Did California’s electorate become majority Democrat by granting immigrants citizenship?

California’s Democratic majority cannot be attributed solely to its immigrant population. Around one-fifth of eligible California voters are naturalized citizens. Pew Research Center found that about half of these voters identify as Democrats, 21% as Republicans and 31% have no preference. That analysis suggests that about 10% of the state’s eligible immigrant voters identify as Democrats—not enough to change the state’s last four presidential elections. 

California has elected a primarily Democratic legislature nearly consecutively since the late 1950s, well before the state’s immigrant population surged in the mid-1990s. Though Republicans did become less competitive in statewide elections around that time, political analysts largely attribute the shift to Republican candidates’ embrace of anti-immigrant rhetoric. In 1990, gubernatorial candidate Pete Wilson received nearly half of the Hispanic vote, for instance. In 1994, after advocating for a controversial proposition that denied undocumented immigrants access to schools and health care, he won just 25%. 

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