Why is Cherokee county and Fauquier county still R?

[thebeloitmoderate]

These 2 exurban counties outside the major cities ATL and DC has voted for Trump twice even as more neighboring suburban counties have been trending more bluer. In fact Biden flipped stafford county VA only to see Youngkin turn R again in 2021.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

These 2 exurban counties outside the major cities ATL and DC has voted for Trump twice even as more neighboring suburban counties have been trending more bluer. In fact Biden flipped stafford county VA only to see Youngkin turn R again in 2021.

Fauquier and Cherokee are probably drawing 1) not enough Dem-leaning voters, and 2) whatever Dem voters are moving in, aren't necessarily really registering in the electorate yet.
It should take about 10 years for the full impact of migration in these places to be bourne out.

[Sol]

Because they're exurbs, and Southern to boot? Places like them vote Republican all over the country...

[MT Treasurer]

Decreasing R margins in the exurban counties are very much part of the story of GA's transformation (and a major reason why NC hasn’t yet gone the way of GA — compare Randolph and Davison Counties NC to Cherokee and Forsyth GA). The 2016->2020 swing in Cherokee County alone provided Biden with his entire margin of victory in GA (and forced the GA Class II race into a runoff)! If Trump had won Cherokee County by the same margin as in 2016, he would have carried GA by ~1,000 votes or <0.05%-points.

Just because they are still overwhelmingly Republican doesn’t mean they haven’t contributed to the state's rapid D trend. The GA GOP's reliance on these unusually/absurdly lopsided exurban margins, even by Southern standards (and even more so under current coalitions in which they are losing non-white voters by >50 points), was one of many factors that made them so vulnerable in the first place.

[rhg2052]

The big difference between Stafford and Fauquier is that the development in Stafford is suburban, while the growth in Fauquier is exurban.

Stafford's development is mainly bedroom communities for the inner parts of the DC metro, with development boosted by proximity to places like Quantico and Fredericksburg, which is growing fairly quickly as a secondary node in the I-95 corridor (and is also a college town). It functions as an extension of the NOVA suburbs, and is subject to the same trends that turned each previous NOVA county blue.

Fauquier, while growing, has not really had a wave of NOVA-spillover suburban development yet. Most of the growth is either in Warrenton, which is pretty emblematic of mid-size towns in the Virginia Piedmont, or super low density exurban development between Warrenton and PWC. It doesn't have the major travel corridor like I-95 nor proximity to major government institutions to spur a large wave of suburban growth just yet.

[Builder Refused]

Well occupational Fauquier is over represented among real estate, construction, farming, and remote work like info, science, and tech stuff. It seems to be really too much of a bedroom community, Stafford and Spotsylvania are much more balanced

[Smash255]

They are generally more GOP to begin with so will take longer to switch completely, but as mentioned Cherokee county is already trending Dem (Bush won 79-20 in 2004).  They are also whiter, both Cherokee and Fauquier are just under 80% non Hispanic white.  Stafford is 59%.  Cobb is 51%