The Third California

LOS ANGELES -- Amidst the Republican rout, some important political lessons can be drawn from the results in California. Oft dismissed by conservatives as "the left coast" and written off as hopelessly blue, the state election revealed some critical trends that may prove decisive -- for both parties -- in 2008 and beyond.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 17-point victory alone commands some attention, since it is easily the most impressive score by any Republican in a Democratic-leaning state this year -- and it suggests a future for pro-environment, pro-business, fiscally conservative and socially moderate politics. In trying to excuse their drubbing at the top of the ticket, some California Democrats spin the tale that Mr. Schwarzenegger won only by morphing into one of them.

Yet in reality, Phil Angelides, the man he defeated, was the clear favorite of party activists who just this spring brimmed with confidence about their chances of bringing the Terminator to extinction.

Mr. Angelides duly followed the left-wing, Bush-bashing script -- seemingly ideal in a state where barely one in three voters supports the president. Campaigning against Iraq and for a classic redistributionist agenda funded with higher taxes, Mr. Angelides won handily among liberal voters in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by 43% to 34%.

The key to Mr. Schwarzenegger’s victory lay not in seducing the left, but through his mastery of the state’s rising independent center. According to exit polls, he beat Mr. Angelides by nearly 20 points among self-described moderates and independents. These voters may well be the key to the political future, certainly in California.

* * *

As political analysts such as New America’s David Lesher have pointed out, the "not party" now constitutes California’s ascendant political grouping. Over the past decade, people registering without a major party affiliation have accounted for a remarkable 91% of all the growth in the electorate. They now constitute one in every five voters. These independents clearly have the wind to their backs, with disproportionate support among both Latino adults and young people. Indeed, nearly 40% of the state’s voters under 25 have chosen to either register as "decline to state" or belong to a small party. If these trends continue, by 2025 independents could outnumber both Democrats and Republicans.

Such independents were critical in the recall of former Gov. Gray Davis and Mr. Schwarzenegger’s election in 2003, but they are far from traditional conservatives. In fact, according to a Public Policy Institute of California survey conducted by Mark Baldassare, most are both environment-oriented -- Mr. Schwarzenegger’s tough stand on global warming probably paid off with many of them -- and moderate to liberal on social issues. Yet at the same time, a majority also believes that government "wastes a lot of the taxpayers’ money." In short, they blend anti-government populism with environmental consciousness.

The fiscal conservatism of California’s electorate was plainly evident in the initiatives, where voters resoundingly voted down many of the pet pork-barrel projects of the elite left. They rejected one measure that would have steeply lifted the cost of cigarettes to pay for health care, and another that sought new levies on California’s oil industry in order to fund renewable fuels and energy-awareness education. Similarly, voters overwhelmingly turned down a cynical bid by public employee unions to promote public financing of political campaigns and to tilt laws on contributions in ways that favored unions over businesses. This politically motivated raid on the Treasury lost almost three-to-one, passing only in the leftist stronghold of San Francisco.

On the other hand, the voters did embrace a series of infrastructure bonds that had been agreed upon by the legislature and the governor. Although the measures lacked imagination and were far from adequate to meet the state’s growing needs, Californians proved willing to pay for new investments in the state’s creaking physical public works.

* * *

Two factors help explain California’s lurch to the middle. One is demographics, and the other, our real-life experience with what Republicans like to call "the Pelosi Democrats."

As to the former, California is in the midst of a massive movement of population -- and political power -- away from the coasts and toward what Brookings demographer Bill Frey and I have described as "the third California." This vast region, whose politics trend moderate to conservative, extends from the areas north of Sacramento down to the sprawling suburbs of San Bernardino-Riverside, east of Los Angeles.

The geographic shift is driven by such things as comparatively low housing prices, growing job opportunities for middle-class families and, for businesses, an often more welcoming regulatory environment. Since 2000, the third California is home to the vast majority of the state’s population growth.

The population in this region has grown by over 12%; coastal southern California ("the second California"), by contrast, has grown by barely 4%, while the Bay area ("the first California") has increased only marginally. Today, the third California accounts for almost 30% of the state’s population. It already has more people than the liberal Bay area, and that gap is expected to widen significantly.

Some theorize that as coastal voters move east, they will bring their liberal values along with Whole Foods and Starbucks. Yet the evidence so far shows that these voters are changed by their new circumstances, such as home-ownership and childbearing, that may make them less likely to stick to liberal orthodoxies. "If you look at the results here, this place remains pretty conservative," suggests John Husing, a prominent economist in the San Bernardino-Riverside region and a self-described long-time, middle-of-the-road Democrat. "These are people who came out of the coasts and like the fact they are new property owners and they want to protect what they have."

These trends were already evident in 2004, when support in the third California helped President Bush to add two-and-a-half points to his total in 2000. This year, the more nuanced approach of Mr. Schwarzenegger worked even better. San Francisco, Marin, Alameda and Los Angeles counties all dutifully voted for Mr. Angelides, but their voters were swamped by big counties like Fresno, Riverside and Kern, which backed Mr. Schwarzenegger by better than 2-1. Perhaps most significantly, Hispanics, particularly inland, also support him. He won 40% of the Latino vote, compared to the less than 30% who supported GOP congressional candidates nationwide, and he pulled this off despite an ill-advised flirtation with anti-immigration activists earlier in the year.

Meanwhile, those who think doctrinaire right-wingers have much of a future in the state are delusional. As Mr. Schwarzenegger was coasting to victory, his most attractive right-wing running mates, Tom McClintock and Bruce McPherson, failed to break past 45% of the vote.

In what could be a harbinger of things to come, the dynamic in California was driven in large part by the long-standing Democratic control of the legislature. Unlike the rest of the country, we may have already experienced what it’s like to be ruled by "Pelosi Democrats."

The far-left character of the legislature has been shaped as much by bipartisan gerrymandering as by shifts in public opinion. The drawing of district lines assures that GOP districts are more likely to elect fundamentalist Republicans like Mr. McClintock who cannot win statewide. Yet the biggest winners have been the shaping of immigrant-dominated districts, which have few voters but many people. These have proved easy pickings for the increasingly Latino-dominated, Democratic political machines, and their public employee and trial-lawyer allies. This has created a seemingly permanent, increasingly leftist Democratic majority in both houses. Despite the centrist tilt of the electorate, moderates in both parties have become an endangered species in Sacramento.

This unfortunate confluence does much to explain how Mr. Schwarzenegger got into office in the first place. Under relentless pressure from his party’s left in the legislature, Gray Davis -- against his natural instincts -- caved in to a radical agenda that boosted workers’ compensation rates to stratospheric levels, promoted the rights of "transgender" workers, and encouraged employees to sue their bosses. The resulting fiscal disaster, job losses and frustration among businesses, big and small, helped propel Mr. Schwarzenegger into office. Since then, the Democratic leadership has continued to keep him there by pushing such unpopular measures as drivers’ licenses for illegal aliens, as well as a bonehead attempt to force schools to include "the contributions" of gays and lesbians in public-school textbooks. Such walks on the ideological wild side have kept the legislature unpopular with voters. In May, the solons had approval ratings of 23%.

Herein may lie the most critical lesson that California can pass on to the rest of the country. Unwilling to let the loonies have clear access to the Treasury, Californians have decided to stymie them with -- literally in this case -- a political strongman. If Ms. Pelosi’s crew starts acting in much the same way as their Sacramento counterparts, Americans in the rest of the country could opt for a similar strategy when the next presidential election comes around.