San Diego County lost over 11,000 residents from 2020 to 2021, marking the first time in a decade that the region with beautiful weather has lost population.

The reasons: onerous coronavirus mandates, and the high cost of living.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported Saturday:

U.S. Census Bureau data released last month showed San Diego County’s population fell by 11,183 residents from July 2020 to July 2021 — mirroring the wider trend of more people leaving California’s high-priced coastal urban centers.

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California lost about 262,000 residents between July 2020 and July 2021, according to the Census Bureau. Of the 10 counties nationwide with the largest population losses, four were in California. New York also had four counties on the list.

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San Diego’s population decline came despite hiring in the region’s hot technology and biotech sectors.

There were more births than deaths, and migration from other countries also added to population numbers in the county, which is situated along the U.S.-Mexico border. Still, these numbers were not enough to make up for those leaving the area.

The San Diego Chargers football franchise left the county — but simply moved north to Los Angeles, a county that is losing overall population, as is San Francisco, where rising crime is a push factor.

Demographic change is leading to political change in San Diego as well. The county was once one of the few conservative places in California, thanks in part to a large U.S. military presence. But the growing affluence of the coastal communities has priced working-class Americans out of San Diego County, and the increasing leftward drift of America’s elites has meant that formerly Republican areas are now voting for Democrats.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who retired from a coastal district in San Diego County in 2018, came back to Congress in 2020 after running in a district that represents inland communities.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.