Coronado is managed by a municipal council that is chaired by a mayor that is directly elected. The mayor and members of the council have four-year terms. One of the council members is named Mayor Pro Tempore. Coronado had long been a Republican stronghold; in 2013, around 47% of people were registered as Republicans, 25% as Democrats, and 24% as unaffiliated.

From 1964 until 2020, the resort city voted for the Republican nominee in every presidential election. Between 1968 and 1988, each of the six Republican presidential candidates received more than 70% of the vote. In recent years, however, the city has shifted to the Democratic side, with each of the last four Republican candidates receiving less than 60% of the vote.

Donald Trump obtained a plurality of the vote in Coronado in 2016, and Hillary Clinton received the greatest share of the vote for a Democratic candidate since at least 1964. Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential contender and former vice president, won Coronado with 51.50 percent of the vote in 2020, making him the first Democratic presidential nominee to accomplish so in decades.

Coronado is represented in the California State Legislature by Democrat Toni Atkins in the 39th Senate District and Democrat Chris Ward in the 78th Assembly District. Coronado is represented in the United States House of Representatives by Democrat Scott Peters, who represents California’s 52nd congressional district, which has a Cook partisan voting index of D+12.