With just over 60,000 votes going to Trump and his vice president JD Vance in San Francisco — or just under 16% of all votes cast — Republicans are still in the minority in the city. But this turnout was still higher than the number of votes Trump won in San Francisco in 2020, demonstrating the President’s growing popularity — as well as slightly less engagement overall with the Democratic party.
The rightward shift was “slight,” said Josh Wolff, “but we’ll take anything here.”
Josh Wolff cheers while watching the inauguration ceremony for President Donald Trump on TV at Harry’s Bar in San Francisco on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, surrounded by fellow supporters. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Wolff, 26, said he moved to California from Florida seven years ago. Compared to his home state, he found the tax rate and cost of living in California to be much higher, with what he calls low overall returns in government services. This year, Wolff was elected to the Republican Party County Central Committee in San Francisco, where he plans to tackle local issues, according to his website. One issue at the top of mind is public safety.
Wolff described moving to the Bay Area to attend school and having many of his belongings stolen from his parked car in broad daylight “as a welcome gift.”
“It was treated as a routine incident,” he said. “If you look around many parking lots, there are signs [posted] that blame the victim. It’s this kind of a mentality where the people who abide by the law — who pay the taxes — are the ones at fault.”
While some attendees were lifelong Republicans, others said that their interest in Trump’s firebrand politics stemmed from a gradual political evolution.
Carly Matthews (left) and Philip Wing (center) listen to the national anthem being sung by Christopher Macchio during a watch party at Harry’s Bar in San Francisco on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, for the inauguration ceremony for President Donald Trump. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
“I never thought I would be at an event like this in my life,” said Carly Matthews. “I moved from the left to the right in a span of 18 months, and I got my citizenship so that I could vote in this election.”
Mathews said reckless government spending and disrespect to law enforcement disturbed her, so she made an account on X — the once San Francisco-based social media platform formerly known as Twitter that Elon Musk bought and rebranded — and started watching full-length interviews with Donald Trump.
“I call it ‘getting X-ucated,’” Matthews joked.
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