For decades, Orange County has been known for being politically conservative. Even as the rest of California phased through increasingly darker shades of blue in the 1990s and 2000s, the county remained reliably red in elections. Yet in 2016, it supported a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in 80 years, and by 2019, Democrats overtook Republicans in voter registration. Orange County can now best be described as "purple". This transformation can be attributed to three factors: 1) a declining pool of available Republican votes, 2) recent diversification and in-migration from liberal areas, and 3) conservative and moderate backlash against Trumpism.