The late Republican president and GOP candidates up and down the ballot once dominated Orange County, California, elections. Reagan won nearly 75% of the vote there during his 1984 reelection landslide, and Republican presidential nominees won California six straight times from 1968 to 1988. Even though the state started backing Democratic White House hopefuls in 1992 and never looked back, the county south of Los Angeles carried on as a Republican enclave in deepening blue California for a nearly quarter-century after Reagan left office in 1989.

That streak snapped in 2016, when Hillary Clinton became the first Democratic presidential nominee to win Orange County since 1936, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt won it in his first reelection triumph. In 2020, Joe Biden won Orange County, beating Republican Donald Trump, the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president, 53%-44%.

But Trump, in his 2024 firm 312-226 Electoral College win over Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, nearly won Orange County. For a few days after Trump’s comeback triumph, he led in Orange County. Late-counted ballots have given Harris the edge, 49.2%-47.8%, and the margin could change again before the election results are certified by California.

Orange County’s stark tilt toward Trump is striking due to its iconic status as a symbol of suburban sprawl, aspirational middle- and upper-class lifestyles, and other long-standing American themes. With a population now at about 3.2 million, it’s no longer in the shadow of Los Angeles County, its behemoth population neighbor at nearly 10 million people. Orange County has become a major political battleground, with several House seats swinging back and forth between Democrats and Republicans starting with the 2018 midterm elections.

“The 42-mile shoreline of Orange County is filled in with pricey coastal resorts and other developments. Huntington Beach, a city of nearly 200,000 with eight miles of beachfront, is a mixture of family subdivisions and garden apartments and home of the International Surfing Museum,” the 2024 Almanac of American Politics reads.

“Newport Beach, one of California’s richest cities, was the setting for the popular teen drama, ‘The O.C.,’ as well as the madcap comedy ‘Arrested Development,’ whose central family got its start with a frozen banana stand on Newport Beach’s Balboa Island,” the Almanac adds.

Orange counties shun the blue nationally

Orange County’s red tilt this year reflects electoral inroads Republicans made in the Golden State. With the majority of California’s votes in, Harris led Trump 59%-38%. That’s a strong win for the Democratic nominee, but hardly Biden’s 2020 California romp over Trump at a 63%-34% landslide clip. And, as in the rest of the nation, Democratic candidates in California performed worse than four years ago in cities, suburbs, rural towns, and college towns.

It comes after California, under full Democratic control, enacted some of the most progressive policies in America. One sign of voter discontent at this is the Nov. 5 approval of a tough-on-crime ballot measure. Proposition 36 will impose harsher penalties for drug possession and theft, including making shoplifting a felony for repeat offenders. Voters also ousted a pair of elected officials seen as emblematic of progressive overreach, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón.

Orange County shifts to red aren’t even confined to California. In addition to California, the seven other states with Orange counties each voted more Republican for president or stayed about the same as in 2020. While not a scientific comparison, it makes for an important data set about voter attitudes in a commonly named county, though Orange lags far behind Washington counties in 31 states and Jefferson counties in 26. Here’s the preliminary Orange County scorecard outside of California, with final vote totals still being tabulated.

Florida

California’s Orange County isn’t the only one with Disney-built theme parks. The Orange County, Florida, version is even larger.

“Orlando is one of the world’s great tourist destinations,” the Almanac reads. “Although Walt Disney and his theme park provided the initial inspiration, other popular theme parks, including Sea World and Universal Studios, have attracted millions of fun-seekers worldwide — young and old.”

Orange County, Florida, is also home to the downtown Orlando campus of the University of Central Florida, so there’s a strong Democratic tilt. But a bit less than before. With Trump winning Florida by a 13-point margin and nabbing its 30 Electoral College votes, the third-biggest presidential prize after California and Texas, Harris won Orange County 56%-43%. That’s a significant dip from Biden’s 2020 winning margin there over Trump, 61%-38%.

Indiana

This 20,000-person Orange County in southern Indiana includes French Lick, home to NBA great Larry Bird. Besides being basketball-crazy — Bird in the early 1970s was Spring Valley High School’s all-time scoring leader before his Indiana State college dominance and legendary Boston Celtics career — the county has plenty of Trump enthusiasts. Trump beat Harris 75%-23% there. That’s even higher than Trump’s 2020 72%-25% blowout win over Biden. Indiana again proved itself a reliably red state, giving Trump its 11 electoral votes with his 59%-40% margin over Harris.

New York

Like its California counterpart, the presidential vote performance in Orange County, New York, has Democrats concerned. Straddling the New Jersey state line, the 402,000-person county in 2020 backed Trump over Biden 49.30%-49.24%, a tiny margin of 113 votes out of more than 172,000 cast. This year, Trump won 54.08% of the vote to Harris’s 45.12%.

That’s a major fall in Democratic vote share for a state that’s supposed to be a blue behemoth. Yet New York as a whole only backed Harris over Trump 56%-44%, a considerable drop-off from Biden’s 2020 romp there, 61%-38%.

North Carolina

The Tar Heel State’s Orange County is a blue enclave in a light-red state. Home to the University of North Carolina’s flagship campus at Chapel Hill, voters in the nearly 149,000-person county supported Harris over Trump 75%-24%. Though that is a marginal improvement for the former and returning president — four years ago, Orange County, North Carolina, went for Biden 75%-23%. It’s that kind of incremental county vote improvements that helped Trump prevail 51%-48% in a state the Harris campaign targeted hard.

Texas

It would seem hard for Trump to improve on his 2020 performance in Orange County, which is on the Lone Star State’s extreme eastern edge, along the southern part of its state line with Louisiana. The county of about 85,000 people in 2020 gave Trump 81% of its vote to a scant 18% for Biden. This year, though, Trump won over Harris 83%-16%. It was part of a swing to the right in Texas’s presidential vote, which is saying something. Trump easily won its 40 electoral votes by a 56%-42% margin, effectively destroying Democratic dreams of turning Texas blue anytime soon.

Vermont

Located near the center of the Green Mountain State, with a population of just under 30,000 people, Trump doesn’t exactly have a big following. He lost to Harris 58%-38% there, while she won Vermont by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.

Still, that’s down a notch from Biden’s 2020 win over Trump in Orange County, Vermont, 60%-36%. The change will have downballot political consequences, with a Republican win in an Orange County-based state Senate seat.

Republican Larry Hart, a building supply store salesman, definitively took down state Sen. Mark MacDonald, a Democrat who has served in both chambers of the legislature for more than 30 years combined. Hart won 54% of the vote to MacDonald’s 42%.

Hart’s win was part of major legislative pickups by Vermont Republicans, including effectively doubling the party’s ranks from seven seats last session to 13. Democrats and Progressives, who held 23 seats, will now control 17. And they will no longer have the two-thirds majority needed to override Gov. Phil Scott’s (R-VT) vetoes.

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Virginia

The final Orange County has a longtime presidential association. Located in north-central Virginia — its eponymous county seat of Orange is a 90-mile drive southwest of Washington, D.C. — President James Madison lived there. Montpelier, the 4th president’s 2,700-acre estate, is a popular draw for history buffs.

In modern presidential politics, Orange County, Virginia, is a solid red zone. It’s backed Republican nominees in every election since 1952. This year, Trump improved on his 60%-39% win there over Biden in 2020 with an even wider 62%-37% margin of victory over Harris as Virginia has moved to the right lately in statewide races. Harris won the state 52%-47%, a decline from Biden’s more comfortable 54%-44% victory over Trump in 2020.