Doesn't seem to help the GOP in places like the Northeast. The Northeast is saturated with industry and professional services yet are overwhelmingly Democratic.
Go back 40 years and you see the effect there as well. Since then you had culture come to play a larger roll and GOP white collar dominance has ebbed. It is also the case that the recession of 1992 hit those professions hard whereras previously they had been shielded from such, one of many reasons a Southern Democrat from a rural state did so well amongst formerly GOP suburban tracts in the NE along with all the other commonly acknowledged reasons as well.
The pattern was delayed in the Sotuh by several decades and it therefore is lagging in the trend. Religion and culture also help to keep some of them locked in place as well.
The first Republican success into the South occured amongst urban and surburban white collar voters and thus why Dallas, Charlotte, Pinellas and so forth were Republican whilst the rest of the states in question were not. White flight has helped to drive the heavily Republican outer surburban and exurban areas of the south whilst the older ones and former Republican areas of those cities are becoming more Democratic. This occured in the North as well.
