What is "left coast"

n. (context slang politics English) The United States West Coast.

Left Coast is a political expression that implies that the West Coast of the United States leans politically to the left or the expression can refer to states that lean politically left. The implication is that the states of California, Oregon, and Washington (particularly, the coastal counties and cities within those states) vote predictably for the Democratic Party, or that the people who live there have a generally more liberal or progressive attitude than the rest of the country. The phrase plays on the fact that the west coast of the US is on the left of the contiguous 48 states when viewing a map with north oriented at the top.

In the United States, the expression is used pejoratively by right-leaning people, but proudly by people on the left. Conservative NewsMax.com columnist James Hirsen writes the "Left Coast Report", which humorously puts down Hollywood celebrities and their scandals as well as providing conservative political commentary. He has also written a book, Tales from the Left Coast: True Stories of Hollywood Stars and Their Outrageous Politics. On the other side, the term is used by cartoonist Ted Rall as the name of his left-leaning political comic strip. Writer, voiceover actor, and gay rights activist Ben Patrick Johnson calls his video blog Life on the Left Coast. Fundraiser and CEO of San Francisco-based nonprofit Tides, Drummond Pike, maintains a CEO blog entitled Notes from the Left Coast.

Left coast is a colloquial expression for the politics and culture of the west coast of the United States and Canada. It may also refer to:

• "Left Coast", a weekly cartoon by Ted Rall
• "Left Coast", part of the city of Mosul, Iraq, on the east bank of the Tigris river
• Left Coast Crime, an annual mystery fiction convention
• Left Coast Lifter, a barge used to rebuild the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge
• Left Coast Press, a scholarly publisher now part of Routledge