Just before an election, the Secretary of State's Office releases lots of voter registration data. With an election coming up Tuesday, this season's data dump seems like a perfect excuse for a fun look at which cities are the most politically polarized.
To find the most Republican cities, we looked for the places with the lowest percentage of voters registered Democrat; to find the most Democratic, we looked for those with the lowest percentage of Republicans. To keep small numbers from masquerading as big trends, we excluded cities with fewer than 5,000 registered voters.
A few pretty obvious patterns emerge from these lists: The Republican cities tend to be in Southern California; the Democratic, in the north. The Republican cities tend to be wealthy. Really wealthy. The Democratic cities, with a few notable exceptions, (hello, Marin County!) are blue collar and home to a high proportion of minorities. And it's easier in California to find a city with few Republicans than with few Democrats.
So, without further ado ...
Important Note: Where stated, these photos are used under a Creative Commons License. Data source is CA Secretary of State. Fancy buttons courtesy of Bee graphic artist Mitchell Brooks.
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