(NewsNation) — California is typically thought of as a liberal state, but Republican former President Donald Trump scooped up more votes there than any other state in the 2020 election.
Trump got six million votes, even more than Texas and Florida.
While that’s not nearly enough to nab the state’s 54 electoral votes, those Republican voters are enough to sway the House majority.
In fact, since 2020, California has seen four House districts flip Republican. So what’s behind this red traction in solidly blue California?
One ought to turn their eyes to the long-established Asian community here.
Ellen Lee Zhou is hoping she can break a long-standing tradition in the Democrat-dominant city and be elected mayor of San Francisco as a Republican.
“I’m Chinese American,” Ellen Lee Zhou said. “I’ve been living in San Francisco 38 years. I don’t want the government to keep giving me all these problems.”
While Ellen Lee Zhou’s candidacy is a long shot, the Grand Old Party is making inroads with the area’s Asian community.
Not far from Interstate 80, Eva Zhou is raising her family in Sacramento County.
She says after coming to the United States from China legally as a university student, the current state of immigration is frustrating.
Eva Zhou’s day is spent making sure her youngest daughter, Joycelyn, excels in her third language — Mandarin.
Motherhood, homeownership and cultural values soured her on the Democratic Party, she says.
“A lot of the older immigrants, they really were involved with the Democratic Party,” Eva Zhou said.
John Dennis, head of the San Francisco GOP, is casting a wide net to change that. Stateside over the summer months, the Democratic Party lost nearly 6,000 registered voters, while the Republican Party picked up 146,000.
Violence against the Asian community, Dennis says, has some Democratic voters looking for other options.
“We have been lucky to have been able to have fielded a number of Asian Americans on the ballot, and that’s been really important, I think, in terms of growing our party,” Dennis said.
When Min Chang ran as a Republican for a San Francisco school board seat, she was told a member of the GOP can’t win any office in California — even though she was vying for a nonpartisan position.
An established CEO, Chang changed her party affiliation upon moving to San Francisco and seeing its current condition.
She says effective use of tax dollars and local control make the GOP a good fit for her.
“It’s really important to leave a lot of those decisions to citizens and communities, to actually live and breathe right at the local level,” Chang said.
Still, it’s not an easy road for Republicans in this portion of the Golden State, where in all but one of the nine Bay Area counties, even voters with no party preference outnumber them.
Eva Zhou, though, says her community is now taking a fresh look at who deserves their vote.
“Now we have family, we have children, we have a house. We have built what we have here, and then we have a career,” Eva Zhou said. “Now, we’re moving towards the Republicans.”
