie Sanders winning California and analyze what it means.  California, as the richest, most populist state, tends to be a harbinger of what is coming in the nation.

The chart above shows the status of the race from the California Secretary of State website today (called for Bernie Sanders last Tuesday by AP).  If you add together the percentages of all the centrist candidates and all the progressive candidates, it’s basically a wash, but Bernie won the state by a lot more than Joe Biden won Texas (Biden 34.5% to Sanders 30%). 

While popular imagination holds California as a progressive state that reflects the politics of San Francisco, it hasn’t always been blue let alone progressive.  Until relatively recently, California was up for grabs in presidential elections and statewide elections.  For example, from 2003 to 2011, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a centrist Republican, was governor of the state (who would made it clear he would have run for president if not a naturalized citizen).  Similarly, Diane Feinstein, a centrist Democrat who has often infuriated progressives, has been California’s untouchable U.S. Senator since 1992.  It was considered a longshot when Barbara Boxer, a San Francisco progressive, was elected to the U.S> Senate too.

I am a third generation Californian but I lived outside the state for almost 20 years.  When I moved back in 1997 the conventional wisdom was that there were 4 pillars of California statewide politics.  To get elected, a candidate had to be:

o   Pro choice

o   Pro death penalty

o   Pro environmental protection

o   Anti taxes

Which sounds a lot more like Joe Biden than it does Bernie Sanders.  Our last governor, Jerry Brown (D), started his final two terms standing on all four of these pillars, and then flipped and ended up leading a successful statewide campaign to raise income taxes on the wealthy. 

Our current governor Gavin Newsom (D) campaigned for office more like Bernie Sanders than he did Joe Biden.   Shortly after inauguration, he suspended the death penalty in the state for as long as he is in office.  There is some question, however, how serious he was about enacting single payer healthcare/medicare for all at the state level.  He campaigned on it but then installed health insurance industry business as usual types as top (health policy) staff.

They say that as California goes, so goes the nation.  As California’s housing prices continue to rise, people have fled to neighboring states in droves.  Evidence suggests that Nevada, Arizona and Texas have all moved to the left partly as a result of exported California values.

As the mainstream of the national Democratic establishment has seized control of the primary with its decisive elevation of Joe Biden as the frontrunner, California’s election of Bernie Sanders shows the party may be out of step with the future of the Democratic electorate.