2020 United States presidential election in California

The 2020 United States presidential election in California was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States elections in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. California voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his running mate Kamala Harris, the junior senator from California. California has 55 electoral votes in the Electoral College, the most of any state. Prior to the election, most news organizations considered California a strongly Democratic state, or a safe blue state. It has voted Democratic in every presidential election from 1992 onward. California was one of six states where Trump received more percentage of the two-party vote than he did in 2016.
Biden carried California with 63.5% of the vote and a margin of 29.2% over Trump. Biden earned the highest percentage of the vote in the state for any candidate since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936. Biden's margin of victory was slightly smaller than Hillary Clinton's 30.1% in 2016. Biden became the first candidate in any race for any office in U.S. history to win more than 10 million votes in a single state, while Trump also received the most votes a Republican has ever received in any state in any race since the country's founding, even narrowly besting his vote total in Texas, a state that he won. Biden's vote margin was the largest vote margin for a presidential candidate in a singular state.
Per exit polls by the Associated Press, Biden's strength in the state came from a coalition of key Democratic-leaning constituencies, garnering 68% with voters with college degrees; 74% of voters under the age of 30; 93% with Blacks; 69% with Latinos, including 71% of Latinos of Mexican heritage; 73% with Asians; 67% of union households; and 56% of Whites. California legalized marijuana for recreational use under Proposition 64 in 2016, and 67% of voters favored legalizing the recreational use of marijuana nationwide, breaking for Biden by 75%–22%. Sixty percent of voters approved of Harris. This became only the fourth presidential election in over 100 years where over 70% of California's eligible electorate cast their vote. 
Biden flipped Butte County and Inyo County into the Democratic column, which had not voted Democrat since 2008 and 1964, respectively. In contrast, while he improved his total vote share by nearly three percentage points, Trump did not flip any counties that his then-Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton had won in 2016. California Secretary of State Alex Padilla certified the results on December 4, and took Harris' seat in the Senate upon her resignation to become Vice President.
Primary elections.
In a departure from previous election cycles, California held its primaries on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Early voting began several weeks earlier.
Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination on March 17, 2020, defeating several longshot candidates, most notably former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld. Kamala Harris, the state's junior U.S. senator, was among the Democratic candidates declared until she dropped out on December 3, 2019. Representative Eric Swalwell from the 15th district was also a Democratic candidate but dropped out of the race on July 8, 2019. Other prominent state figures, including former Governor Jerry Brown, current Governor Gavin Newsom, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti declined to run.
Republican primary.
The Republican Party's primary campaign was dominated by a lawsuit over the President's taxes. The suit alleges that the new requirement for several years of a candidate's taxes was unconstitutional and onerous. The law was blocked in September 2019 while State Supreme court heard testimony and made a ruling.
As a contingency, the Republican state committee changed its delegate selection process, turning the primary into a mere "beauty contest" and setting up an emergency state convention to Trump's delegate choices. If Trump were allowed on the ballot, the convention would be canceled and the so-called "winner-take-most" rules, which require a challenger to get 20% of the vote, would apply.
President Trump was allowed on the ballot, and the contingency convention was canceled.
Democratic primary.
Candidates began filing their paperwork on November 4, 2019, and the final list was announced on December 9.
Leading California Democrats complained that Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren were snubbing the state by refusing to attend a forum at the State's "endorsement convention". Early voting began on February 11 and ended the day before primary day.
Libertarian primary.
The Libertarian Party of California permitted non-affiliated voters to vote in their presidential primary.
American Independent primary.
The American Independent Party permitted non-affiliated voters to vote in their presidential primary.
General election.
Polling.
Polls.
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