Democrats outnumber Republicans in every city in San Mateo County — including the traditional GOP enclaves of Atherton and Hillsborough — a political domination that swells to more than five times as many Democrats as Republicans in Daly City and a 10 to 1 margin in East Palo Alto.
Atherton Mayor Rick DeGolia said he’s not surprised that Republicans are now a minority in the wealthy community and linked the change to local residents’ reaction to the national GOP.
“It’s been taken over by Trump,” DeGolia said.
Pete McCloskey, who represented this region as a Republican in Congress from 1967 to 1983, said he’s amazed by Democratic majorities in Atherton and Hillsborough.
McCloskey, who now lives in Yolo County, recalled the unique character of cities here.
“The county was very diverse,” he said.
Tom Campbell, the last Republican congressional representative for Silicon Valley, said San Francisco Democrat Phil Burton redrew boundaries for Congress and put Atherton and Hillsborough in the district represented by McCloskey. That helped make other congressional districts safer for Democrats, Campbell recounted.
Altitude once defined political demographics here, Campbell said.
The hills were Republican country and sea level was ceded to Democrats.
Now the town of Portola Valley near Interstate 280 is home to more Democrats than Republicans.
Santa Cruz County, which like San Mateo, was Republican for most of the 20th century, is said to have been transformed by the establishment of the University of California, Santa Cruz, in the 1960s. No such single event is tied to San Mateo County’s political alteration.
Silicon Valley companies and the high-tech workers who tend to be Democrats help explain the political transformation of the Peninsula, said Christina Laskowski, chairwoman of the San Mateo County Republican Party.
The registration change in wealthy communities may reflect national policies that benefit Democrats, said Laskowski, citing such programs as alternative energy companies that grew because of federal policy.
She ran in 2018 for the state Assembly, finishing behind Democrat Kevin Mullin by a vote that roughly matched the 4 to 1 registration advantage the Democratic party holds in the county.
While Republicans are outnumbered, Laskowski said many others have the same concerns she does about public safety and such progressive promises as free college education.
“I’m not alone,” she said.
Democratic voter registration in San Mateo County totals 223,599 to the GOP’s 61,100.
Former congressman Campbell now teaches law at Chapman University in Orange County where he lives. Campbell said Democrat Tom Lantos is part of the reason for the party’s domination on the Peninsula.
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Lantos, who had a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a professor at San Francisco State University, unseated Republican Bill Royer, a Realtor and former San Mateo County supervisor, in 1980 to represent the 11th congressional district.
“He worked it very hard,” Campbell. “He had a very good grasp on the views of the people.”
The decline of daily papers, Campbell added, is part of why Republicans lost power.
The San Mateo Times was once a formidable GOP ally and Campbell recalled how when he ran in 1988 local newspapers were crucial for candidates. Television was practically unaffordable — but the rise of cable TV allowed campaigns to target voters in congressional districts, Campbell recalled. That weakening of press influence accelerated with the disruption brought by the internet.
The one-party domination now in place on the Peninsula comes at a price, said Campbell.
“It loses freshness, innovation and imagination,” he said.
Republican party chairwoman Laskowski laments the loss of different ideas.
“You need diversity in thought,” she said.
Peninsula politics, said state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, still produces that.
“The Democratic Party encompasses many philosophies,” Hill said. “There aren’t two Democrats who are the same.”
“The party itself generates enough diversity,” he said.
City councils, school boards and county government is still where Republicans develop candidates for higher office, said David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University.
“The farm team for Republicans is found at the local level,” McCuan said.
About 2,000 elected officials in California are in the GOP, he noted.
San Mateo County, where Republicans once dominated for decades, is unlikely to forever be a Democratic stronghold, said McCloskey, who in 2007 changed his party affiliation to Democrat after noting his favorite spokesmen were then-senators Jim Webb and Barack Obama.
“The pendulum always swings,” McCloskey said.
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(1) comment
Pretty soon they will run out of other people's money. Democrats have made this state and county the highest taxed region in our country. Go Democrats.
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