Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo · how this place’s counties split between candidates 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 there is no roll-up above it. Each cell counts how many of this place’s counties a candidate led — a count of records, not a vote total. Who led the place as a whole is not knowable from these returns, because county rows carry a leader and a lead but no per-candidate votes.
Presidential nominating contests in Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, 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+13.8
vs
Presidential vote · 2024D+19.6
Registration leans Democratic; the presidential vote runs 5.8 points more Democratic than the rolls.
418,343 registered voters · 2024 · up from 416,406 in 2022
Domestic migration in Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo in Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
−1,530
2012
+3,315
2013
+2,209
2014
+2,472
2015
+196
2016
−573
2017
−1,739
2018
−1,284
2019
−2,169
2021
−14,255
2022
+6,159
2023
−7,855
2024
−5,176
2025
−3,563
Spanning three Central Coast counties, this media market blends UC Santa Barbara's student electorate with agricultural inland communities, producing countywide margins that routinely diverge from statewide Democratic baselines by 8–12 points depending on the cycle.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 39.6 points in 1912 and a Republican high of 49.6 points in 1924. Between 2020 and 2024 the market moved 4.0 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 19.6 points.
A population of 725,256, a 50% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $97,883 describe the market. The market's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of San Diego and Austin.
Akashic
Political twins — media markets
The media markets 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 →
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All citations released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Akashic Intelligence.
Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, California. Akashic. https://akashic.app/dma/855/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
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How did Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, California vote in 2024?
In 2024, Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, California voted Democratic by 19.6 points (D+19.6), carried by the Democratic candidate. Out of 335,481 votes cast, 195,463 went Democratic and 129,802 went Republican.
When did Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, California last vote Republican?
The most recent presidential election in which Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, California voted Republican was 2000.
How many people live in Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, California?
Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, California has a population of 725,256 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, California?
Median household income in Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, California is $97,883 — above the national median of $80,734. The California state median is $99,122.
What is the political history of Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, California?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, California from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 15 went Democratic and 18 went Republican.
