Fresno County mostly voted red, but had a blue tint on registrations. What happened?

Despite a voter registration advantage of about 21,000, or 4.6 percentage points for Democrats over Republicans, Fresno County’s election results show the county was more medium-rare pink than baby blue in its voting trends in the Nov. 8 mid-term election.

In the race for governor, for example, Democratic lieutenant governor and candidate Gavin Newsom easily defeated Republican businessman John Cox in their statewide contest.

But in Fresno County, where Democrats hold that modest numerical advantage, Cox handily outpolled Newsom by more than 13,000 by the time the Election Night dust settled on Wednesday morning.

“If that holds up (after late vote-by-mail and provisional ballots are counted), it probably tells us that Republicans must be voting more than Democrats,” said Thomas Holyoke, a political science professor at Fresno State. “It means that a lot of registered Democrats still did not bother to vote.”

Holyoke added the large number of voters who have proclaimed no party preference also represents something of a wild card when it comes to assessing advantages for one political party over another.

What stands out more on a map of Tuesday’s election results is a stark divide in the state – not between northern and southern parts, but an east-west split between coastal California and the interior. Whether it was the governor’s race or even state Assembly and Senate districts, the urbanized coastal areas overwhelmingly voted for Democratic candidates, while the less-populous inland areas, including most of the Central Valley, widely favored Republican candidates.

Part of Cox outperforming Fresno County’s Republican registration disadvantage might be attributed to Newsom not really focusing on making political inroads in the Valley.

“I never got the impression that Newsom tried very hard here,” Holyoke said. “He concentrated where he needed to in order to win. Democrats in the Central Valley didn’t get particularly excited about Newsom; he ran as a big-city, Bay Area Democrat, and even Democrats around here were not particularly attracted to that.”

Cox, by contrast, was a frequent visitor to the Valley as he sought to overcome Newsom’s advantage in other parts of the state.

One major exception to the partisan divide was in the U.S. Senate race between two Democrats: longtime incumbent Dianne Feinstein and Los Angeles-area state Sen. Kevin De León.

But the geographic split was just as pronounced – Feinstein carried the counties along the coast from the Bay Area south to the Mexico border (except for San Luis Obispo County) and Sacramento County; while voters in counties in the far northern reaches of the state and the interior all the way from the Oregon border to Imperial County backed De León.

“We can get an idea if we look at similar patterns nationwide,” Holyoke said. “The difference, in my opinion, is that we’re looking at urban and rural regions. You see it reflected all across the Midwest, which are trending more and more red and Republican, while the larger urban areas tend to be blue or Democratic. … And that divide is probably true of California as well.”

“Now some of the suburban areas tend to be trending from reddish to blueish,” he added. “I think we’re seeing some suburban moms, many of whom voted for Trump in 2016, may be moving away from him.”

This story was originally published November 11, 2018 at 6:00 AM.