November 4, 2008 Election Results in Santa Clarita

So the results are in and Santa Clarita has spoken. Your dedicated SCVTalk blogger has run the numbers from the official Los Angeles County Registrar/Recorder’s office, and I have some surprising news for you.

Let’s start right at the top.

Senator John McCain won in Santa Clarita, but only barely. The Arizona Senator had 40,077 votes in the majority of the Santa Clarita Valley.

Democrat Barack Obama received 39,750 votes from Santa Clarita voters.

Let me repeat that.

Less than four tenths of a percent separated McCain’s votes from Barack Obama’s votes. In Santa Clarita. The Reddest of the Red. The place the Daily News calls “The New Reagan Country.” The place where Stomper Trucks outnumber Democrats 2 to 1. The place where..well you get the picture.

This is remarkable in more ways than one. Consider my post from last week, in which I detailed how Santa Clarita voted in 2004 and 2000. In 2004, Bush beat Kerry by 18%. In 2000, Bush beat Gore by 13%. Obama, the son of a Kenyan immigrant and a hippy white woman from Kansas, did better than Frenchy Kerry and wooden Gore.

On KCRW’s excellent To the Point radio show yesterday, host Warren Olney talked with Salon.com Washington editor Walter Shapiro. Shapiro told Olney that one of the most remarkable and under-reported facts about the 2008 election results is that exurban and suburban areas -places like Santa Clarita- abandoned the Republican Party for the Democrats in 2008.  He says the GOP message of “Lower taxes, limited government” doesn’t resonate with suburban voters anymore, only with voters in the South. Shapiro says that’s the true story of Election 2008- moreso than the increased turnout or the vaunted “ground game” of Barack Obama.

Maybe we’re seeing evidence of that right here in Santa Clarita?

On the other hand, other Democrats in Santa Clarita didn’t do so well.

The results for Carole Lutness, who fought hard against Assemblyman Smyth, show that the 66 year old social worker lost by 19% in Santa Clarita. She must have done better than Smyth in places in the SFV and Glendale, because she only lost by 10%.

Hannah-Beth Jackson, the liberal Senate candidate challenging conservative Tony Strickland, didn’t do much better here either. According to the results, Strickland got 56% of the vote in Santa Clarita areas while Jackson got 43%. Even so, Strickland probably wanted more of Santa Clarita to vote for him; it certainly would have helped in his close and undecided race.

Here’s the spreadsheet with the breakdown followed by a chart.

Here’s the chart. Notice how Smyth got more total votes than any Republican candidate. I think that means some Republicans left their presidential vote blank.

As you can see from this chart, Barack Obama may have lost Santa Clarita, but he won several communities here. He beat McCain in Stevenson Ranch and Canyon Country (Uninc).

What about the Propositions?

I’m glad you asked! I got those numbers too.

I only focused on the exciting ones or the ones with local impact or connections. Let me get out of the way and just post the chart.

I’m going to make some I Heart-style suppositions about Santa Clarita based off this data.

• Santa Clarita is Farm Animal Friendly- Look at the margin SCV voters said Yes to Proposition 2. We love our Poultry when the birds have room to flap their wings, and we love us some pork that isn’t stressed out for its entire life. No wonder Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are hot in Santa Clarita.
• Santa Clarita narrowly favors abortion restrictions: This Proposition was neck ‘n neck in Santa Clarita and Stevenson Ranch. Castaic, Canyon Country, and Saugus, not so much. Who’da thunk it?
• Santa Clarita Sees Through George Runner and his Crime Wedge Issues: The Senator’s Proposition 6 got blown out, even in the SCV. It lost 70 to 30! Here’s the kicker: he’s our Senator!
• Santa Clarita is Militantly Anti-Gay: Perhaps that’s too strong, but SCV voters decisively said Yes on Proposition 8. It was surprisingly close in…Stevenson Ranch!
• SCV Favors Investing in our Transportation Infrastructure: Santa Clarita doesn’t care for Supervisor Antonovich’s arguments- we voted yes on the half cent sales tax Measure R, even though most of the funds will go to places over the hill. Those improvements over the next 30 years will benefit SCV commuters though
• Santa Clarita Loves Schools: Duh

A note about my methodology and many disclaimers:

My methodology involves looking at the Registrar’s PDF file and copying the numbers into a simple Excel spreadsheet. This, of course, invites errors. I already see one in the percentage totals for Proposition 6 (apologies) but I did my best in the time I had tonight.

I searched the PDF for all the precinct locations I could think of. Unincorporated Valencia must be a really tiny, that’s why I didn’t include it in the proposition counts. Santa Clarita is so big because, I presume, it includes precincts in the City of Santa Clarita boundaries. That means it has conservative Valencia in it. Unfortunately, I can’t separate out Newhall.

I purposely left out Agua Dulce and Acton because 1) I didn’t like how they voted for McCain over Obama, and 2) I think it’s debatable whether they are really part of my beloved Santa Clarita Valley.

I ignored McKeon/Conaway because I didn’t care. I ignored Runner/McFarland cause it wasn’t a real race.

I searched for Val Verde but couldn’t find their results. I bet they are Obama voters and Yes on 8 voters.

I don’t know what the boundaries for this area are. Nor do I know if these are the final results from the Registrar’s office, but the totals seem to be inline with the total votes and precincts from 2004.

I don’t have time to see if more of Santa Clarita voted in 2008 than in 2004, but I suspect the answer is yes.

I have never taken a statistics class and I failed Business Math at COC.

Anyway, feel free to dig in- here’s the Registrar’s PDF.