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Latino voters in California are showing signs of moving away from Donald Trump after helping steer the right in 2024 CalMatters analyzed precinct-level results from the 2025 election in 57 of California’s 58 counties, representing more than 99 percent of the statewide vote. Our analysis shows that Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to rig congressional districts in favor of Democrats in response to a Republican gerrymander in Texas, outperformed Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign. colored voters.
We saw the greatest change in areas with a majority of Latinos. In districts where Latinos are the majority of the voting-age population, there was a 25 percentage point net shift to the Prop. redistricting measure. 50. In precincts where the majority of votes cast were from Latino voters, there was a net change of 29 percentage points.
To determine the net change, we subtracted the percentage vote difference in the 2024 presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump from the percentage vote difference between Yes and No votes on Proposition 50.
This shift in voter behavior could herald a backlash against President Trump and Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections, after Latino voters helped put Trump back in the White House in 2024.
These two highly partisan and closely contested elections present a rare opportunity to analyze specific voter behavior following the inauguration of a returning president, especially as the Trump administration steers California toward immigration crackdowns and federal spending cuts.
Methodology
Data collection and standardization
State database: We’ve compiled the 2024 and 2025 election results for 55 counties from the Statewide Database, the official redistricting database for the state of California. The dataset includes information on precinct results, boundaries, and the racial and ethnic demographics of voters.
Shasta and Tulare County Elections Offices: At the time of publication, the state database did not have data for Mono, Shasta or Tulare counties, so we collected 2,025 results and boundaries from Shasta and Tulare counties’ election offices.
Redistribution of Data Hub: For the demographic analysis, we downloaded data from the 2024 Census of Voting Age Population (CVAP) broken down into blocks from the 2020 Census of Redistribution of Data Hub. This census table was originally created to analyze voting rights and to assist in the recount process.
Estimating the demographics of voters in the precincts
We estimate the racial and ethnic demographics of the population at the level of area geography using the CVAP dataset. The Redistricting Data Hub apportions CVAP demographic data from 2020 block groups to 2020 blocks by proportional apportionment based on the ratio of population contribution per block to block group.
We used areal interpolation to allocate the CVAP census population from census blocks to areas. This method distributes population numbers proportionally based on how much of the area’s land area overlaps with a block. For example, if a block has 100 eligible voters and half of its area is within Section A, then 50 eligible voters from that block are allocated to Section A.
Interpolate 2024 counted votes to 2025 sections
We used areal interpolation to estimate the 2024 electoral vote count for 2025 precincts. The score is only used to calculate the vote change at the section level.
We did not rely on this interpolated count for county or state findings; rather, we used it to estimate changes in individual 2025 areas. We were careful with this measure because it is vulnerable to statistical bias (in particular, modifiable area unit problem). We cannot determine with certainty whether the observed vote shift is due to changes in voting behavior or to changes in ward geography.
Analysis
For our majority group analysis, we aggregate the vote tables for all precincts where the racial group is the majority of senior citizens. This does not mean that a majority of voters in a racial demographic voted a certain way in a precinct; it is a proxy for estimating voting behavior in geographic areas where these voters are in the majority.
We calculate the net shift between the 2024 and 2025 elections. The net shift measures the overall voter swing between elections. For example:
Net change = (“Yes” by Prop. 50 vote share – “No” by Prop. 50 vote share) – (Kamala Harris’ vote share – Donald Trump’s vote share)
Findings
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Latino-majority areas
The biggest gap was in Latino-majority districts, where the measure won 73 percent of the statewide vote, compared to Harris' 59 percent in 2024.
Southern California's Latino-majority counties saw the biggest change in vote percentage: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties shifted a net 27.5 percentage points, voting 60.6% for Harris and 75.9% for Prop. 50.
This finding is not isolated to counties with large urban centers. Kern and Stanislaus counties, both in the Central Valley, saw a net change of 24.5 percentage points in their Latino-majority areas.
Black-majority areas
Majority-black districts, located primarily in Los Angeles and Alameda counties, had the strongest support for both Harris in 2024 and Prop. 50 in 2025. Harris won with 85% of the vote; Prop. 50 won over 92%.
Areas with an Asian majority
Kamala Harris won 60% of the vote in Asian-majority precincts in 2024. The following year, Prop. 50 received 67% of the vote in Asian-majority constituencies, a net change of 10.3 percentage points.
Los Angeles and Orange County have a combined population of over 1.5 million Asian-American citizens of voting age. An analysis of the results for Asian-majority areas in these two Southern California counties showed a net change of 13.1 percentage points.
Areas with a predominantly white population
Majority-white districts were the only group we observed where the net shift across the country between the 2024 presidential race and Proposition 50 was less than 10 percentage points. The net change was 1.6 percentage points: Harris gained 56.3% in 2024; Prop. 50 won 58.6%.
Areas without a racial majority
Our analysis of precincts where no racial group made up the majority found that the difference in support between Harris in 2024 and Prop. 50 roughly matches the shift in majorities with Asian and black sections of the state: Harris won 60.7% of the vote in 2024, while Prop. 50 won 68.3%.
Restrictions
Comparing presidential elections to special elections
One shortcoming of our approach is that we are comparing a presidential election with a special election held in another year. General presidential elections often have higher voter turnout than special elections: 15.9 million votes in 2024, compared to 11.6 million in 2025. Any change in voter behavior from the 2024 election to the 2025 election represents a smaller pool of voters as a result. Turnout for the 2025 special election was equal to the state's last midterm and special election at 50%.
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Population distribution and area interpolation
Land area interpolation estimates voter demographics under the assumption of a uniform population distribution. The population is not evenly distributed. We try to minimize this concern by using CVAP data divided into census blocks.
This differs from the State Database approach, which uses limited data from electoral rolls and registration addresses to allocate voters to their enumeration block and precinct. Using this methodology, the State Database found that 80 percent of census tracts put all of their respective registered voters in the same precinct, rather than dividing them into multiple precincts.
Racially polarized analyzes of voting
Analyzes of racially polarized voting (RPV) are used to assess compliance with the Voting Rights Act (VRA). One method used is the homogeneous precincts method, which compares precincts in which 100% of the voters belong to one racial demographic group. We conducted a geographic analysis of the election results and did not attempt to make a conclusive finding regarding the VRA. We reran our analysis with increasingly higher thresholds up to 100% and noted that the net shift to Proposition 50 remained over +5 percentage points in precincts of color and reached +36.6 percentage points for precincts where Hispanic eligible voters were over 90% of eligible voters. It declined in white-majority precincts, reaching -7.4 percentage points in precincts where white voters make up more than 90% of eligible voters.
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Editorials
Election administrators redact results from precincts with low numbers of registered voters to protect secret ballots.
Census survey data versus electoral rolls
Our analysis is based on data from the Census Survey, which estimates the number of voting-age citizens in a census geography. Such analyzes use information extracted directly from electoral rolls of election administrators. Electoral rolls include information such as name, address, race, etc. Data from the electoral roll can be used to conduct ecological conclusion to draw conclusions about the electoral behavior of different groups.
We reran a version of our analysis incorporating data from voter files from the state database. We categorized precincts by whether the majority of voters were Latino and calculated the net shift.
Acknowledgments
We thank Spencer Nelson and Peter Horton of the Redistricting Data Hub for reviewing an early draft of this methodology.
We would also like to thank Matt Barreto (UCLA) for methodological feedback.
Download data
We used AI coding tools to assist with analysis. All results were manually reviewed by members of our team. You can access and download our analysis here.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.