San Jose, California is located in the county of Santa Clara and is home to a diverse population of over one million people. The city is governed by a mayor-council form of government with Mayor Sam Liccardo leading the city. San Jose has many local political candidates vying for positions in the city’s council and mayoral election including Raul Peralez, Maya Esparza, Johnny Khamis, Dev Davis, and Sylvia Arenas. These candidates are working hard to improve their constituents' lives by advocating for better education and public transportation options as well as economic opportunity and affordable housing. San Jose has historically been a progressive city on issues such as poverty alleviation, environmental protection, and LGBT rights. In addition to these issues, local politics also deal with public safety concerns and infrastructure development projects that will benefit the entire community.
The political climate in Zip 95116 (San Jose, CA) is very 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
Zip 95116 (San Jose, CA) is very liberal.
San Jose, California is very 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 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 three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in zip 95116 (San Jose)
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 1,159 contributions totaling $114,702 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $99 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 68 contributions totaling $11,533 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $170 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)