Defense Industry Collapse Drove Massive Republican Flight From Southern California After Cold War

What was said

"After the Cold War, federal defense cuts destroyed hundreds of thousands of jobs, so a lot of the Republicans living there left to follow jobs elsewhere—Nevada, Arizona. Those people were then replaced by voters who were disproportionately immigrant voters."

Shapiro identified an underreported factor in California's political transformation: the post-Cold War collapse of Southern California's aerospace and defense industry drove hundreds of thousands of Republican-voting workers to Nevada and Arizona. Companies like Lockheed, Northrop, Hughes Aircraft, and McDonnell Douglas employed overwhelmingly Republican workforces that were replaced demographically by immigrant voters after the industry collapsed.