Welcome to this deep dive. I am incredibly glad
you decided to join us today. Yeah, it's great
to be here. Have you ever looked at a spreadsheet,
like just a simple dry list of names and dates?
Right, something that looks totally boring on
the surface. Exactly. Have you ever looked at
something like that and realized you were actually
staring at this sweeping, dramatic, historical
epic? Because that is exactly the experience
we had when preparing for today. It really was.
We are looking at a single Wikipedia article
today. And it's titled A List of United States
Senate Elections in California. Which I know
sounds a bit dry. Yeah, you might be wondering
why we're devoting an entire deep dive to a list
of elections. But stick with us here. Please
do. Because we're going to trace the deeply fascinating
history of how California has chosen its U .S.
senators over the last century. We're looking
way beyond the raw data. Right. To uncover the
unpredictable quirks of the ballot, the profound
shifts in voting rules, and really the massive
leaps that completely rewrote the political map
of the West Coast. It's a brilliant shortcut
to understanding the evolution of one of the
largest states in the Union. Purely through the
lens of who they put on the ballot. And to help
make sense of all this historical data, I am
joined, as always, by our resident expert. Always
a pleasure. And what's fascinating here is that
the foundation of all this data comes straight
from the structural design of the U .S. Constitution.
Right. Setting the baseline. Exactly. The Constitution
allots every single state exactly two senators,
regardless of the state's population size. and
they serve staggered six -year terms. Staggered,
meaning they aren't elected at the same time.
Correct. To keep those elections balanced across
the entire country, the Senate is divided into
three distinct classes. Okay. So upon California's
admission to the union back in 1850, the state
was assigned a class one seat and a class three
seat. Which means voters are never completely
replacing their entire Senate representation
all at once. Right. There is always an element
of continuity. But before we get into the popular
vote, we have to address a crucial historical
pivot in the text right up front. A huge pivot.
Because if you go all the way back to 1850, you,
the average California resident, you didn't actually
have a direct say in who went to the Senate.
That is a vital piece of context. Originally,
U .S. senators were chosen directly by the state
legislature. Just politicians picking politicians?
Exactly. It was a system that often involved
backroom deals and intense localized lobbying.
It was far removed from the general public. It
wasn't until the ratification of the 17th Amendment
in 1913 that senators were elected directly by
the popular vote. Yes. So the data we are really
sinking our teeth into today starts right after
that amendment takes effect. We're looking at
what happened in California once the average
citizens actually got the reins. Once the voters
had a say. OK, let's unpack this, because once
the voters get control, the early data from the
1910s through the 1930s is incredibly fractured.
Oh, totally. If you think today's political landscape
is chaotic, the sheer variety of political parties
that used to pull substantial numbers reveals
a truly experimental electorate. It was an era
of intense political multipolarity. It absolutely
was. When you look at the fractions and the vote
distribution from those early popular vote elections.
It's far from a simple binary choice between
two major establishment parties. Right. It's
not just Republican versus Democrat. Not at all.
The data reflects a state going through rapid
growing pains, deeply divided on monumental social
issues. I want to look at the 1914 Class 3 election
as our first prime example of this. That's a
great one to start with. You have the Democrat,
James D. Phelan, winning with just under a third
of the total vote. Barely 30%. Right. But look
at the rest of the field. He is closely trailed
by Francis J. Honey, running for the Progressive
Party. Who captured over a quarter of the electorate.
And then you have Ernest Nutterman running as
a socialist. And he didn't just get a handful
of protest votes. No, he really didn't. He walked
away with over 6 % of the total vote, representing
tens of thousands of individual voters. And that
socialist presence was not a one -off anomaly
on the ballot either. No. If you fast forward
just a bit to the 1922 class one election, the
famous author Upton Sinclair. The guy who wrote
The Jungle. That's the one. He actually ran for
the Senate as a socialist. He did. And similar
to the 1914 data. Sinclair grabbed over 6 % of
the electorate. Which shows a persistent, organized
voting bloc. Yeah, a real consistency there.
Yeah. But if we were talking about numbers that
truly jump off the page, I want to bring up the
1932 Class 3 election. Ah, that would be the
Robert P. Scholar campaign. That is the one.
So you have the Democrat, William Gibbs McAdoo,
winning the seat, and the Republican talent tubs
coming in second. Pretty standard so far. Right.
But right there in the data. is Robert P. Shuler
running for the Prohibition Party. And the numbers
are staggering. He secured over 560 ,000 votes.
Over half a million people, representing more
than a quarter of the entire total vote, went
to the Prohibition Party candidate in 1932. If
we connect this to the bigger picture, this data
tells a profound story about the cultural climate
of early 20th century California. Yeah, what
does that tell us? You're seeing a state grappling
with the temperance movement. labor rights and
immense economic anxiety during the early years
of the Great Depression. Because people were
desperate for solutions. Exactly. Those movements
had enough genuine popular support to field incredibly
viable third party candidates. Voters were not
locked into a rigid two party mindset. They were
actively using the ballot to voice very specific,
uncompromising ideological stances. And the system
at the time accommodated that expression. accommodated
in some highly unusual ways too. If you read
the fine print in the notes of this Wikipedia
article, you discover an electoral mechanic called
cross -nomination. Yes, this is a distinct quirk
of California's electoral history that completely
alters how we read the data. How so? Well, under
this system, candidates could essentially compete
for and win the nomination of multiple political
parties simultaneously during the primary phase.
Which feels completely counterintuitive today.
Like, why would the state allow a candidate to
represent opposing parties? It was actually an
intentional progressive era reform. Yeah. The
original goal was to weaken the grip of corrupt
party bosses and political machines. To take
the power away from the back rooms again. Right.
The reformers believe that if a candidate was
broadly popular enough, they should be able to
appeal directly to the voters of any party, bypassing
the party leadership's preferred choices. OK,
that context. Completely changes how you view
the 1934 class one election. It really does.
We have Hiram Johnson, who is an incumbent Republican.
But according to the notes, he successfully utilized
this cross nomination mechanic and was also nominated
by the Democratic Party. So he enters the general
election as the chosen candidate for both major
parties. The result is a monumental landslide.
He wins nearly 95 % of the vote, pulling in almost
2 million ballots. Incredible numbers. The runner
-up was a socialist candidate who only managed
about 5%. A system meant to give voters more
choices essentially created a unified, unopposed
sweep. It is a perfect example of how the structural
rules of the ballot dictate the outcome. When
the mechanics of the election allow a single
candidate to capture both major party lines,
the data reflects a victory that looks almost
autocratic. Yeah, 95 % is huge. But it is entirely
a product of the primary system's rules at that
specific moment in time. It effectively neutralized
the partisan tug of war before the general election
even began. Speaking of ballot mechanics, here's
where it gets really interesting. Oh, yes. Let's
move our timeline into the 1940s because I want
to guide you through what has to be the most
logistically complex election on this entire
record. The 1946 Class I Special Election. Exactly.
We are looking at the 1946 Class I Special Election.
This is a truly remarkable data point. To understand
it, we have to look at the exact circumstances
of the ballot. Set the scene for us. There was
a vacancy in the Senate, which meant there was
a special election to fill the remainder of the
current term happening on the exact same day
as the regular general election for the next
full term. Right. And because of either printing
deadlines or legal quirks regarding when the
vacancy occurred, the candidates for that short
-term special election were not actually printed
on that specific section of the ballot. Which
leads to this astonishing result. William Nolan
wins the special election for a United States
Senate seat with over 425 ,000 votes. But he
doesn't have a party listed next to his name
in the main column. No, he is listed as a write
-in candidate. He wins by having hundreds of
thousands of people manually write his name on
a piece of paper. And the runner -up. Will Rogers
Jr. Right, who pulled in over 90 ,000 votes,
was also a write -in candidate for that specific
seat. When you stop to consider the logistical
reality of that event, it is staggering. Imagine
the level of public education and coordination
required. In a pre -digital world. Exactly. We
are talking about 1946. There is no social media
to spread awareness, no email blasts, no targeted
digital advertisements reminding you how to properly
spell a candidate's name. You had to know exactly
what to do when you walked into the booth. To
mobilize over half a million voters across a
geographically vast state like California to
physically write in specific names requires an
unprecedented... level of on -the -ground organizing,
radio campaigning, and newspaper coordination.
It paints such a vivid picture of civic engagement
in the post -war era. It really does. Now, as
we move through the 1950s and the 1960s, the
spreadsheet shifts again. The multi -party chaos
of the early century fades, and you start seeing
major historical figures appear. Purely through
the lens of the selection data. For instance,
in 1950, Richard Nixon wins the class three seat
with roughly 59 % of the vote for the Republicans,
defeating the Democrat Helen Gahagan Douglas.
What the data illustrates during this mid -century
period is a state functioning as a highly competitive,
genuine two -party battleground. Real toss -up.
If you track both the class one and class three
seats through these decades, you see a statistical
pendulum swinging back and forth with remarkable
regularity. You really do. We are looking at
this purely as a timeline of changing hands.
But it is incredibly consistent. Right. You have
Republican Thomas Kuchel winning multiple elections
in the 50s and early 60s. You have Republican
George Murphy taking a seat in 1964. But interspersed
right alongside them. You have Democrats taking
victories like Claire Engel in 1958 and Alan
Cranston coming in during the 1968 election and
managing to hold his seat for decades. The control
of these two Senate seats bounces back and forth
continually. This pendulum perfectly captures
the shifting demographics and the intense political
priorities of California during the Cold War
and the civil rights era. The state was changing
fast. It was experiencing a massive suburban
boom, the rapid growth of the aerospace industry
and profound cultural revolutions. So the voters
were constantly adapting. The electorate was.
actively balancing power, heavily scrutinizing
and rewarding different party platforms as the
national landscape evolved. During this specific
window of time, neither party could claim an
unbreakable monopoly on the state's representation.
But that competitive back and forth eventually
gives way to an era of absolute, undeniable longevity.
A massive shift. We move the timeline forward
to the 1980s and particularly to 1992, which
the data shows as a historic changing of the
guard for California. 1992 is widely recognized
as a watershed year because of a prior vacancy.
Both the class one and the class three seats
were on the ballot simultaneously. Right. Dianne
Feinstein wins the class one special election
with over five point eight million votes. Huge
numbers. At the exact same time. Barbara Boxer
wins the Class 3 regular election with over 5
.1 million votes. both candidates running as
Democrats. And looking at the sheer scale of
their tenures based on the numbers in front of
us is remarkable. When you look at the columns
for the next few decades, it is just their names,
election cycle after election cycle. The consistency
is unparalleled in the state's history. Barbara
Boxer successfully holds her class three seat
through the 1998, 2004 and 2010 elections. And
Feinstein goes even longer. Dianne Feinstein's
tenure is even more expansive, holding the class
one seat from that initial 19... special election
all the way through the 2018 election listed
here. While the amount of time they spent in
office is impressive, what truly stands out in
the data is the exponentially expanding voter
base they were capturing. The raw totals are
mind -boggling. Let's ground this with a comparison.
Back in 1916, Hiram Johnson won his Senate seat
with roughly 574 ,000 votes. You could fit that
entire winning voter base into a few large modern
sports stadiums. Easily. But by the time Dianne
Feinstein runs in 2012, she is pulling in an
astonishing 7 ,864 ,624 votes to secure her victory.
That metric is a direct reflection of the exponential
population growth of California over a century.
The state transformed from a developing Western
frontier into a global economic and demographic
behemoth. I want you listening to this to visualize
the logistical and financial shift required to
campaign in that modern environment. It's a completely
different game. In the early 20th century, a
candidate might whistle -stop their way around
the state on a train, speaking to crowds in town
squares. Very localized. By 2012. to win one
of these two Senate seats. A candidate has to
win over a population larger than the entirety
of many European countries. You're dealing with
multiple massive television media markets, incredibly
diverse demographics. And the necessity of immense
campaign infrastructures just to reach the millions
of people required to secure a plurality. Precisely.
The strategies required to secure seven or eight
million votes are entirely alien to the strategies
used a century prior. It becomes an exercise
in mass communication and vast resource management.
However, just as the scale of the elections reach
these unprecedented heights, the Wikipedia notes
reveal yet another seismic disruption to the
rules of the game. Another pivot. Hidden in the
reference section is a legal change that completely
altered everything we have discussed about the
modern era. We are entering the 2010s to 2024
timeframe. And the disruptor is Proposition 14.
Proposition 14, passed by the voters in 2010,
fundamentally rewired the state's electoral machinery.
What exactly did it do? It instituted what is
known as a top two primary system. The mechanics
of this are crucial. All candidates, regardless
of their political party affiliation, run on
a single unified primary ballot. Oh, wow. Then
only the two candidates who receive the most
votes advance to the general election. Regardless
of party, which means you are no longer guaranteed
to have one Republican and one Democrat facing
off in November. Exactly. Furthermore, the notes
point out another critical detail. Proposition
14 completely banned write -in candidates in
the general election. Which is a stark contrast
to the 1946 William Nolan mobilization we discussed
earlier. Yeah, that couldn't happen anymore.
Under the new Prop 14 rules, that kind of grassroots
general election write -in campaign is legally
impossible. The ballot is locked to those top
two names. And the immediate results of this
new rule jump right off the spreadsheet into
highly unusual territory. Let's look at the 2016
Class 3 election. Right. Let's look at the matchup.
The general election matchup is Kamala Harris
versus Loretta Sanchez. Both candidates are Democrats.
Right. There is no Republican on the general
election ballot for that Senate seat at all.
Because they were the two individuals who secured
the highest vote totals in the blanket primary.
And we see it happen again in the very next cycle.
Look at the 2018 class one election. Feinstein's
race. Yes. You have incumbent Dianne Feinstein
facing off against Kevin de Leon. Once again,
two Democrats facing off in a general election
for the United States Senate. This raises an
important question. How does fundamentally altering
the mechanics of the ballot redefine the strategies
of the candidates? It has to change everything.
In a top -two system where candidates from the
exact same party face each other in a general
election, traditional partisan campaigning is
no longer sufficient. You can't just play to
your base. Exactly. You cannot simply rely on
turning out your ideological base. Candidates
are forced to build diverse coalitions across
the aisle. So a more moderate candidate might
actively strategize to win over conservative
voters to defeat a more progressive opponent
from their own party. The structural rules of
the ballot entirely dictate the strategic behavior
of the campaigns. It reshapes the entire political
playbook. And just to quickly round out the data
to bring us to the present day, we see the most
recent entries continuing this trend of vast
multi -million vote scales. The numbers keep
climbing. In 2022, Alex Padilla wins the class
three seat with over 6 .6 million votes. And
the 2024 data. Adam Schiff wins the class one
seat against Republican Steve Garvey, pulling
in over nine million votes. Nine million. We
have journeyed from half a million votes representing
a historic landslide to nine million votes being
the new standard for victory. It's an incredible
trajectory. So. What does this all mean? We started
this deep dive looking at an era when the state
legislature quietly selected senators behind
closed doors. A completely different world. We
transitioned into a volatile era of direct democracy,
where prohibitionists captured a quarter of the
electorate and candidates utilized cross nominations
to sweep multiple party tickets simultaneously.
Then the write -in campaigns. Right. We analyzed
how half a million people coordinated a massive
write -in campaign in the 1940s without the aid
of modern technology. We watched the political
pendulum swing continuously during the Cold War.
Witness the dawn. of multi -decade incumbencies
fueled by exponential population growth. And
finally arrived at the highly structured top
two primary system of today that can pit two
candidates from the same party against one another.
It is a profoundly revealing timeline. It truly
is. I think the most important takeaway for you,
the listener, is to recognize that whenever you
look at a seemingly dry list of election results,
there's a column of names, dates and percentages.
You are never just looking at a simple population.
It's so much more than that. The rules shape
the outcome just as much as the candidates do.
And that leaves us with something critical to
consider moving forward. We have seen how the
physical and legal mechanisms of the vote, from
backroom legislature appointments to progressive
era... cross nominations to modern top two primaries
drastically alter who ends up on the ballot and
who ultimately wields power. Oh, so what's next?
Right. As technology and society continue to
evolve at an ever accelerating pace, what might
the next major evolution in electoral mechanics
look like? That's a fascinating question. How
might algorithm driven communication platforms
or even. AI -assisted coalition building force
another complete rewrite of the political map
in the decades to come. That is a brilliant thought
to end on. The rules of the game are never truly
permanent, and the data is always waiting to
show us the consequences of what happens next.
Exactly. Thank you so much for joining us on
this Deep Drive. I hope we proved that even a
simple Wikipedia list can hold an absolute treasure
trove of living history if you know how to read
between the lines. Stay curious, keep looking
closely at the data around you, and we will catch
you next time.