Kensington, California is a small community nestled in the hills of Contra Costa County. As with most towns in California, politics are important to the local residents. The local representatives for Kensington are from the Democratic party, and include Congressman Mark DeSaulnier and State Senator Nancy Skinner. Residents often take part in town hall meetings to discuss issues that are important to them such as school funding, crime rates and taxes. In general, the people of Kensington tend to have progressive views on many issues including health care access, environmental protection and equal rights for all. Participation in local elections is high as residents strive to ensure their voices are heard in government decisions that affect them directly. Overall, Kensington is an engaged community when it comes to politics and takes pride in making sure civic representation makes sense for those who live there.
The political climate in Kensington, CA is moderately liberal.
Contra Costa County, CA is very liberal. In Contra Costa County, CA 71.6% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 26.3% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.1% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Contra Costa county remained overwhelmingly Democratic, 71.6% to 26.3%.
Contra Costa county voted Democratic in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Kensington, CA is moderately liberal.
Contra Costa County, California is very liberal.
San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley Metro Area is very liberal.
California is strongly liberal.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Kensington, California: D D D D D D
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D if the Democratic Party candidate won and I if the Independent Party candidate won. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Kensington, CA
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 77,706 contributions totaling $12,142,671 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $156 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 1,892 contributions totaling $435,235 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $230 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)