Is Fresno County Republican or Democrat? Here’s our 30-year voting record in big races
Over the past 30 years, Fresno County voters have gone back and forth between voting Republican and Democrat in presidential elections.
Voters here in the heart of a region generally seen to be more conservative than California as a whole aren’t hesitant to split tickets, often dividing their loyalties between presidential candidates of one party and down-ballot candidates for Congress, or for governor in mid-term elections.
With a record tally of votes counted so far in Fresno County in the 2020 election, and about 5,000 ballots still to be processed here, the Democratic ticket of former Vice President Joe Biden and running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, holds an insurmountable lead of more than 27,000 votes over Republican incumbent President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
That amounts to a margin of about 7.7 percentage points of the votes cast for the two major nominees.
The percentage margin between Biden and Trump in Fresno County is greater than the 3.3-point lead that Biden holds in the nationwide popular vote.
Democrats have fared reasonably well in Fresno County in each of the last four presidential election cycles – even Hillary Clinton, the U.S. senator and former First Lady who beat Trump in Fresno County and in California – and the nationwide popular vote – four years ago but lost in the crucial Electoral College tally to the braggadocious New York businessman and reality TV star.
The county was not always as receptive to Democratic presidential candidates. Former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the Democratic Party’s 1992 nominee, narrowly carried Fresno County en route to his nationwide victory over President George H.W. Bush, the Republican incumbent who was seeking a second term.
In three subsequent cycles, however, Republican nominees won more votes in Fresno County: Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kansas, who unsuccessfully challenged President Clinton in 1996; George W. Bush, son of the first President Bush and the former Texas governor who defeated Democratic Vice President Al Gore in 2000; and Bush again in 2004, defeating then-Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts.
The younger Bush’s margins in Fresno County – 10.5 percentage points over Gore in 2000, and 15.8 points over Kerry in 2004 – have been the largest differences by one party’s candidate over another in the county over the past 20 years.
Barack Obama, who in 2008 was a U.S. senator from Illinois, launched a string of four consecutive cycles of Democrats carrying Fresno County. Obama defeated Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona in the national race, and had an advantage of just over 2 percentage points in Fresno County.
In his successful 2012 re-election bid, Obama’s margin over Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, was thinner – just 1.8 percentage points, en route to a second four-year term.
The 2016 election saw Hillary Clinton gain a margin of 6.5 points over Trump in Fresno County, followed this year by Biden’s 7.7-point advantage over Trump.
Congressional choices
Changes made to congressional district boundaries every 10 years make similar comparisons problematic, but both Democrats and Republicans have had success in the portions of their districts that are within Fresno County.
- Democrat Cal Dooley served in Congress from 1991, after he defeated Republican incumbent Charles “Chip” Pashayan of Fresno, through 2005, when he retired from Congress. In that span, he represented both the 17th and 20th Congressional districts.
- Jim Costa, a Democrat from Fresno, was first elected to Congress in 2004, succeeding Dooley in what was then the 20th District. After reapportionment took effect for the 2012 election, Costa has won five more terms in the 16th Congressional District.
- George Radanovich, a Republican from Mariposa, won his seat in the 19th Congressional District, defeating incumbent Rick Lehman of Fresno in the 1994 election. Radanovich won seven more elections in the 19th District before retiring in 2011.
- Jeff Denham, a Republican from Turlock, succeeded Radanovich in the 19th District by winning in the 2010 election. Denham’s district was later reapportioned and Fresno County was no longer a major part of what became the 10th District.
- Devin Nunes, a Republican from Tulare, was first elected to Congress in 2000 representing what was then the 21st District, and has won eight successive bids for re-election – four more in the 21st District, and then after reapportionment in what is now the 22nd District in 2012.
- Hanford Republican David Valadao was first elected in 2012 in what is now the 21st District, and was re-elected in 2014 and 2016. He was defeated in 2018 by a Democratic challenger, Fresno businessman TJ Cox, even though Valadao received more votes in Fresno County.
- Cox had previously mounted an unsuccessful challenge in 2006 against Radanovich in the 19th District. A 2020 rematch against Valadao, running this time as a challenger to reclaim the seat, has not yet been decided as votes continue to be counted in the district.
Less friendly to Democrats for governor
Democrats running for governor over the last 30 years have generally had success statewide, but since 1990 none have carried Fresno County.
Republican Pete Wilson, the former mayor of San Diego and former U.S. senator, won the first of his two terms as governor in 1990, defeating U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco. In Fresno County, where more than 250,000 votes were cast for governor, Wilson narrowly outpolled Feinstein by fewer than 5,000 votes.
Wilson’s re-election bid in 1994 against Democrat Kathleen Brown, sister of former (and future) California Gov. Jerry Brown, attracted far fewer people to the polls in Fresno County. The two candidates collectively garnered about 160,000 votes, with about 7,600 votes separating the two.
Democrat Gray Davis, the former lieutenant governor, succeeded Wilson as governor when he beat Attorney General Dan Lungren, a Republican from the Sacramento area, in the 1998 election. In Fresno County, however, Lungren proved more popular, pulling in about 19,000 more votes than Davis.
Davis won re-election in 2004 as he defeated Republican businessman Bill Simon. Fresno County backed Simon in a big way, more than doubling the Democratic governor’s tally. Simon won more than 116,000 votes in the county, compared to fewer than 54,000 for Davis. The margin remains the largest between any two candidates for governor in Fresno County in the past 20 years.
Less than a year later, Davis was recalled from office. In Fresno County, two-thirds of voters cast ballots to remove Davis. On the same ballot, voters were confronted with a slew of choices to replace Davis –more than 130 candidates in all. Action movie star and former champion bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger, running as a Republican, handily won the election statewide with about 4.2 million votes – or 48.6 of all ballots cast. Schwarzenegger did even better in Fresno County, capturing almost 52% of the vote.
When Schwarzenegger ran for re-election in 2006, he faced Democratic state treasurer Phil Angelides. Schwarzenegger won statewide and, in Fresno County, beat Angelides by a handy margin of about 27,000 votes.
Democrat Jerry Brown, whose father Edmund G. “Pat” Brown was governor from 1959 to 1967, served two terms as California governor from 1975 to 1983. In 2010, 27 years later, he ran for governor once again, this time facing Republican Meg Whitman, the former CEO of online marketplace eBay. Brown was the statewide winner, but Fresno County voters leaned narrowly to Whitman – by just over 3,000 votes out of about 168,000 cast.
Brown was challenged in the 2014 election by Neel Kashkari, who had served in the Bush and Obama administrations as assistant treasury secretary. In the statewide tally, Brown won with 60% of the vote. But Kashkari did well in Fresno County, capturing almost 65% of the votes in the county.
With Brown termed out for the 2018 election, his Democratic lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, squared off against San Diego businessman John Cox, a Republican. Despite winning about 55% of the votes over Newsom in Fresno County, Cox fell short in the statewide race.
The next election for governor in California will be in 2022.
This story was originally published November 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
