Bill Clinton was busy filling cabinet posts and formulating economic policy when he received a memo from his political adviser team. With Clinton still more than a month away from taking office, the talk was about his re-election nearly four years away.

The classified, nearly eight-page document outlined a strategy deemed essential to Clinton’s hopes for a second term. It was to lock down California and its generous electoral vote, allowing his campaign to “focus its energies on other more hotly contested states.” ”

In 1992, the five-term governor of Arkansas became the first Democratic presidential nominee in almost 30 years to run California, the political birthplace of Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Few, if any, saw Mrs. Clinton’s victory in California as the beginning of a political restructuring. He received just 46% of the vote.

But his victory and 1996 reenactment were the product of a fire hydrant of relentless courtship and federal spending that helped paint California a permanent blue and dramatically change the battle for the White House.

This caused major partisan shifts across the West, and over the past two decades the West has become a stronghold of the Democratic Party, from the Pacific coast across the southwestern desert to the Rocky Mountains.

This political base has enabled the Democratic Party to compete in the battlegrounds of the Midwest and reach states such as Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia that were once far beyond party control.

In this series, called “The New West,” I explore the reasons for that change, economic, demographic and political.

In California, there were several factors.

Among them is the polarized politics of the state’s Republican Governor Pete Wilson, which has helped galvanize the state’s rapidly growing Latino population and turn those voters against the Republicans. bottom. National Republicans leaning to the right, especially on issues such as guns and abortion. The economy, which hit rock bottom under President George H.W. Bush, recovered strongly under President Clinton.

But the transformation was also the result of a deliberate effort by the White House to remake California, turning the historically Republican-leaning state into a blue bulwark for decades to come.

A continent away from the East Coast axis of power, the California Democratic Party was accustomed to being ignored by party leaders except when it was time to draw on the state’s abundant campaign funds.

“They felt like nobody cared,” said Bob Mulholland, who spent decades as a strategist for the California Democratic Party.

That changed the moment Clinton took office.

“Suddenly, everywhere people were saying, ‘I just got a call from the White House,’ and ‘I got a letter from the White House,'” he said, flying to Washington to witness Clinton’s swearing. Mr Mulholland said. Appointed as president.

“Since then, he hasn’t forgotten California.”

Before Clinton, the last Democratic presidential nominee to hold a state was Lyndon Johnson, who won California as part of a sweeping 1964 victory. At the time, Mr. Clinton was a gregarious 18-year-old college student who gathered friends the way other people gather wildflowers.

One of them was California-born Derek Shearer, whom Clinton met a few years later as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University. A freelance journalist at the time, Shearer taught at Occidental College in Los Angeles and acted as host and guide for Mrs Clinton during her visit to California.

Clinton loved the state for its sun, lifestyle, and possibilities.

In the late 1970s, through his work with the Carter-era Judicial Services Corporation, he became friends with Mickey Cantor, a Los Angeles attorney and Democratic strongman who knew Clinton’s wife, Hillary.

By the time Clinton ran for president in 1992, thanks to the doors opened by Shearer, Cantor, and two Arkansas associates, Harry Thomason and his wife, Clinton had a broad Californian background in politics, business, and Hollywood. I was building connections. , Linda Bloodworth Thomason, who moved to California to pursue a career in television production.

Mr. Kanter became the Clinton campaign’s national chairman and was one of those who saw political opportunity in the state, despite the state’s pro-Republican history. In 1988, Reagan’s Vice President Bush defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis by a not-so-big margin of 51% to 48%.

Since then, the economy has plummeted, and Bush has swept several major constituencies in California, including black and Latinx voters, environmental activists, and abortion rights advocates.

Moreover, while Mrs Clinton showed a natural tolerance for California and its tumultuous culture, Mr Bush never seemed to get a grip on the state. Growing up in Connecticut and rooted in Texas, the aristocrat Bush met dialects and squinted eyes trying to understand the natives.

His campaign in California was astonishingly inept.

On the day President Bush endorsed the creation of a marine reserve that would protect a quarter of the state’s coastline, instead of pointing the camera at a beach with crashing waves and barking seals, an oil tanker in the background of a television set at a refinery. chose to stop by. This landmark decision was candidly announced in a standard issue press release.

Still, in 1992 Clinton needed help running the state. He benefited from the presence of Ross Perot, a feisty third-party candidate who spent most of his time attacking Bush. He was buoyed by the news that two Democratic women’s landmarks, Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, are running for separate US Senate seats.

Most of all, Mrs. Clinton is amidst the worst economic downturn since World War II that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the decades-long arms race that underpinned the state’s robust defense and aerospace industries. I used a mood.

But his victory and the end of the Democratic Party’s long political drought was only the beginning.

“It’s important that we continue to communicate our ties to this state and our concerns about its problems,” said a team of California strategists — Rick Allen and Los Angeles attorneys Kim and Bill Wardlow — Clinton. I wrote it in a top secret strategy memo during his preparations for entering the country. White House. “California people are especially hopeful that the economic situation will improve.”

Failing that, “an unstable California electorate is likely to return to the Republican Party,” they warned.

On January 17, 1994, at 4:31 a.m., a severe earthquake hit Southern California.

The 6.7-magnitude Northridge earthquake killed about 60 people and damaged or destroyed more than 80,000 structures.

President Clinton arrived a few days later.

After viewing the collapsed section of Highway 118 in Simi Valley, Clinton said it was “a national responsibility” to lead the recovery. But Clinton did more than visit. He announced millions of dollars in immediate aid and promised more to come. “I’m going to keep doing this until this job is done,” he vowed.

Clinton’s formula throughout his presidency was to give California the luxury of time, money and attention.

Then make sure everyone recognizes it.

“We’re not just focused on disaster relief,” said John Emerson, who led Clinton’s 1992 campaign in the state and helped build the administration as deputy personnel director. . “Efforts were made to be present and visible every step of the way.”

Hundreds of Californians served under Clinton. Among them is Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Budget Director Leon Panetta, who later became the White House Chief of Staff. Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers and Chief Economic Counsel Laura D’Andrea Tyson.

Kanter joined the administration as U.S. Trade Representative and became secretary of commerce when his predecessor, Ron Brown, charged with overseeing the state’s economic recovery, died in a plane crash. Tom Epstein, a veteran of numerous campaigns in California, was appointed to the White House to care for the political needs of his hometown.

After years of feeling ignored, it was reassuring and very helpful for business leaders and government officials to call Washington knowing someone in the state would be on the line.

Emerson, the former Chief Deputy Attorney for the Los Angeles Attorney’s Office, whom Clinton called “California Secretary,” said, “Some people have no idea who Michael Ovitz is, and the importance of UCLA to the local economy. “Some people may not understand,” he said.

“I knew about Michael Ovitz,” Emerson said of the former Hollywood superagent. “He answered the phone and said there was a problem with UCLA’s hospital system, [Federal Emergency Management Agency] When it comes to money, we will take care of it. ”

With the federal government’s mouth open, other states could only envy California.

Billions of dollars in earthquake relief. billions of dollars in military spending. Spend billions of dollars restructuring the defense industry.

Cost of the transit link between the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles. Funds to transform a former Army base into California State University Monterey Bay. Money to treat sewage from Mexico and clean San Diego beaches.

Kanter personally negotiated a trade clause opening the Japanese market to California rice. The high-tech industry benefited from deregulation on exports of supercomputing equipment.

And even more.

Panetta, who served in a wide range of coastal California lawmakers before joining the Clinton administration, has made no apologies.

“A lot of states are trying to figure out how they can get the crumbs off the table,” he said, reflecting on California’s diligent care and feeding. “But I think they also understood the political stuff.” [Clinton] It was a. It was important to his own re-election, so he worked to ensure that California met its needs. ”

But it wasn’t strictly about politics.

In her autobiography, Clinton wrote that Southern California was the world’s sixth-largest economy at the time. Supporting local recovery was therefore vital to the recovery of the country as a whole.

Clinton made a total of 56 trips to California between her inauguration in 1993 and her departure from the White House in 2001, according to tallies kept in the Presidential Library. That number is far higher than in any other state except Maryland, where Camp David is a presidential retreat, and New York, where Clinton left Washington and settled.

The effort paid off handsomely.

Clinton easily led California to a second term with a sweeping electoral vote. By the time he left the White House, the state had become a Democratic bastion.

In 2000, Clinton’s Vice President Al Gore outpaced California by 12 percentage points. Since then, no Democratic presidential candidate has won by less than double digits.

Republicans stopped competing long ago.