Earlier: Why Is Beverly Hills A Rare West Coast Outpost Of Freedom Of Assembly For Trump Supporters?
A reader asks:
Hey Steve, a quick question, what explains Trump’s relative strength in Beverly Hills? [See the graph above of change from 2016 to 2020: red means a swing toward Trump.] In most similar well off white areas he lost by a lot 2016 and more than that in 2020. In Beverley Hills he improved in 2020 , winner a few precincts and getting more than 40% in all of them. Looking at the NYTimes precinct map he seems to improved almost all upscale areas in the west side of LA in contrast to other metros where he did worse. Is this just gold chains? Hollywood finding the great awokening stifling? More Orthodox Jews than I’m aware of? Or something else?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html
Good question and good suggestions.
Trump wound up winning three Census tracts in Beverly Hills in this graph of 2020 results:
The Westside of Los Angeles and the southern parts of the San Fernando Valley on the other side of the Hollywood Hills are increasingly filling up with ex-Soviets, Israelis, Persians, Armenians, and so forth, few of whom are Woke.
And there are more than a few guys in the entertainment industry who see Wokeness as basically a conspiracy among the less talented to take their jobs.
There was a big increase in gun ownership in LA in 2020. And there was severe looting in upscale liberal neighborhoods like West Hollywood and Santa Monica.
Other notes: the South Bay coastline, e.g., Manhattan Beach and Palos Verdes, which swung left from 2016 to 2020, was traditionally more Republican than the North Bay (e.g., Santa Monica)—fewer Hollywood people, more aerospace and frequent fliers. For example, NHL hockey players tend to live in Manhattan Beach, a fitness-oriented community with easy access to LAX.
The traditionally more culturally conservative upper middle class suburbs, such as Manhattan Beach and La Canada-Flintridge, swung toward Biden, much as similar suburbs did in the rest of the country.
The richer, less respectable, more raffish places like Beverly Hills swung toward Trump.
So did Mexican neighborhoods.
Chinese neighborhoods like Arcadia swung toward Biden.
