Why is the DC-Baltimore area so lopsidedly blue?

[iceman]

Why is the Washington DC are so deep blue? No other huge metro area aside from the Bay area is as lopsidedly blue as Washington DC-Baltimore. It is more DEM than the NY Metropolitan area as a whole. What factors contribute to its solidly-blue leanings?

[Skye]

Rapidly growing and diversifying (I think it's a majority minority area), highly educated in an era where said people are fleeing the GOP, tons of government workers who don't like the party that usually champions smaller government...

[I’m not Stu]

The deep blue Bay Area is redder than DC-Baltimore.

[slothdem]

There are two primay reasons why DC-Baltimore is meaningfully bluer than it's other Northeastern neighbors, and for that matter pretty much anywhere else:

First, the area is extremely well-educated, with I believe the greatest percentage of college-educated persons of any metro. Second, the area is not just extremely diverse, it particularly has a very high black population. This is important because instead of getting something like 80/20 returns from its diverse precincts, like in MoCo and Arly/Alexa, you also have large swaths of 95/5 precincts in DC, PG, and Baltimore.

[iceman]

The deep blue Bay Area is redder than DC-Baltimore.

Nah, in 2016 Clinton won 73% in the whole bay area compared to 66% in the entiriety of DC-Baltimore area.

[I’m not Stu]

The deep blue Bay Area is redder than DC-Baltimore.

Nah, in 2016 Clinton won 77% in the whole bay area compared to 66% in the entiriety of DC-Baltimore area.

Does this include Napa, Solano, and Sonoma Counties?

[lfromnj]

DC is blue to government worker influence and college education rate and large mix of minorities but even the whites in the area are liberal.

Baltimore area really isn't that blue compared to its Demographics with a high African population which votes 99% D as expected for a city. If you include Baltimore and Hartford and Carrol County(what I would consider pure Baltimore burbs rather than the mix Howard and Anne Arrundel which are part of the DC or their own metro you get a 37% black region thats only +20 Clinton, still Safe D but still quite polarized.

[iceman]

The deep blue Bay Area is redder than DC-Baltimore.

Nah, in 2016 Clinton won 73% in the whole bay area compared to 66% in the entiriety of DC-Baltimore area.

Does this include Napa, Solano, and Sonoma Counties?

A-huh, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma and the City of San Francisco to be precise.

73% Hillary - 19% Trump.

[Del Tachi]

DMV is unique among Northeastern metroes in that it has almost no industrial heritage (outside Baltimore, but it's (non-Atlas) "redder" than Metro DC) meaning relatively few ethnic Whites and instead highly-educated government workers.  DC is a placeless, neoliberal city.   

Government employment also tends to attract a more diverse set of highly-educated professionals than the private sector.  It's for that reason that D.C. is one of only two metroes in the whole country that has almost entirely Black, monolithically middle class suburbs (PG County, MD).  The only other place in the country like this (I can think of) are parts of Metro Atlanta (most of DeKalb, Douglas County).

[Sol]

DC and Baltimore are pretty different. DC is pretty Democratic for reasons which everyone has already discussed. Baltimore is not actually that Democratic. Obviously the city is pretty D, as are some of the Southwestern suburbs (which are as much in the DC sphere of influence as Baltimore) but the suburbs which aren't also DC suburbs vote pretty competitively, including the pretty GOP exurban counties of Carroll and Harford.

[lfromnj]

DC and Baltimore are pretty different. DC is pretty Democratic for reasons which everyone has already discussed. Baltimore is not actually that Democratic. Obviously the city is pretty D, as are some of the Southwestern suburbs (which are as much in the DC sphere of influence as Baltimore) but the suburbs which aren't also DC suburbs vote pretty competitively, including the pretty GOP exurban counties of Carroll and Harford.

Yeah people forget that Harris is the Eastern Shore district but actually came from a suburban district,. His hometown is literally like 15 minutes from Baltimore!  Meanwhile the moderate GOP incumbent that got primaried was from Kent County in the Eastern shore
Del Tachi when he made that poll asking which state was more Southern was partially right in that Maryland is still very much a Southern state outside the DC counties albiet those counties are much too large a portion of Maryland to call it a Southern state.

The only reason Harris lost in 2008 for the Maryland 1st district was because the Eastern shore voted for his D opponent because he was far too fiscally conservative. By now both the stagnancy of the suburbs along with the right wing trend of the Eastern shore makes the district equal in both parts.

[Sol]

DC and Baltimore are pretty different. DC is pretty Democratic for reasons which everyone has already discussed. Baltimore is not actually that Democratic. Obviously the city is pretty D, as are some of the Southwestern suburbs (which are as much in the DC sphere of influence as Baltimore) but the suburbs which aren't also DC suburbs vote pretty competitively, including the pretty GOP exurban counties of Carroll and Harford.

Yeah people forget that Harris is the Eastern Shore district but actually came from a suburban district,. His hometown is literally like 15 minutes from Baltimore!  Meanwhile the moderate GOP incumbent that got primaried was from Kent County in the Eastern shore
Del Tachi when he made that poll asking which state was more Southern was partially right in that Maryland is still very much a Southern state outside the DC counties albiet those counties are much too large a portion of Maryland to call it a Southern state.

Agreed, though I'd argue that the DC suburbs are southern in many respects as well--they're obvious sui generis on account of being the nation's capital, but in a lot of ways they operate like a denser, larger version of Atlanta or Raleigh.

[King of Kensington]

Obviously there are aspects of a BosWash corridor culture but DC is very much ''New South'' in my opinion.  Grew rapidly after WWII, lots of new suburbia, and the like which is very UN-Northeastern.  No Italian or ethnic Catholic presence.  PG County doesn't seem very ''Northeastern'' (far more like suburban Atlanta than SE Queens).  It's at least as much like Atlanta as Philadelphia.

If Atlanta was the national capital it wouldn't be all that ''culturally Southern'' either.

It's more than 25% African American, has virtually no white working class and is filled with highly educated people who work for the federal government.  Being (sort of) "in the Northeast" has little to do with the liberalism of the area.  

[Tartarus Sauce]

Obviously there are aspects of a BosWash corridor culture but DC is very much ''New South'' in my opinion.  Grew rapidly after WWII, lots of new suburbia, and the like which is very UN-Northeastern.  No Italian or ethnic Catholic presence.  PG County doesn't seem very ''Northeastern'' (far more like suburban Atlanta than SE Queens).  It's at least as much like Atlanta as Philadelphia.

If Atlanta was the national capital it wouldn't be all that ''culturally Southern'' either.

It's more than 25% African American, has virtually no white working class and is filled with highly educated people who work for the federal government.  Being (sort of) "in the Northeast" has little to do with the liberalism of the area.  

Another factor that aligns the DC metro more closely with the Northeast, in addition to the obvious infrastructure ties to the Acela Corridor, is the absence of white Evangelical culture. It’s receding even on the Virginia side, but is almost completely absent on the Maryland side until you get out to Anne Arundel County. Maryland’s white Evangelical population is so proportionately low that the percentage resembles New England states more closely than any of the surrounding states.

You can’t really call a place Southern if Evangelical whites struggle to crack double digits in terms of percentage of the population.

[Wazza [INACTIVE]]

Public sector employment, everything else is derivative. Canberra is a disproportionately pro-Labor city here for similar reasons.

[Sol]

Obviously there are aspects of a BosWash corridor culture but DC is very much ''New South'' in my opinion.  Grew rapidly after WWII, lots of new suburbia, and the like which is very UN-Northeastern.  No Italian or ethnic Catholic presence.  PG County doesn't seem very ''Northeastern'' (far more like suburban Atlanta than SE Queens).  It's at least as much like Atlanta as Philadelphia.

If Atlanta was the national capital it wouldn't be all that ''culturally Southern'' either.

It's more than 25% African American, has virtually no white working class and is filled with highly educated people who work for the federal government.  Being (sort of) "in the Northeast" has little to do with the liberalism of the area.  

Another factor that aligns the DC metro more closely with the Northeast, in addition to the obvious infrastructure ties to the Acela Corridor, is the absence of white Evangelical culture. It’s receding even on the Virginia side, but is almost completely absent on the Maryland side until you get out to Anne Arundel County. Maryland’s white Evangelical population is so proportionately low that the percentage resembles New England states more closely than any of the surrounding states.

You can’t really call a place Southern if Evangelical whites struggle to crack double digits in terms of percentage of the population.

I think a lot of that can be explained by the Federal Government thing (a national capitol in Atlanta, as King of Kensington pointed out above, would probably look a lot like DC demographically) and by the fact that much of Maryland is historically Catholic (though I'm not certain precisely the extent of this in many of the DC suburbs so it probably shouldn't be overstated). Southern Louisiana, as I'm sure you know, is predominantly Catholic and is of course Southern despite its distinctive origins.

New Orleans and Baltimore are actually pretty good comparisons as they were both the early large industrial Southern cities which got a lot of immigration.

[bagelman]

Black people

[Former President tack50]

Public sector employment, everything else is derivative. Canberra is a disproportionately pro-Labor city here for similar reasons.

I mean, internationally there are plenty of examples of right wing capital cities so I don't think this really applies internationally?