Adding html class tag under in Html.DropDownList

I’ve done this for the DropDownlistFor extension method, not the DropDownList you use, but you can probably figure that out yourself. This stuff is mostly copy/paste from the MVC sources. You can find the sources here.

public class ExtendedSelectListItem : SelectListItem
{
    public object htmlAttributes { get; set; }
}

public static partial class HtmlHelperExtensions
{
    public static MvcHtmlString ExtendedDropDownListFor<TModel, TProperty>(this HtmlHelper<TModel> htmlHelper, Expression<Func<TModel, TProperty>> expression, IEnumerable<ExtendedSelectListItem> selectList, string optionLabel, object htmlAttributes)
    {
        return SelectInternal(htmlHelper, optionLabel, ExpressionHelper.GetExpressionText(expression), selectList, false /* allowMultiple */, HtmlHelper.AnonymousObjectToHtmlAttributes(htmlAttributes));
    }

    private static MvcHtmlString SelectInternal(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, string optionLabel, string name, IEnumerable<ExtendedSelectListItem> selectList, bool allowMultiple, IDictionary<string, object> htmlAttributes)
    {
        string fullName = htmlHelper.ViewContext.ViewData.TemplateInfo.GetFullHtmlFieldName(name);
        if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(fullName))
            throw new ArgumentException("No name");

        if (selectList == null)
            throw new ArgumentException("No selectlist");

        object defaultValue = (allowMultiple) ? GetModelStateValue(htmlHelper, fullName, typeof(string[])) : GetModelStateValue(htmlHelper, fullName, typeof(string));

        // If we haven't already used ViewData to get the entire list of items then we need to
        // use the ViewData-supplied value before using the parameter-supplied value.
        if (defaultValue == null)
            defaultValue = htmlHelper.ViewData.Eval(fullName);

        if (defaultValue != null)
        {
            IEnumerable defaultValues = (allowMultiple) ? defaultValue as IEnumerable : new[] { defaultValue };
            IEnumerable<string> values = from object value in defaultValues select Convert.ToString(value, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);
            HashSet<string> selectedValues = new HashSet<string>(values, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);
            List<ExtendedSelectListItem> newSelectList = new List<ExtendedSelectListItem>();

            foreach (ExtendedSelectListItem item in selectList)
            {
                item.Selected = (item.Value != null) ? selectedValues.Contains(item.Value) : selectedValues.Contains(item.Text);
                newSelectList.Add(item);
            }
            selectList = newSelectList;
        }

        // Convert each ListItem to an <option> tag
        StringBuilder listItemBuilder = new StringBuilder();

        // Make optionLabel the first item that gets rendered.
        if (optionLabel != null)
            listItemBuilder.Append(ListItemToOption(new ExtendedSelectListItem() { Text = optionLabel, Value = String.Empty, Selected = false }));

        foreach (ExtendedSelectListItem item in selectList)
        {
            listItemBuilder.Append(ListItemToOption(item));
        }

        TagBuilder tagBuilder = new TagBuilder("select")
        {
            InnerHtml = listItemBuilder.ToString()
        };
        tagBuilder.MergeAttributes(htmlAttributes);
        tagBuilder.MergeAttribute("name", fullName, true /* replaceExisting */);
        tagBuilder.GenerateId(fullName);
        if (allowMultiple)
            tagBuilder.MergeAttribute("multiple", "multiple");

        // If there are any errors for a named field, we add the css attribute.
        ModelState modelState;
        if (htmlHelper.ViewData.ModelState.TryGetValue(fullName, out modelState))
        {
            if (modelState.Errors.Count > 0)
            {
                tagBuilder.AddCssClass(HtmlHelper.ValidationInputCssClassName);
            }
        }

        tagBuilder.MergeAttributes(htmlHelper.GetUnobtrusiveValidationAttributes(name));

        return MvcHtmlString.Create(tagBuilder.ToString(TagRenderMode.Normal));
    }

    internal static string ListItemToOption(ExtendedSelectListItem item)
    {
        TagBuilder builder = new TagBuilder("option")
        {
            InnerHtml = HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(item.Text)
        };
        if (item.Value != null)
        {
            builder.Attributes["value"] = item.Value;
        }
        if (item.Selected)
        {
            builder.Attributes["selected"] = "selected";
        }
        builder.MergeAttributes(HtmlHelper.AnonymousObjectToHtmlAttributes(item.htmlAttributes));
        return builder.ToString(TagRenderMode.Normal);
    }
}