Anecdotal, but I knew a girl from college who was from Verona, and she was incredibly liberal. It did of course turn out that she was a lesbian (hope I played no part in that realization … lol), so maybe that played a part here, but she said it’s just a “cultural” thing, and I think we underestimate the simple power of groupthink here. In other words, Madison is known as an incredibly unique and cool place within the Midwest (and especially within Wisconsin), and it ALSO happens to be very liberal … so people who are even kind of close enough to its orbit want to be a part of this identity. Furthermore, people who desire to be around that type of atmosphere are flocking to these (growing) areas, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I also think many suburbanites are conservative and under the guise that the inner city around which they live is some third-world hell hole - talk to a WOW suburbanite about Milwaukee some time… - and you can’t really play that spin with Madison. Add on top of that, that rural Wisconsin was fairly Democratic not that long ago, and it’s not surprising that Madison’s suburbs and exurbs are way more liberal than somewhere like Austin. As to a further explanation for why they are as liberal as they are, though, this is pretty much all I’ve got.
In what sense is Madison "incredibly unique and cool"? I would say a city with beautiful natural scenery like Sedona or beautiful architecture or special culture like the Amish counties as unique and cool.
