There is something about California that really brings out the whining and hypocrisy in conservatives. They want to move there for the big bucks in tech, but they don't want to be a minority party/culture. CA has lots of problems, but when I hear "housing is too expensive, lots of homelessness and petty crime, AND it's so liberal that they just can't fix anything," I know the last one is the key. They complain about the NIMBYs who keep real-estate prices high (as if that were the only thing), complain that no one is building denser housing, then leave and move to sprawling suburbia with it's HOAs and de-facto segregated zoning. Go try to build a 4-plex in your new neighborhood, then get back to us.
Cue all the complaints about the entrenched residents in their Prop 13 homes or rent-controlled units, building permits and red tape nightmares. Yes, there is a problem. You not making it and having to move away (after moving there 2 or 3 years ago) is not the problem. Look at it this way, the system is working for 80-90% of the long-term residents, and they're aware of the hardships for the disadvantaged among them. Why should they go out of their way to accomodate conservatives who want to undermine their tax-and-spend heaven?
As for the Democrats who leave CA and vote Democrat elsewhere, why not? They didn't get in early enough on this wealth train (OK, jokes about CAHSR will be tolerated), so they're going somewhere else, and trying to get it started there. CA is defined by excess of liberal values, elswhere by lack, so they're just trying to bring some moderation. They won't be very successful, and I will tell them not to go whining about the conservative values in their new home, so there.
California just is. It's the world's 4th largest economy by itself. For good or ill, it's home to so many internet companies (and other industries) that have made so much money in the internet revolution that it has skewed its cost-of-living and real-estate markets off the charts. It has made many of its residents fabulously weathly, both in relative and absolute terms, and they want to stay and enjoy it mostly the way it is. In SF/SV, it has redefined middle-class at around 300K combined income, and that money (at least what's not dedicated to housing) drives a lot of other sectors (public transit, restaurants, and other quality-of-life businesses). Yeah, I know, all those have issues and/or are overpriced, no need to comment to say that. It also leans very liberal in the coastal cities, meaning tolerance, compassion, social justice, sanctuary, etc. It seems like they still have a democracy, and since they're still the majority, they get to keep experimenting. It's not going anywhere, and it's not going to change much, and certainly not because of the whining. Deal with it.