President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.
By Jim Tortolano/Garden Grove Journal
Political pundits who are reflecting on why President Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in the Nov. 6 general election might find some food for thought in election results from the Garden Grove-Stanton-Westminster area.
According to statistics provided by the Orange County Registrar of Voters, although the Republican nominee carried the county overall by about 70,000 votes, he lost all three of those cities, two of which went for John McCain in 2008.
Garden Grove, which narrowly polled for the GOP nominee four years ago, flipped blue this time, supporting Obama 25,698 to 21,169 in unofficial totals available Tuesday afternoon. McCain carried the Big Strawberry in 2008.
Westminster, which also went Republican in the previous presidential election, was closer, but went for the president by 14,590 to 13,890 on Nov. 6.
Stanton, one of few Orange County cities that supported Obama in 2008, also backed his re-election bid, by a margin of 5,014 to 3,187.
National exit polls suggest that upwards of 70 percent of Hispanic voters supported the Democratic nominee, and that a similar proportion of Asians also went blue. In the Garden Grove-Stanton-Westminster area, a majority of residents are members of those two groups, although the percentage of voters is lower.
“The party’s going to have to think about doing things in a different way,” Michael Capaldi, a member of the Lincoln Club of Orange County told The Orange County Register on election night. “Reaching out to Latinos would be a good start.”
Across Orange County, other cities that went for Obama were Anaheim, Irvine, La Habra, La Palma, Laguna Beach, Santa Ana and Tustin.
The unincorporated community of Midway City, adjacent to Westminster, also supported the president.
