Erie County (Buffalo) vs. Monroe County (Rochester)

[King of Kensington]

Monroe went Democrat by 15 points (54%-39%) in 2016.  In Erie it was a closer 51-44.5%, and the GOP vote went up 3.5 points with Trump.

I'm guessing it's just because Rochester is the more white collar metro.  Both metros have similar Black and Italian American populations.

[Tartarus Sauce]

Yeah, this is a rather interesting switch-a-roo. The Rochester area always voted to the right of Buffalo by the New Deal era. While both cities had a large manufacturing presence, Buffalo was particularly industrial with large European immigrant streams working in massive factory complexes and back offices for corporations usually headquartered elsewhere. Rochester had a much more sizable segment of what we might call the "creative class" nowadays, with the need for more specialized laborers and significant research and development teams at places like Kodak and Bausch & Lomb, alongside the arts and science works coming out of University of Rochester. Those workforce differences set the stage for Buffalo to become the Democrat's upstate stronghold while Rochester became a swing region.

This changed during the Obama era, which is when Erie and Monroe reached parity with each other. McCain did more or less just as well as Bush did in Erie, but dropped significantly from his 2004 performance in Monroe, and the GOP hasn't picked back up the pace there since. 2016 was I believe the first time ever that the Rochester metro voted to the left of the Buffalo metro, which shouldn't be much of a surprise given the broader national trends between blue-collar whites and white-collar whites. The GOP still dominates Monroe County's regional offices and Assembly seats, but that setup is likely going to collapse over this coming decade.

Interestingly enough, the two were basically at parity again for the 2018 gubernatorial and senate races, with Monroe voting ever so slightly to the left of Erie. But I think we might be entering an era where parity is what you get in a good year for Democrats while the default is Monroe voting more left. The surprisingly close 2014 congressional house race in the 25th district where the late and deeply entrenched Louise Slaughter was nearly knocked off by the town supervisor from Gates, while Brian Higgins in Buffalo cruised to re-election, was probably the last hoorah for the GOP in Rochester on the federal level.

[King of Kensington]

Both Buffalo proper and Rochester proper have a similar share of college graduates - around 24-25% each.

But the remainder of Monroe has a higher share (40%) than Erie (33%).

[Tartarus Sauce]

Both Buffalo proper and Rochester proper have a similar share of college graduates - around 24-25% each.

But the remainder of Monroe has a higher share (40%) than Erie (33%).

And keep in mind that Rochester proper is about 7-8% less non-Hispanic white than Buffalo proper, so non-Hispanic whites are more college educated in both the city proper and greater metro area of Rochester.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Buffalo is one of the last American cities that has had Democratic elected officials that were significantly conservative on social issues.  Former Buffalo Mayor Jimmy Griffin (D) was a pro-life social conservative who was pretty much a Reagan supporter while in office.  Former Erie County Executive Dennis Gorski was a pro-life Democrat, and there are others.

Rochester has been a historically Republican city; those sort of voters aren't there as much.  Eastman Kodak was a large employer in Rochester, and its employees were quite Republican; as that company declined, so did that portion of Republican voters.