California's Upper Class Rightwing Pivot
Why so many affluent areas voted for Steve Hilton for CA Governor and Spencer Pratt for LA mayor
The strongest overlapping support for both Steve Hilton for governor and Spencer Pratt for mayor in Los Angeles came from affluent moderate neighborhoods on the Westside and West and South San Fernando Valley. Notable pockets include Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Bel-Air, and Holmby Hills on the Westside, Encino and Tarzana in the Valley, and Hancock Park. Notably, Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom won most of these areas albeit by lower margins than the rest of LA, though supported the moderate candidate, Rick Caruso, for LA mayor. Pratt also won over the remnants of the White middle class in the Valley and San Pedro, which is expected.
People are more open to crossing parties for governor and local offices than for president. Thus a segment of Biden and Kamala voters voted for Pratt and Hilton. The places that voted against the recall (pro-Newsom) in 2021 but gave Hilton stronger-than-expected shares in 2026 tend to be moderate suburban areas in Ventura, Orange, and San Diego counties. For instance, the Conejo Valley region, including Calabasas and Thousand Oaks, which overlaps LA and Ventura County, and Oceanside in San Diego County. Hilton did very well in Beverly Hills, moderately well in Malibu, and the suburban South Bay region, except for Redondo Beach which went for Xavier Bacerra, but he did particularly well in the very wealthy Palos Verdes. Not to mention the entire affluent coastal belt of Orange and San Diego counties which went solidly for Hilton, particularly Newport Beach, but even Laguna Beach, which has a reputation for being more liberal.
Gubernatorial vote for Orange County and the South Bay
source: votehub.com
The Pacific Palisades stands out as the clearest example of a heavily Democratic Kamala Harris-strong area (Harris ~71% in key precincts vs Trump ~28%) where both Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt performed relatively well. The Palisades and Bel Air went for Pratt by slightly over half while Pratt got slightly less than half of the vote in neighboring Brentwood, albeit still a plurality. This Palisades shift to the right is in part due to how Karen Bass and Newsom mismanaged the fire, though it has always been moderate. Notably, Pratt outperformed Hilton in the Palisades by a significant margin which signals that he appealed to a subset of wealthy moderate Democrats who are angry at Bass over the fire.
-Prop 50 was the Democrat’s redistricting ballot measure
People are pointing out that an electoral shift in the Palisades matches the burn line from the fire. Basically, Chautauqua or Rustic Canyon survived the fire and voted more liberal than the rest of the Palisades. However, this areas has traditionally been more liberal than the rest of the Palisades, as it has a lot of former counter-culture aging hippie types. Even then, Pratt managed to win a plurality there, just not a majority like the rest of the Palisades. Also, it voted for Bacerra while the rest of the Palisades voted for Hilton.
Affluent LA areas that voted for Tom Steyer include Topanga Canyon, Venice Beach, Toluca Lake, Studio City, Sherman Oaks, and the Hollywood Hills. Westwood was divided between Steyer, Hilton, and Bacerra, with the wealthiest neighborhoods for Hilton, upper middle class neighborhoods for Bacerra, and renter heavy neighborhoods for Steyer. Santa Monica was divided between Bacerra and Steyer, with the most affluent, North of Montana neighborhood voting for Bacerra and Hilton outperformed Steyer by a narrow margin there. Venice voted for Bass while the Hollywood Hills was divided between Bass, Raman, and Pratt, and Westwood followed the same pattern where the wealthiest neighborhoods voted for Pratt, the upper middle class neighborhoods for Bass, and the renter heavy areas for Raman. Both Nithya Raman and Steyer did particularly well in hipster areas like Silver Lake and Echo Park, Universities like UCLA and USC, and Steyer did well in areas that have a lot of young professionals like Miracle Mile and Downtown Culver City. However, Pratt, and strangely Antonio Villaraigosa, won the East Hollywood precinct where the Scientology headquarters are.
Gubernatorial vote on the Westside
source: votehub.com
While the more established wealthy areas and niche ethnic communities, like Iranian Jews, tilted right, you still have wealthy areas that have a high concentration of residents working in entertainment, like Studio City and the Hollywood Hills, or places with a leftwing cultural tradition like Topanga Canyon and Venice Beach that are leftwing. There are precincts in Woodland Hills adjacent to Topanga, Westwood just west of Century City, and Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills that went for both Steyer and Pratt, which makes some sense because of his show The Hills. However, like with Chautauqua Canyon, Pratt only got a modest plurality at around a third of the vote in most of these cross over precincts. It is primarily the family oriented ultra-wealthy areas that voted more conservative, plus suburban upper middle class areas, while upper middle class urban areas that are full of DINKs and empty nesters voted more liberal.
Mayoral vote on the Westside
source: votehub.com
LA’s upper class shift to the right is also a Jewish shift to the right, as LA’s upper class is heavily Jewish. Unlike the Palisades, Beverly Hills voted for Trump and has been trending right for some time, primarily due to the Shah supporting Iranian Jewish community. The ultra wealthy precinct along Sunset blvd. in Beverly Hills, which includes the Beverly Hills Hotel, was one of Hilton’s strongest in the LA area at 62% of the vote. The heavily Jewish affluent neighborhoods of Encino and Tarzana in the Valley, Hancock Park, and much of Beverlywood, just South of Beverly Hills, stand out as supporting both Pratt for mayor and Hilton for governor, though nearby and also very Jewish, Cheviot Hills, voted more for Bass and Bacerra.
source: @Steve_Sailer on X
Hancock Park and Beverlywood have a lot of Orthodox Jews and Beverlywood also has a lot of Iranian Jews, in contrast with Cheviot Hills, which has more secular Jews in the entertainment industry. However, a modest right shift was notable in more secular Ashkenazi dominated affluent areas like Brentwood. Contrary to the stereotype of Jews as rootless cosmopolitans, ironically they are more rooted in LA than a lot of other groups, as transplants tend to be most liberal.
Partisan shift for LA White voters in 2024 (note Beverly Hills shifted right but the Palisades and Brentwood shifted slightly left)
source: votehub.com
In contrast with the stereotype of rich Jews being leftwing, this recent shift mirrors the New York Jewish liberals who became neocons, partially in response to NYC’s crime wave in the 70s and 80s. Bari Weiss, as a former liberal, is like the millennial version of those older neocon Jews. Not to mention Jews perceiving Republicans as more pro-Israel and Jews being penalized as White under DEI. Pratt and Hilton went out of their way to appeal to Jewish voters, and unlike Pratt’s Latino outreach, it really paid off. Hilton’s Latino support was primarily in the Central Valley, a demographic already trending red, but like with Pratt, he failed to make inroads with urban Latinos in LA, except for Pratt winning a handful of middle class Latino pockets in the Valley.
Gubernatorial Silicon Valley vote
source: votehub.com
The Bay Area’s wealthy areas did not see much shift to the right, as in SoCal. However, Steve Hilton performed the best in upper class areas including Napa, Danville, San Ramon, Walnut Creek, and Lafayette in the East Bay and certain Peninsula and Silicon Valley cities like Atherton, Hillsborough, much of Los Altos Hills, and Monte Sereno, as well as the more rural areas south of Silicon Valley. Atherton and Hillsborough, which are where ultra-wealthy tech elites live, signal the rightwing shift among a segment of Silicon Valley elites, as Hilton had a lot of Silicon Valley backing. Monte Sereno still has a lot of White old money. Among other ultra-wealthy areas on the Peninsula, Burlingame was divided between Hilton and Bacerra, Los Altos voted for Bacerra, Woodside was divided between Hilton, Bacerra, and Steyer, and Portola Valley, which has a lefty reputation, voted for Steyer.
Most of the areas where the rank and file tech workers live voted for either Bacerra or Steyer. Matt Mahan, who I voted for, had very little support and did not win any precincts. However, he did well in Downtown San Francisco/South Of Market and San Jose’s heavily Asian Northside area, beating Steve Hilton in many precincts, which makes sense considering he is San Jose’s mayor and appealed to techies. While Hilton did well in some affluent SoCal Asian ethnoburbs, like Arcadia and San Marino, Silicon Valley Asian and Indian ethnoburbs did not rally around any particular candidate.
Gubernatorial Marin County vote
source: votehub.com
While Steyer underperformed among LA’s wealthy, San Francisco including ultra-wealthy enclaves, like Pacific Heights and Sea Cliff, and Marin County including Sausalito and Mill Valley, voted for Steyer, with the greatest intensity for Steyer in Fairfax. Bacerra won in more moderate pockets of Marin, like Ross and Corte Madera. The question is why do very wealthy people in places like Marin County betray their class interests in the same way that Steyer, as a billionaire, is a class traitor? Steyer is not just woke but he is for wealth redistribution. In contrast, Bacerra is the safe candidate for rich people who want to virtue signal on identity that they support brown people but do not desire any structural change regarding economics and governance. Marin County’s cultural tradition of leftwing politics is much stronger than anywhere in SoCal, and these people are so committed to their ideology over their class interests.
The Recall against Newsom actually garnered an increase in support from Latino men without college rather than from the White upper class. Before Newsom’s last election, I predicted that Newsom would alienate suburban White upper class families, which I was wrong about at the time but vindicated in the long term. I was also right in my prediction that Hilton would appeal to more affluent voters while Riverside Sheriff, Chad Bianco, appealed more to working class voters, primarily in the Inland Empire.
As far as what constitutes elites, there is a fundamental distinction between wealthy people and institutional power. For instance, there are plenty of people who are wealthy from inheritance or run local businesses but are not connected to powerful managerial institutions. Wealthy people who are more independent of institutions or in industries involving resources extraction, like oil, tend to be more rightwing. However, there are rightwing tech oligarch, like Marc Andreessen. Hilton and Pratt appealed more to older established homeowners and families who want to protect what they have, while Steyer and Raman catered to the young White demographic from upper middle class backgrounds, both those struggling and young professionals who are heavily impacted by elite over production. For instance, they either view leftism as a way to signal to institutional power or they hope that someone like Steyer or Raman can create a jobs programs for underemployed college grads. This is why both UCLA and Stanford went hard for Steyer.
The lefty response to this article would be no shit, the rightwing has always served the rich and capital, such as Trump’s massive tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and corporations. California’s wealthy were initially more moderate to conservative back in the 80s, supporting Reagan. Then there was this realignment that probably began in the 90s but culminated with Trump that included middle class boomer hippies becoming rich, Universities becoming leftwing and thus college grads, the rise of the knowledge based economy, affluent voters’ concerns about issues like climate change, and conservative positions becoming low status socially. However, a lot of the extreme leftwing woke culture was too much even for the affluent cosmopolitan class. For instance, even at the peak of the great awokening in 2020, a lot of LA’s wealthiest areas voted against affirmative action. They feel targeted for their privilege in a way they didn’t back during the Obama years when they could feel morally righteous and snub the bad Whites in flyover country while there wasn’t this direct threat to their class interests. A major reason I support California’s billionaire tax is for acceleration reasons in that the wealthy need to fear the Left in order to break their alliance with the Left.
Intensity of support for Prop 16 to reinstate Affirmative Action on LA’s Westside in 2020
Green = majority non-White where prop 16 passed
Blue = majority White where prop 16 passed
Yellow= majority non-White where prop 16 failed
Red = majority White where prop 16 failed
(note strong opposition in Beverly Hills and tepid opposition in Bel Air, the Palisades and Malibu, roughly overlapping areas that supported either Pratt or Hilton)
Despite Bacerra representing the status quo, the long term trend is the Democrats moving to the left on economics. Upper class bubbles in places like LA are no longer immune from issues like crime. Since there is no longer a sense of one mass society, elites feel more removed from the masses in California in their insular bubbles, which means they care less about proving to the masses they are morally righteous than just a decade ago.
Steve Hilton strongly favors the wealthy and would not do much to help people who are struggling economically, including struggling young White people who tend to disproportionately back progressives. Hilton is overall better for established well off families, retirees, and business owners. Hilton is also more nimby about protecting single family zoning, so there isn’t a strong appeal for young people who are either renting or living with their parents. However, compared to both Steyer and Bacerra, Hilton can slow down White flight out of California because upper middle class White families would become more optimistic and feel safer and secure.
In contrast, Steyer might have economically helped struggling young people, including young White people, even if he still supports DEI type policies. However, Steyer’s higher taxes on the upper middle class and wealthy could increase White flight, as that demographic is disproportionately White. Steyer and Raman had a similar appeal to Zohran Mamdani who appealed to young White hipster underemployed college grads, who struggle to make it in the corporate world but are not eligible for government DEI jobs. Bacerra, who will likely be the next governor, fuses identity politics with a pro-corporate establishment stance. Unlike Steyer, Bacerra would not touch Silicon Valley profits or the prop-13 protections of rich boomers, but he would create more DEI government jobs. Bacerra appeals to Latinos on identity, as well as a large subset of boomer moderate White Democrats, but he doesn’t have anything to offer struggling young White people while he would continue the pressure for upper middle class White families to leave the State.
Even if Pratt is out of the runoff and Hilton will likely lose in the general election to Bacerra, the question is if the wealthy shifting right will have some political impact, as elites have mattered more. However, the power of bureaucratic institutions and demographic change could also supersede the influence of the wealthy. Conservatives are claiming that both the LA mayoral and gubernatorial elections were rigged, and perhaps there was some foul play on the part of Democrats, particularly regarding allegations of ballot harvesting on LA’s Skid Row. However, conservatives would rather believe conspiracy theories as a cope than face demographic realities, even in a place like California where demographic replacement has long been solidified.
Great analysis. A disappointing election but predictable in hindsight. Conservatives gotta give up the hopium that a MAGA adjacent candidate is gonna break through because we're fed up. No they're not. I think rather, as you point out, it's a threat from the hard left that will get people to support a DINO like Caruso or a mod Dem like Daniel Lurie in SF.
My hopium is a candidate that supports YIMBY and walkable urbanism but also law and order, tough love for homelessness and so forth. To that end, I voted for Matt Mahan who joins my long list of candidates that went nowhere like Michael Shellenberger and Tulsi Gabbard.
Many of us are none too fond of the white wealthy in California nor the billionaire tech bros. Neither Republicans nor Democrats can stop the favelaization of much of urban California.