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Biden’s campaign touts issues that matter to Southern Californians

May 2, 2023

He doesn’t surf and he’s not a Kardashian (even by marriage), but that doesn’t mean Pennsylvania-born, Delaware-bred Joe Biden isn’t secretly running for a job that doesn’t exist — President of Southern California.

Global warming. Immigration. Weed. Biden has spent much of the past two years wading into issues that voters in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties care about more than most.

“Care,” in this case, shouldn’t be misread as “loves the way Biden is handling that.”

While it’s true that in 2020 voters in the four-county region preferred Biden over then-President Donald Trump by a resounding 28.4 percentage points (about 4.8 million votes for Biden versus 2.6 million for Trump), it’s no lock that will happen again in 2024. Presidents seeking a second term sometimes find their biggest detractors are former supporters who feel burned by unmet expectations or broken promises.

With that in mind, here’s a look at five issues Biden’s campaign is either crowing about – or conspicuously not crowing about – that could be deal-breakers for Southern California voters:

Global warming

What Biden did: Last summer, after weeks of behind-the-scenes haggling, the Biden administration announced it had enough votes in the Senate to pass the Inflation Reduction Act.

While the bill takes steps to trim health spending and reduce the deficit, it also aims $369 billion toward reducing America’s contributions to global warming. That makes it, by far, the biggest federal law ever passed in the climate arena. Independent climate experts – who don’t necessarily love everything about the bill – confirm it could cut U.S. greenhouse emissions to about 40% below their all-time high over the rest of this decade.

Why it’s a SoCal thing: Californians, particularly Southern Californians, view climate change as a big deal.

A 2022 poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found that about 7 in 10 adults statewide believe climate change is already starting to hurt us. That view was held by 81% of Democrats, 73% of independents and 45% of Republicans.

The Southern California numbers are even more stark. The poll found that 82% of all voters in San Bernardino and Riverside counties believe global warming is either already hitting us or will within their lifetimes, a figure that jumps to 86% for all voters in Los Angeles and Orange counties. In the four local counties, no more than 18% of adults polled say they will be unaffected by global warning in their lifetimes.

Other numbers suggest locals are much more likely than other Americans to view climate change as an active, current problem.

A survey released in April by Pew Research found that while a majority of Americans express high to moderate concern about global warming, more than 1 in 3 (34%) describe it as an “important but lower” priority, ranking it just No. 17 out of 21 major challenges affecting the country.

At least one local voter who cares about the environment is mostly pleased with Biden’s track record.

“That $369 billion gets a lot of attention, and it should because it’s a really big investment,” said Mike Young, the Los Angeles-based political director for the lobbying group California Environmental Voters. “But the environment has been a consideration in all kinds of things this administration has done.”

Young suggests issues as diverse as Biden’s push for U.S.-based computer chip manufacturing to the backgrounds of cabinet officials are also environmental issues.

“He’s not perfect,” Young said. “The Willow project (a Biden-approved plan to drill for oil in a pristine part of Alaska) is a pretty big exception.

“But from what I’ve seen, Biden does have a sincere commitment to this work.”

President Joe Biden greets people after speaking on efforts to reduce gun violence on Tuesday, March 14, 2023, in Monterey Park where a mass shooting on the Lunar New Year left 11 dead. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Guns

What Biden did: In March, Biden came to Monterey Park to sign an executive order that, among other things, expanded gun sale background checks, tightened the rules for arms dealers and promised to set up federal help for communities affected by mass shootings.

That was about nine months after Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act which expands background checks and extends them to cover gun buyers younger than 21, adds funding for crisis intervention programs, beefs up laws against straw man gun purchases and makes it harder for violent romantic partners to buy guns. The Safer Communities Act was the first gun-specific legislation passed by Congress and signed into law in about 30 years.

It’s also unclear if any of it – the new law, the executive orders, Biden’s speeches in favor of gun control – will make a dent.

In 2021, 48,830 people died in the U.S. from gun-related suicides, homicides or accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That was an all-time high for gun deaths, though the overall rate of such deaths is actually lower than in previous decades. Also, Pew Research reports that guns now account for a higher share of homicides (81%) and suicides (55%) than ever.

Data isn’t as solid on the number of guns in circulation, but some estimates suggest the United States, with a population of about 334 million, has more than 400 million firearms. Many people, including Biden, have argued that the number of guns is one reason why so many people die of gun wounds.

Why it’s a SoCal thing: Note where Biden signed his executive order on guns.

In January, an aging gunman killed 11 people and wounded nine others at a Monterey Park dance venue. It was one of two mass shootings in California that week that left 19 people dead in a span of about 72 hours.

Those shootings were part of a national wave of similar incidents, and they shocked a state which has one of the nation’s lowest gun-death rates. In California, about 8.8 people out of every 100,000 die of a gun wound, less than the national average of 13.7 and well under the three highest gun-death-rate states of Mississippi (27.6), Wyoming (26.4) and Louisiana (25.5).

California also has some of the strictest gun rules in the country, including a 24-hour waiting period to buy a gun, universal background checks, child-access-prevention rules and no stand-your-ground law. A study by Rand Corp found that gun deaths in California would rise by 448 people a year if the state switched to the permissive gun rules found in states with the highest death rates.

It’s unclear if it’s cause or effect, but California voters – including those living in the four-county Southern California region – strongly favor controlling gun ownership over protecting the right to own a gun.

A survey issued this month by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 66% of likely voters in the state favor controlling gun ownership over protecting gun rights. That includes 61% of the likely voters in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, 64% in Orange County and 72% in Los Angeles County.

Though the question isn’t asked in the same way on national surveys, polling data suggests voters in at least some parts of Southern California are slightly more likely than other Americans to favor gun control. A 2022 poll from Monmouth University found that while 30% of Americans view the right to own a gun as “absolute,” 69% either want to restrict the Second Amendment or do away with it entirely.

One voter who favors gun control said she’s not thrilled with what Biden has done on the issue, to date, but believes he’ll keep trying. A Republican candidate, she argues, would not “do anything” to curb gun violence.

“Most of what (Biden) has done on guns has been talk,” said Michelle O’Neil, a retired teacher in Tustin who described the current “gun situation” in America as “crazy.”

“If I get mad when a politician says ‘thoughts and prayers’ but doesn’t do anything (to help shooting victims), I can get mad when a politician says he’d like to ban assault weapons but doesn’t do it.”

Electric Vehicles

What Biden did: A big part of the effort to reduce global warming is the administration’s push for carbon-free driving, something Biden wants to accomplish by using the government to goose sales of electric cars and trucks.

To date, the Biden administration has delivered new federal subsidies ($7,500) for buyers of American-made EVs, started to transition the federal government’s fleet of vehicles to non-carbon-producing cars and trucks (13,000 zero-emission federal vehicles purchased in the last fiscal year) and launched a push to build 500,000 EV charging stations around the country.

This month, Biden also proposed new climate regulations for passenger cars that essentially could push a goal of two-thirds of car sales being EVs by 2032.

Earlier this month, the administration issued a press release detailing some of its EV efforts. In that, the White House noted that there are now about 3 million electric vehicles on the road and roughly 135,000 public charging stations. Those numbers will need to grow tenfold to meet the national goal of 50% EV use by 2030.

Why it’s a SoCal issue: Electric cars and trucks get a lot of ink as a national phenomenon, but the center of the EV market is in Southern California.

The earliest mass-market EVs – the Nissan Leaf and Tesla’s line of vehicles, which have been sold since the early 2010s – initially were available only in a limited number of U.S. cities, but always in Southern California. That’s one reason why there are more EVs on local roads than around the country.

And “local” isn’t a euphemism. Two years ago, about 4 in 10 EVs in all of California were registered in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside or San Bernardino counties, and roughly 8 in 10 EVs sold nationally were registered in California.

That might be shifting, a little, as EVs catch on around the country, but the numbers still reflect the SoCal-centricity of the EV world. This month, the California Energy Commission issued a report saying there are now more than 1.5 million EVs in use in California, and EV sales in the state in 2020 and 2021 topped a combined 700,000 vehicles. The commission also said EVs accounted for 21% of all new car sales in California in the past year versus the 5.6% share EVs hold nationally.

“I’m happy that we’re shifting toward electric vehicles,” said Edward Lyon, a lawyer from Anaheim who said he bought a Tesla three years ago, before Biden was elected and after previous federal EV rebates had expired.

“But that won’t be why I do or don’t vote for Biden in two years,” Lyon said. “I’ll probably wait on that.”

Immigration

What Biden did: Not as much as many supporters hoped.

Biden campaigned on a promise to undo Trump-era immigration policies that he argued were cruel and contrary to America’s historical role as the world’s top destination for migrants. And, early in his term, Biden pitched several plans to change long-standing immigration laws, boost enforcement operations at the border and provide a “pathway” to help 11 million undocumented immigrants become U.S. citizens.

So far, little of that has come to pass. And in February, when the administration proposed new rules that would bar migrants from other countries who traveled through Mexico before seeking asylum – rules that in theory “encourage migrants to avail themselves of lawful, safe, and orderly pathways into the United States” – the policy was panned by some potential Democratic voters as essentially a mirror of Trump’s old rules.

But if little about immigration has changed under Biden it’s not for lack of effort.

The Migration Policy Institute counted 403 immigration-related actions by the Biden administration in his first 24 months in office. Many of Biden’s actions were aimed at streamlining the processing of undocumented arrivals and ordering immigration prosecutors to focus on people who pose a threat – ideas that do differ from Trump’s policies.

What has changed under Biden is volume. As the pandemic has eased, immigration – legal and illegal – has boomed.

Last year, about 1 million people were accepted as new permanent residents in the United States, well above 2021 and just a tick under the numbers seen prior to the pandemic. At the same time, the number of people seeking to enter the country at the border led to an all-time record for “contacts” involving would-be migrants and border officers. Also, a record surge in asylum applications has worsened backlogs in immigration courts.

In all, the administration issued about 6.8 million temporary visas for students, tourists and short-term workers in 2022, more than twice the number issued in 2021.

Why it’s a SoCal issue: Even if the immigration wave fans out over most of the country for several decades – and the U.S. Census Bureau projects the share of foreign-born people in America will grow by about 50% over the next three decades – national demographics still might not match the current immigration levels of Southern California.

More than 1 in 4 Southern California residents were born in another country. And of the 10 U.S. cities with the highest percentage of foreign-born residents, four – Los Angeles, Santa Ana, Anaheim and Irvine – are in this region.

Even the cohort of people with roots straddling immigrant and native worlds – people raised in this country after being brought here as children – skews local. Nationally, there are about 590,000 people whose immigration status is protected by DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and an estimated 1 in 5 of them live in Southern California.

One local voter who cares about immigration issues said she’s unhappy with Biden’s immigration work – “or lack of it” – but is likely to vote for him anyway in ’24.

“The fact that DACA kids still aren’t being helped (to become citizens) isn’t my favorite thing. It really feels like he could get that done. I mean, c’mon, it’s pretty American, right? Good kids who want to be American citizens?” said Deborah Cooper, an Irvine resident who grew up in Mexico.

“But I care about a lot of other issues, too.”

Cannabis Reform

What Biden did: Nothing to change the crazy quilt nature of cannabis laws in the United States.

Cannabis remains illegal under federal law – but not so in 38 states, three territories and the District of Columbia, where cannabis is now legal to use for medicine or recreation or both.

That dichotomy makes it hard for cannabis companies in weed-legal states like California to get everything from insurance to bank loans.

It also means cannabis users face different risks in different states.

In 2021, your odds of being arrested for cannabis possession were 222 times higher in Idaho than they were in California, according to FBI crime data. Overall, in 2021, nearly 171,000 Americans were arrested for possession of cannabis.

But Biden never claimed he would change that. Instead, when he ran for office in 2019, Biden suggested the federal government should humanize, not legalize, its stance on weed.

Toward that end, Biden signed an executive order in October that pardoned people who have criminal records only because they once were convicted in federal court for possession of cannabis. That blanket pardon could mean clean slates for several thousand people – a lot, to be sure, but just a sliver of the millions of Americans with state convictions related to cannabis possession.

In that same executive order, Biden directed federal health officials to rethink the notion that cannabis should be treated as a dangerous drug, on par with heroin. Such a change – if not rescinded by a future president – eventually could make it easier for federal legalization.

Why it’s a SoCal issue: If Biden is lukewarm about legal weed, his attitude might mirror those of a lot of voters in Southern California.

Though there are hundreds – possibly thousands – of cannabis stores and processing companies in Southern California (some licensed, some not), past elections and recent data suggest locals aren’t as into legal weed as the region’s reputation might suggest.

Last year, state tax officials reported that legal weed sales in California fell by about 8.2% to roughly $5.3 billion. And the last time voters in the four-county Southern California region weighed in on the idea of legal cannabis – the 2016 vote for Prop 64 – the local “yes” vote, 56.7%, was a shade under the statewide “yes” vote of 57%.

In late 2021, Gallup found 68% of Americans, overall, favored legalization.

“Of course, it should be legal,” said Ferris Shirazi, a biology major at UCLA who grew up in Irvine.

“But if weed is the thing (affecting) your choice for president, you’ve got some problems. There’s other stuff to worry about.”

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