Rural areas near college towns

[mileslunn]

I noticed looking through precincts, generally rural precincts in urban or suburban counties tended to go massively Trump, but if a college town they would go Biden.  Examples are rural parts of Dane County, Kalamazoo county, Washetenaw County, Johnson County, Iowa and even Centre County, Pennsylvania was much more competitive in rural parts than neighboring counties.  Does having a college nearby have a greater impact on adjacent rural areas than a regular city?  Or is it common for maybe faculty and staff to live in the rural parts and commute to college?  Curious why this is.

[AGA]

Or is it common for maybe faculty and staff to live in the rural parts and commute to college?

Probably this.

[NOVA Green]

Or is it common for maybe faculty and staff to live in the rural parts and commute to college?

Probably this.

I suspect that although this might be a bit of a factor, this is perhaps somewhat reductionist and is based upon an assumption that faculty and staff are *current* employees of Colleges & Universities, while neglecting some of the historical patterns of *former*  employees of Colleges & Universities, who have "self-selected" to retire in rural areas, close to their workplaces of many years.

Additionally, this neglects the shifts of the "Alternative Movement" and the "Back to the Land" scene of the '70s / '80s in many parts of America, which although these were not Faculty or Staff, frequently gravitated towards rural areas after they had graduated from College / University.

1.) For Example based upon my own personal knowledge, we have multiple locations in Oregon, where the "Back to the Land Movement", outside of the two main University Cities (Corvallis & Eugene) go way back to the late '60s / '70s, created an "alternative rural subculture", and actually help keep Oregon alive under the Reagan Recession when logging got shut down, and "Hippies" taught "Rednecks" how to grow Weed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-to-the-land_movement

2.) Frequently communities "self-select", meaning people of all different backgrounds, and up moving to different areas for a wide variety of reasons.

3.) I have frequently in many of my detailed Oregon posts described the hybrid "Hippie-Redneck" scene from back in the '70s, and even into the late '80s when I was in High School in Downstate Oregon.

4.) Again mileslunn, I would be extremely cautious excessively extrapolating results thus far...

Still, you pulled up Centre County, Pennsylvania (State College), which is actually where a small number of comrades broke into the FBI HQ and actually provided evidence which exposed the entire COINTELPRO program!

https://www.britannica.com/topic/COINTELPRO

[Tokugawa Sexgod Ieyasu]

College towns change the culture of a surrounding rural area both directly (through faculty, staff, and students living off-campus) and indirectly (through increasing access to the sorts of cultural amenities enjoying which makes people more socially liberal), although "town vs. gown" hostility can countervail this if it's present. A huge part of why rural Western Massachusetts is so Democratic is what a dominant position UMass has within the area's economy and culture. I'm not surprised to see similar phenomena starting to play out in places like Washtenaw and Centre.

[lfromnj]

Athens is interesting because the surrounding rural areas was already relatively Democratic but as the surrounding rural areas have become very red, the actual rural areas within the county itself having moving to the right although still not as red as the rest of Appalachian Ohio.

Some of the trends in Appalachian Ohio are crazy such as Pike County.

[mileslunn]

One area I noticed it is less so is Interior West such as Latah county, Albany County, Whitman County, Missoula County, Gallatin County, but then again in those areas surrounding rural are mostly large farms ranches or tiny villages with little connection, not adjacent towns or smaller farms.

[Alben Barkley]

College towns change the culture of a surrounding rural area both directly (through faculty, staff, and students living off-campus) and indirectly (through increasing access to the sorts of cultural amenities enjoying which makes people more socially liberal), although "town vs. gown" hostility can countervail this if it's present. A huge part of why rural Western Massachusetts is so Democratic is what a dominant position UMass has within the area's economy and culture. I'm not surprised to see similar phenomena starting to play out in places like Washtenaw and Centre.

Washtenaw in particular is just stunning how Democratic it is. Over 72% Biden. Most for any candidate since 1928 and more than Wayne County, so now the most Democratic county in the state. And that rivals the percentages Trump was getting in some Eastern Kentucky coal counties, exceeds it in a few. Looking at its precinct map, it's stunning how deep blue it is even when you get well outside of Ann Arbor itself. You don't see rural/exurban support for Dems in that many other places anymore outside of New England.

[Alben Barkley]

One area I noticed it is less so is Interior West such as Latah county, Albany County, Whitman County, Missoula County, Gallatin County, but then again in those areas surrounding rural are mostly large farms ranches or tiny villages with little connection, not adjacent towns or smaller farms.

You also don't see it quite as much in some Southern counties with college towns. Example is Knox County, TN. Knoxville itself is pretty Democratic but the surrounding area votes like the rest of eastern TN.

[King of Kensington]

I've noticed this in Canada too - even though we don't quite "pure" college towns like State College, PA or Amherst, MA.

Look at Kingston Ontario - the exurban towns are quite small-"l" liberal and much less Conservative than rural and small-town eastern Ontario.

[mileslunn]

I've noticed this in Canada too - even though we don't quite "pure" college towns like State College, PA or Amherst, MA.

Look at Kingston Ontario - the exurban towns are quite small-"l" liberal and much less Conservative than rural and small-town eastern Ontario.

That is true around Kingston, but not the case with Guelph and in Western Canada it appears even places with universities like Kamloops, Kelowna, Prince George, and Brandon still go conservative.  Lethbridge is somewhat closer and not as lopsided as surrounding areas.

In UK, I noticed with Cambridge and Oxford you see some spillover especially with Cambridge, but others like Leicester or Lancaster no spill over at all.  In fact surrounding areas of Leicester are quite conservative.

[Alcibiades]

I've noticed this in Canada too - even though we don't quite "pure" college towns like State College, PA or Amherst, MA.

Look at Kingston Ontario - the exurban towns are quite small-"l" liberal and much less Conservative than rural and small-town eastern Ontario.

That is true around Kingston, but not the case with Guelph and in Western Canada it appears even places with universities like Kamloops, Kelowna, Prince George, and Brandon still go conservative.  Lethbridge is somewhat closer and not as lopsided as surrounding areas.

In UK, I noticed with Cambridge and Oxford you see some spillover especially with Cambridge, but others like Leicester or Lancaster no spill over at all.  In fact surrounding areas of Leicester are quite conservative.

I mean Leicester isn’t really a university city per se, rather a city with a university, as most places of its size are in the UK. Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and St Andrews are the only real university cities in the UK, in terms of the institution dominating and defining the town.

[King of Kensington]

That is true around Kingston, but not the case with Guelph and in Western Canada it appears even places with universities like Kamloops, Kelowna, Prince George, and Brandon still go conservative.  Lethbridge is somewhat closer and not as lopsided as surrounding areas.

In UK, I noticed with Cambridge and Oxford you see some spillover especially with Cambridge, but others like Leicester or Lancaster no spill over at all.  In fact surrounding areas of Leicester are quite conservative.

Besides Guelph, I don't really see those places as "university towns."  

Kingston is akin in some ways to Burlington, Vermont or Madison, Wisconsin.  High educational attainment and notable enough presence to shape the political culture but they're not "pure" university towns like Ithaca or Amherst.

[vileplume]

I've noticed this in Canada too - even though we don't quite "pure" college towns like State College, PA or Amherst, MA.

Look at Kingston Ontario - the exurban towns are quite small-"l" liberal and much less Conservative than rural and small-town eastern Ontario.

That is true around Kingston, but not the case with Guelph and in Western Canada it appears even places with universities like Kamloops, Kelowna, Prince George, and Brandon still go conservative.  Lethbridge is somewhat closer and not as lopsided as surrounding areas.

In UK, I noticed with Cambridge and Oxford you see some spillover especially with Cambridge, but others like Leicester or Lancaster no spill over at all.  In fact surrounding areas of Leicester are quite conservative.

Re. Leicester, whilst it has a university (virtually all places of such size do) it's not really what people would think of as a university town at all. The areas around the city are just white-flight, comfortably off, humdrum suburbia/exurbia/satellite towns and have nothing to do with Leicester's not-overly-well-known university. If you're looking for an example of an actual university city in the midlands though, I would look at Nottingham. The presence of both the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent in the city has singlehandedly trashed the Tory hold on the traditionally well off areas of the city e.g. Wollaton, whilst also making Beeston over the border in the Broxtowe district reliably Labour. This has kept Labour in contention in the Broxtowe constituency as it has countered the pro-Tory trend in other parts of the seat such as Stapleford. The university effect is starting to spread south of the Trent River into West Bridgford bringing Labour into contention in the Rushcliffe constituency (Ken Clarke's old seat). The Tories collapsed in Leicester by contrast because it's heavily non-white, though they recovered significantly in 2019 due to Hindu Indian voters having a huge swing towards them.

However in general in the UK there tends not to be a great deal of spill over over university politics to their suburbs/satellite towns. I think at least part of the reason for this is the UK has very strict Green Belt laws which prevents American-style urban sprawls from forming, thus villages near a university town/city more easily retain their own identity and separate politics. It also appears to be true that people of a right-leaning persuasion who work in a university/left leaning city are more likely to want to live outside of it and commute in, whilst left-leaning people are more likely to want to live in the city proper. For similar reasons the young age profile of university cities (part of what makes them left voting) doesn't translate to surrounding areas, a 20 year old ideologically left wing Bristol Uni student simply doesn't want to live in Kingswood, Portishead or Yate for example.

[Alcibiades]

Madison is particularly striking. Not only do the rural parts of Dane vote Democratic, but so do the neighbouring rural counties of Green, Iowa, and, narrowly this year, Sauk. I very much doubt that these counties would vote Dem without the influence of UW and Madison, but you’re talking about a pretty wide geographic radius, that I can’t imagine too many university-associated people settling that far out (although there are doubtless some). Perhaps a more generally culturally liberal atmosphere/Vermont-style hippies, nonetheless originally attracted by Madison?

[EastOfEden]

Cities spread their culture out across a wide radius. It's unsurprising that this includes politics.

College towns I'm familiar with:

Rural precincts in Boone County, MO are noticeably less R than the rest of rural Missouri. This "college town rural blueing" effect seems to extend, just a little bit, into neighboring Howard and Callaway as well. In 2018, Nicole Galloway was apparently somehow able to amplify this effect enough to win those counties. How exactly she managed to do that I will never know, but she did.

There are several rural D precincts, and rural noticeably-less-R precincts, in Douglas County, KS. This effect seems to extend into the southern parts of neighboring Jefferson and Leavenworth as well.
In 2018, Laura Kelly won every precinct in the county. I imagine she and Sebelius are the only Democrats to win every precinct in any county in a very long time.

I would love to see KS-GOV 2006 by precinct. Anyone here know where I could find that information?

[NOVA Green]

Cities spread their culture out across a wide radius. It's unsurprising that this includes politics.

College towns I'm familiar with:

Rural precincts in Boone County, MO are noticeably less R than the rest of rural Missouri. This "college town rural blueing" effect seems to extend, just a little bit, into neighboring Howard and Callaway as well. In 2018, Nicole Galloway was apparently somehow able to amplify this effect enough to win those counties. How exactly she managed to do that I will never know, but she did.

There are several rural D precincts, and rural noticeably-less-R precincts, in Douglas County, KS. This effect seems to extend into the southern parts of neighboring Jefferson and Leavenworth as well.
In 2018, Laura Kelly won every precinct in the county. I imagine she and Sebelius are the only Democrats to win every precinct in any county in a very long time.

I would love to see KS-GOV 2006 by precinct. Anyone here know where I could find that information?

Not sure if you are acquainted with Magic the Gathering card sets....

These appear to be "Rares" (Although not on the order of a Black Lotus or some of the various Alphas and Betas, let along some of the Rarer Cards of Arabian Nights or Legends, but I haven't been able to locate a comprehensive 2016 GE precinct data set for KS).

So I spent about (10) Minutes surfing around a few place I frequent to obtain "official results" from "unofficial" (Non-Governmental Official State / County websites but pulling data from "official sources".

I could not locate a 2016 GE KS Statewide Precinct comprehensive data-set.   

I did not drill down to KS County Election Sites to attempt to obtain the data.

I would imagine that you could obtain those data-sets for a fee from the KS Election Office.

Alternatively, since you live not that far down the road in KS, you could always maybe consider a road trip and drive to the official State Election Office in KS, and if they have a photo copier pay for each page copied (which I did in OR back in the late '80s / early '90s).

Obviously you could always bombard various County Election departments with emails, and some of them might just cough up the data for free to get you off their back (Done that before...   )

[YL]

Re. Leicester, whilst it has a university (virtually all places of such size do) it's not really what people would think of as a university town at all. The areas around the city are just white-flight, comfortably off, humdrum suburbia/exurbia/satellite towns and have nothing to do with Leicester's not-overly-well-known university. If you're looking for an example of an actual university city in the midlands though, I would look at Nottingham. The presence of both the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent in the city has singlehandedly trashed the Tory hold on the traditionally well off areas of the city e.g. Wollaton, whilst also making Beeston over the border in the Broxtowe district reliably Labour. This has kept Labour in contention in the Broxtowe constituency as it has countered the pro-Tory trend in other parts of the seat such as Stapleford. The university effect is starting to spread south of the Trent River into West Bridgford bringing Labour into contention in the Rushcliffe constituency (Ken Clarke's old seat). The Tories collapsed in Leicester by contrast because it's heavily non-white, though they recovered significantly in 2019 due to Hindu Indian voters having a huge swing towards them.

However in general in the UK there tends not to be a great deal of spill over over university politics to their suburbs/satellite towns. I think at least part of the reason for this is the UK has very strict Green Belt laws which prevents American-style urban sprawls from forming, thus villages near a university town/city more easily retain their own identity and separate politics. It also appears to be true that people of a right-leaning persuasion who work in a university/left leaning city are more likely to want to live outside of it and commute in, whilst left-leaning people are more likely to want to live in the city proper. For similar reasons the young age profile of university cities (part of what makes them left voting) doesn't translate to surrounding areas, a 20 year old ideologically left wing Bristol Uni student simply doesn't want to live in Kingswood, Portishead or Yate for example.

Or even an ideologically right-wing student, unless they're actually from one of those places and commute in.

The clearest case I can think of in the UK where a university appears to be affecting the political leanings of a constituency outside the urban area it's based in is the rather confusing one of Warwick University.  The university is not in fact in the smallish town of Warwick, but a few miles away on the edge of the city of Coventry; however quite a lot of students and staff live in Leamington, which is contiguous with Warwick and shares a constituency with it.  Warwick & Leamington is one of those constituencies which used to be thought of as a Tory-leaning marginal, but it was a Labour gain in 2017 and a hold in 2019; I'm pretty sure the university influence is driving this.

[walleye26]

I can’t speak to those other areas, but in Portage County (UW-Stevens Point) a lot of retired college professors live in the town of New Hope or the tiny village of Nelsonville, about twenty miles from Point. Generally, these are the professors who want to have a horse or their spouse wants livestock/a small farm type thing. This is just portage county, but I suspect there’s probably other places like that all over.

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

Not every college town is Democratic. It's perfectly possible that in some areas they are actually less Dem than their surroundings, albeit this would in any case be a small subsection of college towns as a whole.

[Alben Barkley]

Not every college town is Democratic. It's perfectly possible that in some areas they are actually less Dem than their surroundings, albeit this would in any case be a small subsection of college towns as a whole.

Now that even Lynchburg, VA has gone D, I’m hard-pressed to think of even a single college town that’s not Democratic, let alone one less Democratic than the surrounding area.

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

Not every college town is Democratic. It's perfectly possible that in some areas they are actually less Dem than their surroundings, albeit this would in any case be a small subsection of college towns as a whole.

Now that even Lynchburg, VA has gone D, I’m hard-pressed to think of even a single college town that’s not Democratic, let alone one less Democratic than the surrounding area.

Mormon college towns? Bible Belt white evangelical universities?

[Alben Barkley]

Not every college town is Democratic. It's perfectly possible that in some areas they are actually less Dem than their surroundings, albeit this would in any case be a small subsection of college towns as a whole.

Now that even Lynchburg, VA has gone D, I’m hard-pressed to think of even a single college town that’s not Democratic, let alone one less Democratic than the surrounding area.

Mormon college towns? Bible Belt white evangelical universities?

Well Lynchburg, home to Liberty University, was exactly the latter. As for Mormon colleges, well perhaps Provo, UT (home of BYU) is still Republican. Although it actually seems to have voted for McMullin in 2016.

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

Not every college town is Democratic. It's perfectly possible that in some areas they are actually less Dem than their surroundings, albeit this would in any case be a small subsection of college towns as a whole.

Now that even Lynchburg, VA has gone D, I’m hard-pressed to think of even a single college town that’s not Democratic, let alone one less Democratic than the surrounding area.

Mormon college towns? Bible Belt white evangelical universities?

Well Lynchburg, home to Liberty University, was exactly the latter. As for Mormon colleges, well perhaps Provo, UT (home of BYU) is still Republican.

Lynchburg was more Dem than most Bible belt white evangelical university counties.
Brazos TX is still R, at least.

[Tokugawa Sexgod Ieyasu]

Not every college town is Democratic. It's perfectly possible that in some areas they are actually less Dem than their surroundings, albeit this would in any case be a small subsection of college towns as a whole.

Now that even Lynchburg, VA has gone D, I’m hard-pressed to think of even a single college town that’s not Democratic, let alone one less Democratic than the surrounding area.

Mormon college towns? Bible Belt white evangelical universities?

Trad-leaning Catholic colleges like Christendom (Front Royal, VA) and Thomas Aquinas (Ojai, CA)?

It definitely happens, it's just that aren't really any examples anymore among towns that host "mainstream" colleges, even ones that used to have conservative reputations like some of the SEC schools.

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

Not every college town is Democratic. It's perfectly possible that in some areas they are actually less Dem than their surroundings, albeit this would in any case be a small subsection of college towns as a whole.

Now that even Lynchburg, VA has gone D, I’m hard-pressed to think of even a single college town that’s not Democratic, let alone one less Democratic than the surrounding area.

Mormon college towns? Bible Belt white evangelical universities?

Trad-leaning Catholic colleges like Christendom (Front Royal, VA) and Thomas Aquinas (Ojai, CA)?

It definitely happens, it's just that aren't really any examples anymore among towns that host "mainstream" colleges, even ones that used to have conservative reputations like some of the SEC schools.

Does Dalhonega, GA count as a college town, and does its county count as a college county?