Over the past decade San Benito County has emerged as California’s textbook bellwether county, narrowly mirroring statewide election results on ballot measures and statewide candidate races. San Benito’s uncanny predictive power suggests the importance of California emerging political geography as it straddles the major political fault lines of the state. Neither northern nor southern, neither coastal nor inland, and neither urban nor rural, San Benito illustrates the broad geographic forces shaping contemporary California politics.