Still Red American Urban Areas

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

The places on this list are all pretty small potatoes.

when it comes to the nation's major metro areas, they mostly lean heavily to ridiculously blue, with a handful of purple exceptions down in the Sunbelt.


Dallas: +1.2
Houston: +1.1
Phoenix: +0.6
Tampa: +2.6

Texas big metros nearly leaning red is so strange to me. Houston especially is surprising since the city is diverse and there's a fuck ton of minorities.

[FromSD]

[QUOTE=DCReid;9670466] Does anyone have any data on how the San Diego area voted compared with LA - I am curious since I think San Diego has more military.

The big military/defense establishment certainly makes San Diego more GOP than LA, but it is easy to forget how Republican Southern California in general was--outside of the south and west sides of LA City--until the late 1990s. Before 2000, San Diego County had 4 GOP Congressmen versus 1 Democrat. That total went down to 3 after the 2000 election, 2 after the 2012 election, and 1 after the 2018 election. But SD County almost always went red for President until finally switching over to the Democrats in 2008.

SD mayor is another thing altogether with an almost unbroken string of GOP mayors from 1988 until 2020. Even if the City of San Diego is pretty strongly Democratic, it is also strongly anti-tax. Republicans have always opposed local tax increases (except those for stadiums and the convention center) and have succeeded in portraying the Democrats as being beholden to public employee unions. This has been a winning platform in election after election, even though everyone complains about the poor city services and infrastructure. We finally have a Democratic mayor, but it is only a slight exaggeration to say that he talks like AOC but walks a lot like his Republican predecessor.

[FromSD]

Originally Posted by The North One

Texas big metros nearly leaning red is so strange to me. Houston especially is surprising since the city is diverse and there's a fuck ton of minorities.

Isn't part of it due to the fact that the Latino vote in Texas, though huge, is more evenly split between the GOP and Democrats than it is in states like Colorado and California. And though Houston and Dallas are diverse, they are surrounded by suburbs that are much less diverse and much more Republican.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by FromSD

Isn't part of it due to the fact that the Latino vote in Texas, though huge, is more evenly split between the GOP and Democrats than it is in states like Colorado and California. And though Houston and Dallas are diverse, they are surrounded by suburbs that are much less diverse and much more Republican.

Asian votes can be somewhat mixed as well. I’m not sure what the percentage breakdowns are like but I know a decent amount of Vietnamese tend to lean GOP.

[TWAK]

Military people will mostly vote based on HOR/SOR anyway. Would college towns be similar?

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by The North One

Texas big metros nearly leaning red is so strange to me. Houston especially is surprising since the city is diverse and there's a fuck ton of minorities.

The whole democrat demographics are destiny strategy is not as reliable as it used to be. They have a huge latino defection and tons of Asians vote conservatively.

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by The North One

Texas big metros nearly leaning red is so strange to me. Houston especially is surprising since the city is diverse and there's a fuck ton of minorities.

The numbers aren't by city proper, right? Pretty sure the city numbers would be far bluer for Houston.

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

The whole democrat demographics are destiny strategy is not as reliable as it used to be. They have a huge latino defection and tons of Asians vote conservatively.

But Fort Bend County is largely Asian and I believe it is a blue county now.

[AviationGuy]

Here's what really tells the story. Hope everyone can see this, and that it's not behind a paywall. I'm able to see it. For 2020, Texas large cities proper were quite blue, and that's at least partly a reflection of ethnic diversity.

Look at Plano, an affluent north suburb of Dallas. I had thought it was solidly red, but that's been changing. In 2020, the city voted mostly blue. I don't know if that means it's more ethnically diverse now or some other reason.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ction-map.html

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by AviationGuy

But Fort Bend County is largely Asian and I believe it is a blue county now.

Well I'm not sure what Trump said to south Texans but he won 14 of 28 counties down there and flipped 8 of them. Texas is an odd animal. It demographics are all over the map. I think future elections all over the country are going to be decided more and more by suburban voters tho. Covid has really upended the urban growth and success of many central cities and now progressives and family first conservatives are starting to go at it in the burbs.

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

Well I'm not sure what Trump said to south Texans but he won 14 of 28 counties down there and flipped 8 of them. Texas is an odd animal. It demographics are all over the map. I think future elections all over the country are going to be decided more and more by suburban voters tho. Covid has really upended the urban growth and success of many central cities and now progressives and family first conservatives are starting to go at it in the burbs.

I'm having trouble seeing that trend from the election map. How was south Texas defined, and do you have a listing of the counties and how they voted. Also curious as to which ones were flipped. Not disputing you at all, but it would be great to see the data. Thanks!

[Cory]

Originally Posted by AviationGuy

But Fort Bend County is largely Asian and I believe it is a blue county now.

Missouri City is the most Democratic city in the entire Houston area. That is why Fort Bend is blue. There are plenty of precincts that went 90% for Biden in the 2020 election. Missouri City is probably the most diverse city in the Houston area also. The city is 42% Black, 22% White, 18% Asian, and 17% Latino.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm amazed Knoxville County is solidly red. Very odd for a county housing an urban state flagship university, even in a conservative state.

It's Knox County, and I lived there for four years. Knox County has a very low black population (8%). By contrast, Shelby County, home to Memphis, is over 50% black.

Eastern Tennessee didn't have the topography and climate conducive to the cash crops that motivated the big slave plantations that existed in the western and central areas of the state (I believe that Davidson County, home to Nashville, still has three standing plantation homes (The Hermitage, Belle Meade, and Belmont). Also, the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge brought a ton of nerdy outsiders into the region during WWII and the lab remains a huge employer, so Knoxville isn't especially "Southern".

[AaronPGH]

Hamilton County, Ohio (Cincinnati) has usually been pretty purple. Has that trend kept up? Or is it sliding blue?

[Steely Dan]

^ Hamilton county had a +15.8 margin in 2020, but every single other county in the Cincy MSA was solidly red, making it one of the reddest 1M+ MSAs in the nation (+14.1)

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

The whole democrat demographics are destiny strategy is not as reliable as it used to be. They have a huge latino defection and tons of Asians vote conservatively.

Asians are pretty deep blue. Yes, Vietnamese in Orange County were red for a time, given their anti-Communist South Vietnamese origins, but Asians are generally extremely reliably blue, something like 75-25. They certainly aren't Trumpist, anywhere in the U.S.

The rather Trumpy Modi is quite popular in India and I've heard some comments from Indian expats that suggest support. But not sure if this translates to the U.S. context.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

Hamilton County, Ohio (Cincinnati) has usually been pretty purple. Has that trend kept up? Or is it sliding blue?

Yes, the county commission is now all D's (and right now, all women: https://www.hamiltoncountyohio.gov/g..._commissioners), whereas it was all R's back in the 90s. Cincinnati City Council is elected at-large, not by ward (there haven't been wards since the 1920s), and now R's are lucky to hold even one seat, despite the large number of R's who still populate the country club neighborhoods within city limits.

The only major county office still held by a Republican is the Prosecutor's Office, but that will probably fall before 2030.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

Where do the urban areas in south Texas stand? They seem to be trending redder in the last few years.

It's not really the "urban areas" which are trending particularly red, it's the rural areas and small towns that are 90%+ Hispanic. The Latino cores of cities like Laredo, Brownsville, and Corpus Christi are all still 2/1 Democratic or better.

Hidalgo County is a bit different - it has 870,000 people, but it's basically all suburban sprawl which exploded in population between 1990 and 2010 or so. It's more politically mixed, but Biden still won it by nearly 20% (and it's extremely Democratic downballot).

Originally Posted by FromSD

Isn't part of it due to the fact that the Latino vote in Texas, though huge, is more evenly split between the GOP and Democrats than it is in states like Colorado and California. And though Houston and Dallas are diverse, they are surrounded by suburbs that are much less diverse and much more Republican.

It's more low voter turnout among Hispanics than anything. Texas Latinos have always been a bit swingier than California Latinos, but the best GOP candidates still only get about 40% of the Hispanic vote - with most of that concentrated among more rural/small town Hispanics, not those in big cities like Houston and Dallas.

White people in the suburbs around the big cities are swinging to the left pretty rapidly though in Texas now.

Originally Posted by Crawford

Asians are pretty deep blue. Yes, Vietnamese in Orange County were red for a time, given their anti-Communist South Vietnamese origins, but Asians are generally extremely reliably blue, something like 75-25. They certainly aren't Trumpist, anywhere in the U.S.

The rather Trumpy Modi is quite popular in India and I've heard some comments from Indian expats that suggest support. But not sure if this translates to the U.S. context.

Vietnamese are by far the most GOP-leaning Asian group in the U.S., with a majority supporting the Republicans. This is more common among Catholic Vietnamese, which are disproportionately found in the U.S.

After this, the next most Republican Asian groups are Koreans and Filipinos. I expect religion also plays a role here, as a majority of Korean-Americans are evangelical, and Filipinos are of course Catholic. Still, both groups lean Democratic.

All other Asian groups are heavily Democratic. IIRC around 90% of Indian-Americans vote for Democrats.

In general, Asians don't vote for Republicans unless they are Christian.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Hamilton County, OH was red up until 2008. Since then it's been relatively purple if not outright blue? Before 2008, I think the last time before that it went blue was in 1964 for Johnson or 1960 for Kennedy?

Maricopa County, AZ is purple. Phoenix, Tempe and some parts of the West Valley are blue, but there's still some deep red areas in the East Valley (Mesa, Gilbert) and the farther out you go in the West Valley (Sun City, Litchfield Park, Goodyear, Avondale and Buckeye). Considering Biden's current unpopularity, we could be looking at 2020 as a fluke? 2/3 of Arizona's entire population lives somewhere in Metro Phoenix.

[UrbanImpact]

Does more Walmarts and Applebees in the vicinity= more Republican?