Franklin County, Kentucky

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Why is it considerably less Republican then surrounding counties?

[Calthrina950]

Franklin County is home to Frankfort, Kentucky's capital city. State capitols usually are more Democratic than their states as a whole, due to possessing both a substantial government workforce and a notable minority population, as well as large numbers of younger, college-educated voters. Denver, Colorado, Atlanta, Georgia, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Austin, Texas are examples of this.

Nevertheless, Trump won Franklin County with a plurality both times. Frankfort is a relatively small and more conservative city, and I've noticed that the smaller a state capitol is, the more likely it is to be Republican-Carson City, Nevada, Jefferson City, Missouri, and Cheyenne, Wyoming exemplify this.

[Podgy the Bear]

Franklin County is home to Frankfort, Kentucky's capital city. State capitols usually are more Democratic than their states as a whole, due to possessing both a substantial government workforce and a notable minority population, as well as large numbers of younger, college-educated voters. Denver, Colorado, Atlanta, Georgia, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Austin, Texas are examples of this.

A combination of the three clearly does the trick--and perhaps all three of them have roughly equal impact.  This moves states like Leon County, FL (with FSU in Tallahassee) and East Baton Rouge, LA (with LSU in Baton Rouge) to Democratic leaning even though the surrounding part of the state is quite Republican. 

Without a substantial minority population or a large university, the size of the state and corresponding government workforce in the red states becomes significant.  Which is why Burleigh County, ND (Bismarck) and Hughes County, SD (Pierre) with small populations reflect the states' Republican lean.  On the other hand, Shawnee County, KS (Topeka) has tilted Democratic for many years and actually voted for Biden in 2020.  And Biden came close in Franklin County, KY as well.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Franklin County is home to Frankfort, Kentucky's capital city. State capitols usually are more Democratic than their states as a whole, due to possessing both a substantial government workforce and a notable minority population, as well as large numbers of younger, college-educated voters. Denver, Colorado, Atlanta, Georgia, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Austin, Texas are examples of this.

Nevertheless, Trump won Franklin County with a plurality both times. Frankfort is a relatively small and more conservative city, and I've noticed that the smaller a state capitol is, the more likely it is to be Republican-Carson City, Nevada, Jefferson City, Missouri, and Cheyenne, Wyoming exemplify this.

Springfield, IL, is the clearest remaining exception to this pattern. It tends to vote Democratic today, but by much smaller margins than similar-sized cities in the downstate (Biden got about 55% there, compared to 61% each in Peoria and Rockford), and its environs are firmly Republican. Sangamon County has only voted Democratic three times since 1936, although Biden came within five points: 1964, 1992, and 2008. Tammy Duckworth, in the midst of a massive overperformance downstate, only won it by about a point in 2016. I don't know enough about the city of Springfield to say much on why it remains fairly conservative even compared to demographically similar state capitals, but being in an ancestrally Unionist/Republican region and lacking a major higher education presence is probably much of the reason.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Tbh I didn't realize that it was the home of the state capital. I thought it was a coal county that maybe still had a decent sized minority of ancestral Democratic support but Rowan seems to be a better example of that.

[Sol]

Franklin County also isn't too far away from Lexington and probably some more liberal folk in state government would rather live there than the sleepy state capitol. Probably also true to some extent of Carson City and Jefferson City too.

[Schiff for Senate]

Tbh I didn't realize that it was the home of the state capital. I thought it was a coal county that maybe still had a decent sized minority of ancestral Democratic support but Rowan seems to be a better example of that.

I thought exactly the same way about Rowan (even made a thread about it similar to this one), but turns out it's home to a small college that somehow makes it more competitive than it ought to be. I just don't get it, though, since the college it houses isn't that well-known and I don't think all college campuses are automatically liberal (at least not campuses of small colleges) simply by virtue of being near a college; there have to be some local colleges in red areas (like Rowan) that vote red like the rest of the county, if less so. Because unless the county's dominated by the college, some precincts in the area almost certainly supported Biden. Either that or the rest of the county is less conservative than it should be.

[Sol]

Tbh I didn't realize that it was the home of the state capital. I thought it was a coal county that maybe still had a decent sized minority of ancestral Democratic support but Rowan seems to be a better example of that.

I thought exactly the same way about Rowan (even made a thread about it similar to this one), but turns out it's home to a small college that somehow makes it more competitive than it ought to be. I just don't get it, though, since the college it houses isn't that well-known and I don't think all college campuses are automatically liberal (at least not campuses of small colleges) simply by virtue of being near a college; there have to be some local colleges in red areas (like Rowan) that vote red like the rest of the county, if less so. Because unless the county's dominated by the college, some precincts in the area almost certainly supported Biden. Either that or the rest of the county is less conservative than it should be.

See, the thing is is that most colleges really are automatically liberal, even in Republican areas. It makes logical sense really--even in places like Kentucky, a good 25-30% of white voters are Democrats. And I think it's pretty intuitive that white Democrats would more concentrated in college towns, considering young people and PhDs are both D-leaning constituencies.

If you compare precinct results in Morehead to those in other comparable KY college towns, you'll see that Democrats net a few precincts from college towns in Richmond and Murray too.

There are exceptions to Universities=Democratic of course. But most of those tend to be (white) universities in deep south states where the white vote is very Republican--thinking of Oxford, Starkville, Tuscaloosa, and historically College Station here. Private schools often sometimes have their own peculiar inner culture that can lean conservative, like Hillsdale or Liberty.

[Adam Griffin]

Yeah, it's been touched on already, but the sheer proximity of both Lexington and Louisville to Frankfort likely has a huge impact. It's 75 miles from downtown Louisville to downtown Lexington. From Frankfort, you can be in Lexington in ~30 minutes and Louisville in an hour. In some ways, it reminds me of my own city being within the 100-mile stretch between Chattanooga and Atlanta but sitting very close to one end (Chatt). Plenty of people will simply choose to drive in rather than live there.

Furthermore, there are multiple similarly-sized areas that straddle in between Frankfort-Lexington and Frankfort-Louisville which give those who want to be in relatively more rural areas and have reasonable access to both Frankfort and the city of their choice simple enough. The four areas circled have a combined municipal population of more than 3x that of Frankfort.

[Hope For A New Era]

There are exceptions to Universities=Democratic of course. But most of those tend to be (white) universities in deep south states where the white vote is very Republican--thinking of Oxford, Starkville, Tuscaloosa, and historically College Station here. Private schools often sometimes have their own peculiar inner culture that can lean conservative, like Hillsdale or Liberty.

The Utah universities are also exceptions. Most of them are in solidly red precincts, and the ones in Cedar City and St. George are in precincts that exceed Trump +30. The University of Utah in SLC, while blue, votes well to the right of its surroundings (there's a Biden +21 precinct surrounded by precincts that are all Biden +50 or more).