The San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA Metro Area is a bustling and vibrant community that has seen considerable population growth over the last decade. Politically, it is an area which leans heavily towards Democratic candidates. In recent elections, the majority of votes have gone to candidates from the Democratic Party. This is reflective of the larger state-wide trends of California as a whole, with the majority of Californians choosing to vote for their preferred Democratic candidate. In local elections, there are many candidates representing a wide variety of ideologies and policies which reflect the varied interests and opinions within this Metro Area. Local political campaigns are often held in diverse locations throughout this region, encouraging participation amongst citizens from all walks of life.
The political climate in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara Metro Area is very liberal.
In San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara Metro Area 72.3% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 25.6% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.1% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area remained overwhelmingly Democratic, 72.3% to 25.6%.
The San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area voted Democratic in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara 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.
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, 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 for the Democrat and I for the Independent. 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 four elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara Metro Area
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 287,165 contributions totaling $89,676,108 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $312 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 25,992 contributions totaling $15,863,548 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $610 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)