More than 40% of Californians voted for Trump, state 'not as liberal as Newsom' thinks, says expert

Though Trump lost California to Vice President Kamala Harris, his electoral showing in the Golden State increased significantly; he got 31% of the vote in 2016 and 34% in 2020. Even with something of a conservative exodus driving many residents to red states like Florida and Texas, Trump increased his percentage of the state vote by six points.

"Trump built a cross party, multi party coalition," Susan Shelley, VP of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, told Fox News Digital in an interview. "He's built a movement that crosses party lines, and it's reaching people who have not benefited from the policies that have been put forward." 

Regarding California's clean-energy mandates, Shelley said, "People have paid dearly for this, and that's what crosses party lines."

"The legislature is much, much more liberal, much more much further to the left than the voters are. And you can see that in the results in the propositions," Shelley, who is also a columnist, said. 

Proposition 36, which would reverse some soft-on-crime policies authored by L.A. DA George Gascon and re-establish felony offenses for certain drug and theft crimes, was overwhelmingly passed by California voters. 

Gascon, L.A.  County's district attorney since 2020, was also voted out. Independent candidate Nathan Hochman, a former assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush, will replace him.

California was also ground zero for several culture wars in children's education and transgender issues, such as sex change surgeries for incarcerated people on the taxpayer dollar. 

Lance Christensen, a California Policy Center political expert, told Fox News Digital these issues also played a role in earning Trump more votes in the Golden State.

The law created significant pushback from California parents who spent months protesting the new law at local school district meetings, and one school district went so far as to sue Newsom over the law.

"A lot of the social and cultural issues, the ethnic studies, the gender stuff, the hyper-sexuality that was happening in a lot of our schools, and they just didn't want that nationwide, especially with issues like Title Nine, where more and more women feel disenfranchised by the Biden administration," Christensen said.

"I think that you're seeing a shift in the partisan landscape of California, and it won't be dramatic, and it won't necessarily be consistent across the board, but I think there's a march towards some sort of sanity when it comes to politics that won't necessarily be a red-blue divide," he said.

On Thursday, Newsom called a special emergency session for December with the state's legislature in response to Trump's victory and bolster the blue state's legal response to any future attacks.

His action comes just a day after Newsom said he "will seek to work with the incoming president."