Bakersfield, California is the 9th largest city in the state, and a major center of political activity. Located in Kern County, Bakersfield is home to a variety of local political candidates who are striving for a variety of offices. This includes mayoral races, city council races, and county committee races. There are several prominent parties that have strong presences in the area, including the Democratic Party, Republican Party, Green Party, Libertarian Party and Peace & Freedom Party. Every election season brings out strong candidates from each side vying for representation in local government. Voters come out to support their chosen candidates with enthusiasm so that their voices can be heard in local politics. The most important thing for citizens to remember is that their vote carries a lot of weight when it comes to deciding who will represent them in government!
The political climate in Bakersfield, CA is leaning conservative.
Kern County, CA is somewhat conservative. In Kern County, CA 43.7% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 53.9% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.4% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Kern county remained strongly Republican, 53.9% to 43.7%.
Kern county voted Republican in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Bakersfield, CA is leaning conservative.
Kern County, California is somewhat conservative.
Bakersfield Metro Area is somewhat conservative.
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.
Bakersfield, California: R R R R R R
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 Bakersfield, CA
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 14,125 contributions totaling $976,201 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $69 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 8,549 contributions totaling $7,080,366 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $828 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)