Is the Central Coast Still Blue?

By Kimberly Caldwell

On August 20^th, 2025, The New York Times published a noteworthy report entitled “The Democratic Party Faces a Voter Registration Crisis.” The opening paragraph quickly gained attention in numerous media outlets:

“Of the 30 states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the 2020 and 2024 elections — and often by a lot. That four-year swing toward the Republicans adds up to 4.5 million voters, a deep political hole that could take years for Democrats to climb out from.”

Many of my friends were astonished to learn that even deep blue states such as New York and our own California were among the 30 states included in the report. I was curious to determine whether this national and state-level trend was true in our local Tri-Counties.

What I discovered will likely surprise you.

My research, using publicly available data, showed that the coastal counties of San Luis Obispo (SLO), Santa Barbara, and Ventura, which have been considered Democrat strongholds for more than a decade, are no longer as blue as some people think. In fact, the Democrat Party has less than 50% of the registered voters in each county, and their share of voters has even dropped below 40% in SLO County.

Between October 2022 and October 2024, Republicans in SLO and Ventura Counties registered five times more new voters than their Democrat opponents and Santa Barbara registered more than one-and-a-half times more voters than the Democrats.

The above figures highlight a dramatic shift-in-the-making for local politics and caught the eye of California Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, who is also the chairman of Reform California. DeMaio published an article on his blog on January 8^th, 2025, entitled “Reform California Releases ‘26 for 2026’ List of Target Seats.” Within the article, he points out several U.S. Congressional, State Senate, and State Assembly seats to defend or flip to maintain the Republican majority in D.C., and break up the Democrat Supermajority in Sacramento. DeMaio also highlights a “watch list” to add to the list of targeted seats if current trends hold. Two districts from the Central Coast made the watch list, namely, U.S. Congressional District 26 (“CD-26”) and CA Assembly District 42 (“AD-42”) which are both located within Ventura County.

A month later, on February 10^th, the CA Secretary of State released updated voter registration statistics to capture changes made after the October 2024 report was published. Local Republicans continued to gain significant ground. In SLO County, the Democrat party lost an astonishing 25x more voters than Republicans, who lost just 38 people. Meanwhile, Ventura Republicans registered twice as many new voters as the Dems, pushing their total of new conservative voters since October 2022 to more than 10,000. Santa Barbara Republicans continued their pace of 1.5x more new voters than Dems.

Between February 10^th and Sept 5^th, when the Secretary of State published her latest update, California Republicans registered a net gain of 48,104 voters, while the net gain for Democrats statewide was a mere 190 voters. Locally, the Democrats continued to lose percentage points, albeit at a slower pace in the last six months.

In SLO County, Democrats now hold 38.09% of the county’s registered voters, compared to Republican’s 35.17% and the No Party Preference’s 18.23%.

The congressional and assembly districts that encompass portions of both SLO and Santa Barbara counties, CD-24 and AD-37, are just 1-2 percentage points from looking as competitive on paper as the districts that flipped red in the 2024 election. CD-24 is currently represented by Rep. Salud Carbajal (D), who will be challenged by Bob Smith (R) in the 2026 election. AD-37 will be a race between incumbent Gregg Hart (D) and Sari Domingues (R).

Democrats in Ventura now have 42.39% of the county’s voters, compared to 29.29% Republican and 20.46% No Party Preference. The districts CD-26 and AD-42 in Ventura County now look as good as or even better on paper than districts that were successfully defended or flipped by Republicans in 2024, such as CD-22 and AD-36. CD-26 will feature Rep. Julia Brownley defending her seat against several challengers heading into the primary contest in June. AD-42 had been represented by Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin who is term-limited and cannot run for reelection in 2026, so this will be a wide-open contest for Ted Nordblum (R) and Deborah Klein Lopez (D).

In summary, there will be a couple of exciting races to watch here on the Central Coast in the 2026 and 2028 elections. These statistics aren’t abstract numbers. California is trending towards the right and won a number of races statewide in the last two election cycles, as recapped in this energetic video montage:

Don’t forget: register your friends to vote and encourage them to vote No on Prop 50 so the voter-approved independent Citizens Commission’s efforts in making our districts reflect local communities will not be canceled!

See you at the polls on November 4^th, 2025!

Kimberly Caldwell was born and raised on the Central Coast. She has a B.A. in History from Judson College and is passionate about California politics.

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