San Mateo County sees slight uptick in Republican votes

The reasons for the shift vary. Several county leaders and members in both parties tend to agree that inflationary pressures hindered Democrats’ chances of winning, as the cost of living hasn’t eased much in a place like the Bay Area. The county’s area median income for a four-person household has increased by about 30% since 2020. 

“When you look at a lot of these economic indicators and things aren’t going well, voters tend to vote for the party that is not currently in power at the national level,” South San Francisco Mayor James Coleman said. 

Gus Mattammal, a member of the San Mateo County Republican Central Committee, agreed that the presidential election is usually a “referendum” on whoever is in office, and people simply didn’t approve of President Biden’s policies and decisions. 

“I will be curious to see if the Democratic Party elites ask questions like, ‘Why did this happen to us?” and you will know they’re asking that kind of question if the explanations are things like, ‘Well, America’s a racist country,’ or misogyny, or all these sorts of explanations, which conveniently put all the responsibility elsewhere,” he said. 

Mattammal said aid packages like the American Rescue Plan Act should never have been passed, though Coleman said it was critical for many cities and counties throughout the state.  South San Francisco received significant ARPA funds, which went to a variety of social and infrastructure-related programs, including the expansion of child care services, piloting a guaranteed income program and improving broadband access in certain areas. 

In 2020, Coleman beat the City Council incumbent on a progressive platform, alongside other young candidates, like Lissette Espinoza Garnica, who advocated for reallocation of police funding in light of the George Floyd murder and Black Lives Matter protests. But the tone has shifted greatly since then.

“The environment was so starkly different in 2020 … so much was going on that was wrong to where people throughout the entire country, especially here in South San Francisco and the Bay Area, were just wanting something different,” Coleman said. “Now, folks are a little more calm. They’re still worried about the cost of living, they’re worried about inflation, and wages not rising as the cost of living does, and I think folks are also worried about public safety.”

Joe Goethals, former San Mateo mayor, said the economy certainly played a large role — especially as layoffs by life science and technology firms have spiked over the last two years — but the Democrats’ presidential nominee process didn’t help.

“The way in which the Democratic nominee was chosen was unprecedented, and I think that it had some effect on the outcome and perhaps if Joe Biden had been asked sooner, Kamala would’ve had more runway to introduce herself to American voters,” Goethals said. “But at least in some places, perhaps locally, this was a referendum on the economy.”

But it’s not just grocery price changes that have pushed more county residents to the right. Culture war messaging seems to have also played a role as well. Goethals conceded that the Democratic party messaging has seemed more “on the fringe” when it comes to certain social issues and hasn’t appealed to as many “mainstream Americans” compared to the Republicans. Republicans have also increasingly made inroads with Latino voters, a community that makes up a large percentage of the county’s population. About 15% of the county’s registered Republicans are Latino, according to data from Political Data Intelligence. 

Mattammal said imposing values and behaviors will eventually garner resentment and pushback, citing the discourse around transgender rights as an example. 

“If you so much as say, ‘Maybe kids should just wait until they get a little older before they make decisions like that,’ something as honestly as banal as that, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, why are you killing us?’” he said. “People don’t like being pushed like that.”

He added that Republicans also learned the same lesson around abortion. Several red states voted in favor of abortion rights this election, including Missouri, Montana and Arizona, signaling the party’s need to scale back previous stances that supported bans. 

“The American people do not like to be told what to do, and they don’t respond well when people try to tell them what to do. Each time either party forgets that, they end up suffering,” Mattammal said. 

But Coleman said county residents are overwhelmingly supportive of LGBTQ rights, and it doesn’t even come close to a top issue for voters in the area. 

“That [explanation] is bogus, honestly,” he said. “I’ve knocked on over 2,500 doors of every party, and not a single person said, ‘You’re too LGBT.’ People are concerned with the cost of living, they’re concerned with housing, they’re concerned about traffic development and so on.”

Former U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier said she is unconcerned about the county’s Republican presence, given Democrats’ strong majority in the area. But she said that Democrats have not done a good job of convincing voters it’s not the party for the elite but for middle and working class households instead. She cited the student loan forgiveness issue as an example.

“Two-thirds of the American people don’t go to college, so we were forgiving loans for those who went to college, and what were we doing for folks that didn’t go college?” Speier said. 

She added the national shift is likely due to economic frustrations, rather than sociocultural factors, although it’s still early to tell.

“At the national level, we have to recognize that we failed. There needs to be a deep dive into why our base that we have historically had has moved away from us,” she said. “I think in the end this is really economic more than anything else.”