Why Maryland is so much more D than other slavery states?

[David Hume]

MD has a lower percentage of black population than LA, GA and slightly more than AL and SC, yet it is way more D than those. While DC suburb plays a huge role, but is that enough to explain the huge differences? Religion is another factor, as compared to say VA, but may not be enough for MD to be one of the most D state.

https://www.foxnews.com/elections/2020/general-results/voter-analysis?state=MD

Even non college white only voted for Trump by 58-41 (VA is 62-35). Why racial polarization is so much smaller than other slavery states?

[ProgressiveModerate]

It’s still one of the most northern; so many of the rural white areas aren’t quite as R as more southern white rurals. Also because the state is much smaller, you just don’t have as many rurals to counteract.

Also don’t think DC’s influence can be understated. Basically like 40% of the state lives in the ultra-liberal DC sphere. Then add all the blacks and liberal whites out of Baltimore, and 60% of the state is on hardcore D camp.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Maryland has to be one of those states that has, in relative terms, always been the most particularly D over history, through various party alignments and coalitions...

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here's a good visualization as to just how expansive the DC bubble is.

Worth noting too that like many Southern cities, Baltimore actually has decent partisan polarization between blacks and whites with some very white suburbs to the immediate northeast and southeast of the city voting for Trump.

I think it's also worth noting Maryland really doesn't take in much of any of Appalachia unlike basically every other former slave state. These relatively dense and deep red rurals net tons of votes for the GOP in today's politics. If you were to merge WV and MD to give the state more proportional rurals, Maryland would've only voted like Biden + 18 in 2020; Clinton + 10 in 2016, which is still more liberal than other southern states but not all that much more D than neighboring VA. And the difference between it and VA could mostly be attributed to MD+WV combo having a higher black pop and taking in more of the greater DC metro.

[David Hume]

Here's a good visualization as to just how expansive the DC bubble is.

Worth noting too that like many Southern cities, Baltimore actually has decent partisan polarization between blacks and whites with some very white suburbs to the immediate northeast and southeast of the city voting for Trump.

I think it's also worth noting Maryland really doesn't take in much of any of Appalachia unlike basically every other former slave state. These relatively dense and deep red rurals net tons of votes for the GOP in today's politics. If you were to merge WV and MD to give the state more proportional rurals, Maryland would've only voted like Biden + 18 in 2020; Clinton + 10 in 2016, which is still more liberal than other southern states but not all that much more D than neighboring VA. And the difference between it and VA could mostly be attributed to MD+WV combo having a higher black pop and taking in more of the greater DC metro.

Yet even the most R county in MD is still more D than surrounding counties in PA, WV, VA. I know MD has more black and less rural white, but even the rural white is not that racially polarized than surrounding counties in neighbor states.

[LabourJersey]

Maryland is one of the wealthiest states by household income in the nation, and the wealthiest of the 15 former Civil war-era slave states.

It also has a very high percentage of college grads, and has increased both these numbers as the Democratic coalition has encompassed people in those groups.

Add that to the fact that the Washington metro is a very liberal area, and you have a recipe for an extremely Democratic state.

[Thank you for being a friend...]

I'll also add that like Northern Virginia, Maryland probably has a lot of residents that have some kind of job or income connection to federal government spending, so I would imagine these voters are the most directly impacted by any kind of shutdown or decrease in funding levels.  The idea of government as the enemy would not be very popular here.

[Vosem]

I wonder if there's also an element of self-sorting going on; sample size of 4 here, so not huge, but every conservative I know who's moved to the DMV lives on the Virginia side of the border without any exceptions. Kind of like in NYC, it feels like different suburbs have substantially different characters, with the Maryland suburbs being more attractive to blacks and wealthier/older liberal whites, while the Virginia suburbs are more attractive to recent immigrants (particularly Asians), and both conservatives and poorer/younger liberal whites. (Extreme generalization here and one drawn from personal observation rather than any kind of data, so perhaps even wholly wrong. But I don't think Montgomery County, MD, structurally even could have the kind of localized right-wing revolt that Loudoun County, VA, has had.)

[King of Kensington]

Maryland arguably demographically looks more like the Democratic Party base than any other state.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Here's a good visualization as to just how expansive the DC bubble is.

Worth noting too that like many Southern cities, Baltimore actually has decent partisan polarization between blacks and whites with some very white suburbs to the immediate northeast and southeast of the city voting for Trump.

I think it's also worth noting Maryland really doesn't take in much of any of Appalachia unlike basically every other former slave state. These relatively dense and deep red rurals net tons of votes for the GOP in today's politics. If you were to merge WV and MD to give the state more proportional rurals, Maryland would've only voted like Biden + 18 in 2020; Clinton + 10 in 2016, which is still more liberal than other southern states but not all that much more D than neighboring VA. And the difference between it and VA could mostly be attributed to MD+WV combo having a higher black pop and taking in more of the greater DC metro.

What is this a map of?  Like, what are the units?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here's a good visualization as to just how expansive the DC bubble is.

Worth noting too that like many Southern cities, Baltimore actually has decent partisan polarization between blacks and whites with some very white suburbs to the immediate northeast and southeast of the city voting for Trump.

I think it's also worth noting Maryland really doesn't take in much of any of Appalachia unlike basically every other former slave state. These relatively dense and deep red rurals net tons of votes for the GOP in today's politics. If you were to merge WV and MD to give the state more proportional rurals, Maryland would've only voted like Biden + 18 in 2020; Clinton + 10 in 2016, which is still more liberal than other southern states but not all that much more D than neighboring VA. And the difference between it and VA could mostly be attributed to MD+WV combo having a higher black pop and taking in more of the greater DC metro.

What is this a map of?  Like, what are the units?

COIs I made of roughly 100k people each.

A white color means a tie for 2020 Pres
Red(#ff0000)/Blue(#0000ff) means Biden/Trump+50 in 2020 Pres
Black would mean Biden/Trump+100 but obviously no places get that dark

[ProgressiveModerate]

I wonder if there's also an element of self-sorting going on; sample size of 4 here, so not huge, but every conservative I know who's moved to the DMV lives on the Virginia side of the border without any exceptions. Kind of like in NYC, it feels like different suburbs have substantially different characters, with the Maryland suburbs being more attractive to blacks and wealthier/older liberal whites, while the Virginia suburbs are more attractive to recent immigrants (particularly Asians), and both conservatives and poorer/younger liberal whites. (Extreme generalization here and one drawn from personal observation rather than any kind of data, so perhaps even wholly wrong. But I don't think Montgomery County, MD, structurally even could have the kind of localized right-wing revolt that Loudoun County, VA, has had.)

I think the main difference between the MD and VA side of the DC metro is that Maryland contains basically all of the black communities, including some of the wealthiest black communities in the Country.

I'd say Fairfax and Montgomery Counties are pretty simillar though. Both about 1.1 million people, both are extremely diverse and don't exhibit the extreme racial sorting we see in many metro areas, and both have been generally growing and swinging left for a little while now. Fairfax County only gave Biden about 70% of the vote whereas Montgomery County gave him nearly 80%, however, if you were to consolidate Arlington and Alexandria into Fairfax, it'd close the gap a bit, but still a simillar divergence. Montgomery County is also slightly more diverse than Fairfax and has a notably higher black population so that could explain some more of the partisan difference. It doesn't seem like there's much of a difference between how a person of a given race votes in Montgomery vs Fairfax County though.

Both counties are high education, but Fairfax actually has higher college attainment than Montgomery (63.5% vs 59.8%) and Fairfax has a slightly higher median income (134k vs 117k), so I wonder if you're observation is anecdotal or if down the road Montgomery County will actually become the more college educated/well to do County.

Loudon County is different cause it's *Extremely* wealthy and is way less dense. It's also only relatively recently been touched by the DC metro.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here's a good visualization as to just how expansive the DC bubble is.

Worth noting too that like many Southern cities, Baltimore actually has decent partisan polarization between blacks and whites with some very white suburbs to the immediate northeast and southeast of the city voting for Trump.

I think it's also worth noting Maryland really doesn't take in much of any of Appalachia unlike basically every other former slave state. These relatively dense and deep red rurals net tons of votes for the GOP in today's politics. If you were to merge WV and MD to give the state more proportional rurals, Maryland would've only voted like Biden + 18 in 2020; Clinton + 10 in 2016, which is still more liberal than other southern states but not all that much more D than neighboring VA. And the difference between it and VA could mostly be attributed to MD+WV combo having a higher black pop and taking in more of the greater DC metro.

Yet even the most R county in MD is still more D than surrounding counties in PA, WV, VA. I know MD has more black and less rural white, but even the rural white is not that racially polarized than surrounding counties in neighbor states.

Not really, once you account for the fact on this map above, the district in the Panhandle contains the small town of Cumberland which makes it slightly less red than it's PA and WV neighbors. Maryland has very very few true rurals; even on this map above many "rural" areas are still influenced by the DC metro and/or contain a small-medium sized town like Hagerstown or Cumberland making it less D.

[King of Kensington]

I don't think Loudoun is "extremely wealthy" it just has a rather a high median HH income.  There's more wealth/prestige in Fairfax and Montgomery counties, but they're closer-in and have more of a mix of demographics and housing types.

[CookieDamage]

Baltimore, its suburbs, and DC suburbs make up a huge proportion of the MD population and they are extremely blue, compared to Nashville and Memphis which make up much less of TN's population.

It's much more highly educated, wealthier, and more secular state than Alabama or Tennessee for example. If MD didn't have as much of a developed economy and the suburbs were more working class and redder it'd be a different story.