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1980 United States presidential election in California

election in California

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ7892709 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 1980 United States presidential election in California took place on November 4, 1980, as part of the 1980 United States presidential election. State voters chose 45 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

California voted for the Republican nominee, the state's former governor Ronald Reagan, in a landslide over the Democratic incumbent, Jimmy Carter. As expected, Reagan won his home state by a wide 16.78% point margin and carried all but three counties. Carter carried only three of the state's 58 counties: Alameda, San Francisco and Yolo.

As of the 2024 presidential election, this is the last time for a Republican candidate to carry the counties of Marin and Santa Cruz in a presidential election. This election was also the most Republican California has voted relative to the whole nation since 1928 and was the last time it was more Republican than the nation as a whole. It was widely believed that Carter lacked understanding of critical Western issues, most importantly water development. This also remains the last time a Republican won the San Francisco Bay Area, and the last one in which San Francisco gave less than 60% of the vote to the Democratic candidate.

Primaries

Results

Results by county

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

Results by city

City that flipped from Republican to Democratic

Sausalito (Marin)

Cities & Unincorporated Areas that flipped from Democratic to Republican

Fremont (Alameda)

Newark (Alameda)

San Leandro (Alameda)

Unincorporated Area (Alameda)

Ione (Amador)

Plymouth (Amador)

Unincorporated Area (Amador)

Biggs (Butte)

Angels (Calaveras)

Williams (Colusa)

Antioch (Contra Costa)

Concord (Contra Costa)

Martinez (Contra Costa)

Pinole (Contra Costa)

Crescent City (Del Norte)

Unincorporated Area (Del Norte)

Placerville (El Dorado)

South Lake Tahoe (El Dorado)

Unincorporated Area (El Dorado)

Clovis (Fresno)

Coalinga (Fresno)

Fresno (Fresno)

Kerman (Fresno)

Selma (Fresno)

Unincorporated Area (Glenn)

Blue Lake (Humboldt)

Eureka (Humboldt)

Rio Dell (Humboldt)

Unincorporated Area (Humboldt)

Calipatria (Imperial)

Imperial (Imperial)

California City (Kern)

Maricopa (Kern)

Wasco (Kern)

Corcoran (Kings)

Unincorporated Area (Kings)

Unincorporated Area (Lake)

Susanville (Lassen)

Unincorporated Area (Lassen)

Artesia (Los Angeles)

Azusa (Los Angeles)

Baldwin Park (Los Angeles)

Bell (Los Angeles)

Bellflower (Los Angeles)

Beverly Hills (Los Angeles)

Cudahy (Los Angeles)

Culver City (Los Angeles)

El Monte (Los Angeles)

Huntington Park (Los Angeles)

Lawndale (Los Angeles)

Maywood (Los Angeles)

Monterey Park (Los Angeles)

Norwalk (Los Angeles)

Paramount (Los Angeles)

Pomona (Los Angeles)

Rosemead (Los Angeles)

San Fernando (Los Angeles)

Santa Monica (Los Angeles)

Signal Hill (Los Angeles)

South Gate (Los Angeles)

Chowchilla (Madera)

Unincorporated Area (Mariposa)

Fort Bragg (Mendocino)

Willits (Mendocino)

Unincorporated Area (Mendocino)

Atwater (Merced)

Merced (Merced)

Unincorporated Area (Merced)

Alturas (Modoc)

Greenfield (Monterey)

Marina (Monterey)

Pacific Grove (Monterey)

Napa (Napa)

Nevada City (Nevada)

Rocklin (Placer)

Roseville (Placer)

Unincorporated Area (Placer)

Unincorporated Area (Plumas)

Banning (Riverside)

Beaumont (Riverside)

Blythe (Riverside)

Desert Hot Springs (Riverside)

Indio (Riverside)

Lake Elsinore (Riverside)

Perris (Riverside)

Riverside (Riverside)

San Jacinto (Riverside)

Unincorporated Area (Riverside)

Folsom (Sacramento)

Galt (Sacramento)

Unincorporated Area (Sacramento)

Hollister (San Benito)

Adelanto (San Bernardino)

Barstow (San Bernardino)

Fontana (San Bernardino)

Montclair (San Bernardino)

Needles (San Bernardino)

Ontario (San Bernardino)

Rialto (San Bernardino)

San Bernardino (San Bernardino)

Imperial Beach (San Diego)

National City (San Diego)

Manteca (San Joaquin)

Stockton (San Joaquin)

Tracy (San Joaquin)

Grover City (San Luis Obispo)

Colma (San Mateo)

San Bruno (San Mateo)

Carpinteria (Santa Barbara)

Lompoc (Santa Barbara)

Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara)

Campbell (Santa Clara)

Gilroy (Santa Clara)

Milpitas (Santa Clara)

San Jose (Santa Clara)

Santa Clara (Santa Clara)

Unincorporated Area (Santa Clara)

Capitola (Santa Cruz)

Watsonville (Santa Cruz)

Unincorporated Area (Santa Cruz)

Anderson (Shasta)

Unincorporated Area (Shasta)

Unincorporated Area (Sierra)

Dorris (Siskiyou)

Montague (Siskiyou)

Mt.

Editorial summary

“1980 United States presidential election in California” enters the record as election in California. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what United, States and presidential can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1980, 2024, 1928—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around United, States and presidential.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“1980 United States presidential election in California” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, United, States and presidential provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7892709. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1980, 2024 and 1928.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1980 United States presidential election in California” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.