Are There Counties In California That Have More Registered

California has over 22 million registered voters, an all-time record achieved alee of the 2020 presidential election. The state'southward number of registered voters now surpasses Florida'due south entire population.

Of the 22 million, near 10 meg (or 46%) are Democrat and 5 1000000 (24%) are Republicans. The remaining 6.v million (xxx%) are independents or registered to other parties, according to the well-nigh contempo Study of Registration from the California Secretary of Country released in February 2021.

The traditional political map of California below shows the political party breakup varies by county. Those in the Bay Area tend to have big shares of Democrats, while northern, eastern and some central counties lean more than Republican.

Party registration by county

Mouse over a canton to see details

Share of two-party registration:

Lassen County is the reddest county, with 55% of its 16,000 registered voters identifying as Republican and xviii% every bit Democratic. Neighboring Modoc County, with a petty over 5,000 registered voters, was the second almost Republican.

As for the bluest, it's hard to meet in the map to a higher place, just it's San Francisco. The county, which is also a city, has nine times as many registered Democrats equally Republicans. But seeing San Francisco on a traditional map is difficult because of the canton's small-scale country area.

To more conspicuously come across each county's political makeup, we can instead look at what cartographers phone call a "tile grid map," where counties are represented by uniformly-sized hexagons. This type of map adds visual weight to smaller counties, like San Francisco, while removing it from larger counties, like San Bernardino.

California tile filigree map

Each hexagon represents a county. Mouse over each to encounter details.

Share of two-party registration:

But while this map allows for easier comparisons, it gives the impression that counties with the aforementioned coloring are of equal importance electorally. Take Sacramento and Alpine counties. The 2 counties have similar shares of registered Democrats and Republicans — virtually 45% are Democrats and 25% are Republicans. But Sacramento Canton has more than 860,000 registered voters. Alpine County has fewer than 900.

This means ballot results in Sacramento County — and other counties with more voters — can outweigh results from Tall Canton and other less-populated ones. This argues for maps that size each county by its number of registered votes, like the i below.

Tile grid map sized by the number of registered voters

Each hexagon is sized in proportion to the number of registered voters

Share of ii-party registration:

The resulting tile grid map is largely blue. Counties in the Bay Surface area and southern California remain sizable, while many of the northern and central counties — those that lean Republican — are mere dots. Where then do the land's five million Republicans live?

The following maps testify each county's population sized past share of the state'due south registered voters in that county. The maps show that the preponderance of Republicans tin can be establish in southern California.

Where are the country's Democrats and Republicans?

Each hexagon is sized by the number of Democrats or Republicans in that county. The two maps use different scales.

LA has the biggest hexagon because it has the about registered Dems.

... and the most registered Reps.

Los Angeles Canton has the most registered Republicans (and therefore has the largest hexagon in the map above). The county has virtually one million registered Republicans, equal to well-nigh 19% of the state's full. Why is the county shaded bluish in the original map? Considering it has style more Democrats living there — three times equally many.

On September 14, California voters will decide whether to think Governor Gavin Newsom. Given the spread of voters across the state — or lack thereof — the result may come down to what happens in just a few counties.