San Jose, California is located in the heart of Silicon Valley and is the largest city in the Bay Area. It has a vibrant political culture with many local and state representatives who work to serve their constituents. In San Jose, the Mayor serves as the head of government for the city. Currently, Mayor Sam Liccardo is leading efforts to make San Jose more sustainable and equitable through initiatives such as expanding transportation options, increasing access to affordable housing, creating green spaces, improving public safety, and investing in education. Additionally, San Jose has 11 City Council members who represent different areas of the city and are responsible for approving policy proposals from the Mayor's office. At a county level, Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors governs a wide range of services including healthcare, law enforcement, parks and recreation, environmental health services, libraries, courts systems and water conservation. There are also two State Assembly Members representing portions of San Jose in Sacramento that focus on larger issues across California.
The political climate in San Jose, CA is strongly liberal.
Santa Clara County, CA is very liberal. In Santa Clara County, CA 72.6% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 25.2% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.1% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Santa Clara county remained overwhelmingly Democratic, 72.6% to 25.2%.
Santa Clara county voted Democratic in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
San Jose, CA is strongly liberal.
Santa Clara County, California is very liberal.
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, 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 San Jose, CA
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 153,434 contributions totaling $19,156,466 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $125 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 16,800 contributions totaling $4,401,177 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $262 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)