While some valley congressional districts flipped from red to blue, much of the state’s remaining republican strongholds are still in the San Joaquin Valley -- particularly Kern, Madera and Tulare Counties. This has a lot to do with the Dust Bowl, and the migrants who came to California in the 1920s and 30s. In fact, there’s a link between support for Republican candidates in the 2018 midterms and the degree to which a county’s population came from Dust Bowl states. That’s according to a new paper by Adam Ramey, a professor of Political Science at the New York University campus in the United Arab Emirates.
Listen to the interview above to hear Ramey talk about how the “stickiness” of culture from Dust Bowl migrants not only influenced their ancestors, but also Latino immigrants in the region.