El Centro, CA · which candidate this place backed in each party’s presidential nominating contest, cycle by cycle. A primary is a contest inside one party, so it has no Democratic–Republican margin and is not part of the general-election record above.
Akashic reports votes cast, not delegates awarded. The two can disagree: Clinton led the 2008 national primary popular vote by less than half a point and did not win the nomination.
Primary returns are published at county grain, and this place is a single county: Imperial County, California. The figures below are that county’s, which is the same territory — not a larger unit standing in for it.
Presidential nominating contests in El Centro, CA, by party and cycle.
○no contest record — Akashic holds no result for that party and cycle here. It is not a claim that no contest was held. Telling apart a contest that was cancelled, one that went uncontested, and one simply not yet ingested needs a nominating-contest calendar, which is a separate ingest from results and does not exist yet.
Republican presidential primaries are not yet ingested — the Republican series runs from 1856 and is in scope. The row is kept so its absence is visible: a Democratic-only panel would otherwise read as though no one else held a contest.
Akashic carries 10 states for 2012 and 3 states for 2024. Cycles in which an incumbent president seeks renomination are thin by nature — few states run a contested primary — so a sparse column is politics, not a hole in the record.
County returns carry a leader and a lead over the runner-up, and nothing more. The full candidate field with vote shares is published at state grain — follow a cycle above to the state contest for it.
voter registration
Registered voters
By party of registration, over time
Party registration · 2024D+22.8
vs
Presidential vote · 2024R+0.9
El Centro, CA registers Democratic but votes Republican — a 24-point gap between how voters register and how they vote, the signature of ancestral registration that trails realignment.
88,694 registered voters · 2024 · up from 86,318 in 2022
Domestic migration in El Centro, CA in El Centro, CA: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
−991
2012
−1,249
2013
−2,472
2014
−951
2015
−1,879
2016
−1,531
2017
−767
2018
−1,808
2019
−2,000
2021
−1,159
2022
−1,427
2023
−1,297
2024
−761
2025
−2,228
El Centro anchors a heavily Latino, agriculture-driven metro where cross-border economic ties shape local politics and voter priorities more than in almost any other inland California region.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 41.5 points in 2016 and a Republican high of 39.2 points in 1924. Between 2020 and 2024 the metro moved 25.2 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 0.9 points.
A population of 180,202, a 9% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $57,681 describe the metro. The metro's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Laredo, TX and Nogales, AZ.
Akashic
Political twins — metros
The metros whose fingerprint — 2000–2024 trajectory, demographics, ancestry, religion — sits closest to this one, and why.
Twin score (0–100) = weighted cosine between tier-standardized fingerprints: presidential margins 2000–2024 with 12-yr trend and elasticity, ACS income, age, education, population and race, top reported ancestries, and religious adherence — chips name the closest-shared dimensions and the widest gap. Re-weight the groups in the twins explorer.
Compare two places, side by side
Twelve curated comparisons line up election history, demographics, and the divergence story for two places at a glance. Browse all comparisons →
Cite this page
All citations released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Akashic Intelligence.
El Centro, CA, California. Akashic. https://akashic.app/cbsa/20940/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
License: CC BY 4.0
Embed this page
A live widget for your site — no API key, attribution built in, CC BY 4.0. All widgets & sizes →
In 2024, El Centro, CA, California voted Republican by 0.9 points (R+0.9), carried by the Republican candidate. Out of 54,025 votes cast, 26,083 went Democratic and 26,546 went Republican.
When did El Centro, CA, California last vote Democratic?
The most recent presidential election in which El Centro, CA, California voted Democratic was 2020.
How many people live in El Centro, CA, California?
El Centro, CA, California has a population of 180,202 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in El Centro, CA, California?
Median household income in El Centro, CA, California is $57,681 — below the national median of $80,734. The California state median is $99,122.
What is the political history of El Centro, CA, California?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in El Centro, CA, California from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 13 went Democratic and 16 went Republican.
