Mirror, mirror, on the wall, which city mirrors California most of all?
Apparently, Ventura.
Pollsters and campaign consultants trying to discern California’s true bellwether for political proclivities may want to look no further than Ventura.
In last November’s election, the city of 108,000 was one of five where voters matched the preferences of California as a whole for all 19 statewide contests – president, U.S. Senate, and 17 ballot measures, according to the California Secretary of State’s recently released supplement to the statement of vote.
Moreover, Ventura’s vote totals differed from the statewide numbers by less than 1.4 percentage points per statewide contest on average.
There’s more where that came from. The Sacramento Bee has a full break-down on how closely each city matched the state’s election preferences for President, the U.S. Senate, and 17 ballot initiatives. Monrovia, Gilroy, La Mesa, and West Sacramento also tended to follow in the state’s footsteps. Taft and Berkeley not so much.