Why are US tourism areas leaning Dem?

[RedSLC]

Areas that are close national parks can sometimes have environmentalist sympathies that make them more willing to vote D than the surrounding areas. Not all of the time, but at least some of the time.

This was the explanation I found for several sparsely-populated precincts in southern Utah that voted for Obama in 2008, despite having low minority populations. Even in 2012, Obama won three very small precincts in heavily republican Washington County, all of which were right next to Zion National Park. There's also Grand County, which Obama won in 2008, and Ralph Nader got nearly 15% of the vote in 2000.

[RedSLC]

from my experience, tourist areas seem to reflect where they get their most people from. For example the beaches of Southwest Florida seem to attract people from the same place that the Panhandle draws from. However nice beaches are expensive and draw the more international the crowd. This is where you get a lot of multicultural people, relatively disadvantaged, even if they are modestly wealthy by most standards, people and people from big cities. The Huffington Post crowd. The more regional and less expensive places tend to draw people from rural and white places where everyone makes about the same amount of money. The Trace Atkins and Fox News crowd.

This could explain in my state why Galveston is Republican leaning, and yet the beaches of South Padre Island are Democratic leaning. You're pretty right about that.

However there is a strong GOP lean on historical tourist spots.

Galveston County is GOP, but Galveston proper is actually dem-leaning (Obama won it in 2008, and likely in 2012 as well, since it would have had to swing more than the county for Romney to win it.)

EDIT: I have just confirmed that Obama won Galveston in 2012 by looking at the Galveston County precinct results. The city was 53.1% for Obama.