How are Arizona and California so different. They're right next to each other. One is a stronghold of liberal social politics, and the other is basically Texas Jr. It's interesting. It's the lack of major urban cities in Arizona. All the big, famous west coast cities are in California. Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco are all the Western counterparts to cities like New York, Chicago, and Boston. Urban areas tend to be more leftist than rural due to the vast mixing of cultures and ideas that lead to progressive ideas. There also several factors as to why this is, for example California is on the coast and cities that are near huge bodies of water such as the ones mentioned tend to have higher populations due to the importance of water as both a source of sustenance and transportation. This led to major cities forming around certain focal points, building up to what they are today. Another example is the hodgepodge of tourist attractions such as theme parks, the pacific beaches, Hollywood, the Silicon Valley where there are plenty of tech jobs in a rising industry and generally more temperate climate than Arizona's deserts. All Arizona has going for it the Grand Canyon as a tourist spot and it's border with Mexico leading to mass immigration, which California also has.... so yea Arizona is just too sparsely populated, which has more conservative thinking. In fact, there is a mass amount of conservatives as well in Cali, but they are spread out beyond the cities so Democrats generally win over political elections, even though Republicans come close due to how America's political system works. In fact, this was one of the reasons why there was a proposition to split California into 6 states, so Republicans can have more of a say in politics on the west coast. It's also sort of a reason why presidential candidates tend to not bother promoting here for elections since they know all of those electoral votes will just go to the Democratic nominee. Just a little something I picked up from my Political Science class.