How this rural California county has seen a change in its political atmosphere
So much uncertainty and anticipation ahead of Tuesday's election, but one outcome is a relative certainty. California, of course, is expected to be solidly blue in the presidential race. It's a familiar story. Deep blue population centers and then very red rural areas. But there are some spots in between and one is certainly an outlier.
Inyo County, with barely 19,000 people, produced a nailbiter in 2020. Joe Biden actually won the county by just 14 votes. This was, for ages, a ranching community that was deeply Republican and it changed in just a handful of years.
"So right now we're in the Happy Boulders Canyon," explained rock climbing guide Casey Fellhoelter. "It's one of the more popular climbing areas in the immediate Bishop area, probably the eastern Sierra."
Fellhoelter is keeping an eye on the throngs of weekend visitors that have descended on one of the most popular climbing spots in the country.
"So if you're just coming from a climbing gym, you know this is like a good stepping stone for you to go out and climb outside for the first time because all you really need is some shoes," he said of the site.
As this region's reputation has climbed, so has the number of people who want to call this area home. Fellhoelter and his girlfriend moved here three years ago.
"I love the eastern Sierra," Fellhoelter said. "I really fell in love with it. It's incredibly beautiful. You know if you're in the outdoor recreation activity. Whether it be skiing, snowboarding, trail running, rock climbing, OHV, fly fishing. It's all here and it's just minutes away from your doorstep."
"A lot of new people are coming in because this is paradise," said Bishop resident Patricia Schlichting. "Why wouldn't you want to live in paradise? This is just the most gorgeous place."
Schlichting's family moved to the town of Bishop over a century ago, when the area was nothing but ranchers.
"Oh it was definitely Republican," she said. "Especially like my grandparents who moved here in about '23."
In just a few short years, she says the county has shifted and in her direction.
"We have coffee shops, where the climbers all hang out," Schlichting, a Harris supporter said. "So you can definitely see it's changing."
"I've lost 12 members of my church," said Lynette McIntosh. "I'm an elder in the First Presbyterian Church in Bishop and we've had 12 members move out of state to leave California. So I'm fighting for California."
For Inyo's conservatives, this change feels more like a kind of invasion. McIntosh is a member of the Free Eastside group and a Trump organizer.
"Well, there's a whole host of people from the Bay Area and they are all from the liberal side," McIntosh said. "They are Democrats. They are liberal."
So on one hand, Inyo County is experiencing a very California trend; changing lifestyles are altering demographics.
"Some people who could live far away from their actual workplace," Nina Weisman said. "They could work remotely, started moving here and they start driving the prices up. So house prices are definitely up since COVID."
Weisman lives in the town of Independence, another picturesque community where plenty of people would love to live.
"It is," she said. "But there's very little property available because DWP owns most of the land."
That would be the Los Angeles Water Department, which moves water through this area. But while space is tight, and costs are rising, that is not enough to surmount the lure of the eastern slope.
"There is a host of them who have moved in and that's what's happened," McIntosh said. "They have really changed the political atmosphere of Bishop."
So a county that was predominantly ranchers and Republicans started to change. Some longtime residents leave, replaced by outdoor enthusiasts, and maybe people working from home. Suddenly the numbers shifted, and in a county with barely 11,000 voters, it didn't take long for the numbers to shift enough, but this was suddenly the most purple county in the state of California.
"Look at the side of the car wash," McIntosh said. "You can see the sign. My son-in-law bought that. This is Trump country. You'll see it. There are people that are liberal and most people don't talk about politics. But we've decided it's time to speak up."
For McIntosh, the change has inspired her to push back. On this night she was organizing a Trump rally through the town of Bishop.
Ron Yribarren, a retired sheep rancher, says the county's politics have changed in other ways. He says the new, 50/50 split has sharpened the lines.
"I don't know why people do what they do now," Yribarren said of local politics. "You either vote Republican or you vote Democrat. Right?"
"I have a lot of signs," Weisman said. "I try to hand them out. A lot of times people are afraid to put them up in front of their house."
Weisman, a Harris organizer, also says the divide has generated some tensions, and a number of people pointed to one in particular,
"I really think that crap went on all over the state with algorithms," McIntosh said, repeating an election suspicion. "And if California had paper ballots."
Danielle Sexton is the county's new registrar of voters. This will be her time presiding over a presidential race and she is well aware that some, without evidence, have questioned previous results.
"My theory is we do this process for the public and the public needs to trust it," Sexton said.
Her message is for anyone who might have concerns about the impending vote.
"All of our ballots, from opening the envelopes to getting them tallied and locked into the storage, is all done by the public," Sexton explained of the process.
"That's the part, I think, that has been really hard and frustrating," Schlichting said of the election theories. "In this concern that everything is illegitimate and a lie, well that was your neighbor so I think that's the big serious thing. Those are some hard things that are happening I think."
While there are very real divisions and some tensions, there is another fact of life that everyone here recognizes.
"We're a small community," McIntosh said. "Everybody loves everybody."
"I mean, we bought heads with each other," Yribarren added. "But there's good people on both sides."
In towns like Bishop and Independence, the other side is never really far away. In fact, they're often right next door
"And I think in a big city, you aren't necessarily yelling in someone's face who lives down the street from me," Weisman said. "But here, that absolutely happens. So I think there's a lot more care here about behavior."
"So we've got to live together," Schlichting said, "and try to make things work. So maybe it's that split that keeps us together."
Something Inyo has in common with the rest of California is that it may take a little while to count all the votes. Given all the late drop-offs and ballots in the mail, they think it might take a week and a half to two weeks to count all the ballots.
