Republican candidates have lost the popular vote for president in five of the past six elections, going back to 1992. In each of those contests, the Democratic nominee swept California, mostly by blowout margins; Barack Obama, for instance, crushed Mitt Romney and won the state’s 55 electoral votes with a landslide victory of 60 percent to Romney’s 37 percent.

This is amazing, considering that within the memory of any adult, California was actually part of the GOP “lock” on the Electoral College. During the 10 presidential contests between Eisenhower’s victory in 1952 and George H.W. Bush’s decisive win in 1988, the Republicans won it every time save for the singular exception of Barry Goldwater’s colossal defeat in 1964. Even losing GOP candidates such as Richard Nixon in 1960 and Gerald Ford in 1976 managed to prevail in California.

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