Why is the Tampa metro area so Republican?

[ProgressiveModerate]

It is by far the largest metro area that actually net Trump votes. And the metro area is diverse and fast-growing, with many new white-collar jobs spawning up.

It seems like Dem support is almost strictly contained to heavily black and Hispanic communities, and there are no liberal white communities as there almost always are in a metro of it's size.

Furthermore, basically every fast-growing traditionally conservative Southern metro has been shifting pretty hard left but Tampa if anything has been drifting slowly to the right.

Whay makes greater Tampa specifically so conservative?

[Sol]

Lots of retirees like elsewhere in Florida, and in places (especially Hernando and Pasco) kind of a similar dynamic to other communities in Florida, like St. Lucie, where the retirees have skewed a bit working class/lower middle class and have consequently swung to Democrats Republicans. You also have the general turnover of retirees to a more conservative generational cohort as a factor too.

Tampa is not really the sort of place which would be very attractive to liberal white people; its economy is not particularly dependent on high education industries that tend to be correlated with more Democratic white voters.

[Indy Texas]

This isn't a hard and fast rule, but in general, the Atlantic coast of Florida has primarily attracted people from the Northeast whereas the Gulf coast has primarily attracted people from the South and Midwest.

[Tartarus Sauce]

Also, there is a colony of liberal whites within the area, it’s just mostly contained to St. Petersburg.

[Spectator]

There’s a correlation with trailer parks and Trump voters in Florida so I assume that’s it.

[Schiff for Senate]

This isn't a hard and fast rule, but in general, the Atlantic coast of Florida has primarily attracted people from the Northeast whereas the Gulf coast has primarily attracted people from the South and Midwest.

Very interesting.

[Schiff for Senate]

Also, there is a colony of liberal whites within the area, it’s just mostly contained to St. Petersburg.

This is true. Just today I was making a congressional map of FL in DRA, and when I drew districts in the Tampa area, I created a St Petersburg district that was 69% white and which voted Biden+3.8, while a neighbouring district to its north (which included part of Tampa proper and where the vast majority of the population was from Hillsborough County), was actually majority-minority, but only voted Biden+6.2.

[King of Kensington]

Scientologists?

[sting in the rafters]

Lots of retirees like elsewhere in Florida, and in places (especially Hernando and Pasco) kind of a similar dynamic to other communities in Florida, like St. Lucie, where the retirees have skewed a bit working class/lower middle class and have consequently swung to Democrats. You also have the general turnover of retirees to a more conservative generational cohort as a factor too.

Tampa is not really the sort of place which would be very attractive to liberal white people; its economy is not particularly dependent on high education industries that tend to be correlated with more Democratic white voters.

And it is the type of place which attracts Gen-X/Boomer bronzites from all corners as a Mecca for white baseball fans! Not only is Tampa notorious as the home of Spring Training, but  the metro’s high-school/amateur scene comprises the whitest developmental hotbed by a country mile. While national pastime followers remain apolitical on the whole, most players and avid fans trend conservative. I can’t prove the magnitude nor whether this is a chicken-or-egg situation, but Dixie-fried Kenny Powers wanna-bes and the snowbirds cheering them on seem fertile ground for the GOP.