Border communities with Canada

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Old thread, but allow me to hijack it for one cool fact: border areas in Canada and the US actually share some political similarities, even if the Canadian side is almost always to the left of the American one.

You start out west on the left coast, and British Columbia has a similar political geography as Washington. The coastal area and Vancouver/Seattle areas are seen as a hotbed of progressive politics, while inland Washington and interior BC are much more conservative, but their conservatism often gets drowned out by the more populous coast.

Alberta is very conservative, much like the northern mountain states like Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. But it's not primarily Bible-thumping conservatism like the deep south (though it exists somewhat), it's more "the feds should leave us alone and let us run our own area" conservatism.

Saskatchewan is similar to the Dakotas. Heavily agricultural with more recent resource development. Used to be home to an "agrarian left" kind of politics, but has drifted heavily to the right in the past few decades.

Manitoba can be thought of as Minnesota. The agrarian areas used to have that prairie left politics and are now quite conservative, although not as conservative or anti-federal government as the further west states/provinces. Majority of the population lives in one major metropolitan area which is more to the left, but not hard-left.

Ontario is too big to be analogous across the border, but the industrial cities of SW Ontario have a similar political culture as the rust belt cities. The border cities of Windsor and Detroit are both heavily left-wing (NDP/Democrat). Some of the smaller, run-down postindustrial cities like Sarnia used to lean left, but in recent years has trended hard to the right. Toronto is a bit like Chicago politically, the cities themselves are quite left-wing, but the massive suburban belt can go either way, and end up deciding how the whole state/province votes.

Quebec can't be used in this analogy, it really is a distinct society. I guess there's similarity to the French-Canadian minority in New England, but Quebec's political culture is more similar to Europe than North America.

The maritime provinces are a bit like upper New England plus Boston (Halifax). Historically important, mostly populated by people from the British Isles (with a significant French minority), and a bit of a "Red Tory" political culture that can be receptive to moderate conservatism (and historically was the hotbed of it), but these days tends to prefer liberals.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

The French towns in Maine were very pro Obama , reaching up to 75% in some  areas  which was more D than Vermont was !.

True, but they swung hard for Trump.  Biden won Madawaska, but Trump still got 44% there.  Interestingly enough, the Canadian riding across the border, Madawaska-Restigouche and provincial ridings in it have done exact opposite.  It was held by Tories at both levels, now solidly Liberal at both levels.  However, Fort Kent, I believe Romney got under 1/3, while Trump won it.

While there are certainly demographic and economic similarities, the fault lines in both countries' politics line up in different ways. I struggle to explain otherwise why places like Northern Maine vs Madawaska-Restigouche behave so differently. Or Sault Ste Marie on one side voting for Trump but on the other giving 66% total to left-leaning parties. My guess is places like Northern Ontario still vote for the center-left and even left-wing due in part to the lower salience of certain hot button cultural issues than in the US--guns, abortion, etc. Plus unions are also much stronger in these regions and shape political identities more than in the Iron Range. Another example of different issues mattering: even if Northern Maine towns speak French, that doesn't matter so much politically in the US. While in Canada, it's been a point of difficulty for the Conservative Party to reach out to Francophone voters in recent decades.

That said, you do see broader trends on both sides as others have noted. Rural parts of SK and MB have shifted rightward much like rural parts of SD and ND have in the US. Smaller Ontario cities like Sarnia have gone the way of Port Huron or Bay City. Sydney Nova Scotia's rightward lurch has mirrored coal mining regions in the US, albeit quite a bit later.

On that Sault Ste Marie point, I think a big difference is that US politics these days is much more nationalized and Canadian more localized/regionalized, which is interesting because technically Canada is supposed to be the more unitary country and the US more federal. Far as I can tell, the Liberal/NDP voters in Northern Ontario are culturally much more similar to Conservative voters in Saskatchewan than Liberal/NDP voters in Toronto. But regional identity plays a really big part in party preference here.