There's a huge difference between D/R+15 vs D/R+90

[ProgressiveModerate]

This thread might seem a bit silly, but I think it's something a lot of people forget in analysis. It feels like once a community regularly starts voting for one side by more than about 15-20 points it becomes a "stronghold" for said party. And I think that's fair in the sense that that community should reliably net said party votes in basically any election.

However, I feel like we often need to distinguish between communities that just reliably vote for one side vs strongholds that net tons of votes. Given turnout dynamics and all else are equal, a D+90 community will net Democrats SIX times as many votes as a D+15 community which is a very significant difference.

These differences matter. Rust belt rurals only being R+30 compared to white southern rurals often being R+70 or more is a huge reason the rest belt states are competative for Ds while southern states are not.

Also with cities; almost every major city/metro area leans D at this point, but there's huge differences between metros like Madison and Boston which have very lopsided margins for Ds cancelling out tons of redder rurals throughout the state, vs metros like Jacksonville and Tulsa which don't even outvote their own Republican suburbs.

Also, just because one area votes solidly for one party doesn't mean it's maxed out for that party, which I think is another misconception I also see "well WI rurals are already red so they can't get any redder/NOVA is already safe blue so it can't get bluer". Nowhere is truly maxed out until you start getting to +90 levels in this era of partisanship

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

New York certainly would be more competitive if NYC was only D+15.

[ProgressiveModerate]

New York certainly would be more competitive if NYC was only D+15.

Exactly. NYC being the nation's biggest city isn't what inherently makes NY so blue; one could argue FL and TX are just as urban, but metros in those states are generally much more conservative.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

New York certainly would be more competitive if NYC was only D+15.

Exactly. NYC being the nation's biggest city isn't what inherently makes NY so blue; one could argue FL and TX are just as urban, but metros in those states are generally much more conservative.

There must be some self-selection factors involved. One can say the self-selection factors in New York's case are among the most heavily pro-Dem of any big metro in the US.

[ProgressiveModerate]

New York certainly would be more competitive if NYC was only D+15.

Exactly. NYC being the nation's biggest city isn't what inherently makes NY so blue; one could argue FL and TX are just as urban, but metros in those states are generally much more conservative.

There must be some self-selection factors involved. One can say the self-selection factors in New York's case are among the most heavily pro-Dem of any big metro in the US.

Def. I think largely white liberal areas in places like NYC, Seattle, Portland, Bay Area, ect tend to be the most extreme political sorts in the Country; the culture of those areas is literally just "progressive".

Many heavily black communities are politically the most lopsided in the Country, but I think that's more racial sorting moreso than political sorting.

[Dr. MB]

Yeah you can tell based on the feel of a place.

In Oregon the vibes of Eugene (which is fairly close to the second one) compared to nearby Springfield (closer to the first one) are completely different. Both vote Democratic but one is just a lot more than the other. It's not all political but the feel of a place is definitely influenced by politics. The types of clothes people wear, the types of cars they drive, the decorations of houses, the types of shops in a neighborhood. It all has an impact. I see Trump stickers on cars and people wearing right wing merch and lawn signs for Republicans all the time in like, mildly Democratic voting areas. But that's basically nonexistent once you get into certain cities.

The same goes for Portland compared to a lot of the outer suburbs. It's two different worlds.

[Del Tachi]

New York certainly would be more competitive if NYC was only D+15.

Kinda.  If you shift the five boroughs to D +15, Biden still wins New York by ~9 points.  That's a lot closer, but it's not exactly "swing state" territory. 

[Skill and Chance]

New York certainly would be more competitive if NYC was only D+15.

Exactly. NYC being the nation's biggest city isn't what inherently makes NY so blue; one could argue FL and TX are just as urban, but metros in those states are generally much more conservative.

There must be some self-selection factors involved. One can say the self-selection factors in New York's case are among the most heavily pro-Dem of any big metro in the US.

The thing with NYC is that it's so big and so diverse that it isn't really that selected.  It doesn't clearly  have a type, in the way that Boston or the Bay Area do.

[Skill and Chance]

New York certainly would be more competitive if NYC was only D+15.

Kinda.  If you shift the five boroughs to D +15, Biden still wins New York by ~9 points.  That's a lot closer, but it's not exactly "swing state" territory. 

I think the implication, though is that in a world where NYC is only D+15, Long Island would be voting like Montgomery County, TX, and Westchester like Forsyth County, GA.  That presumably would flip the state?

[Vosem]

Also, just because one area votes solidly for one party doesn't mean it's maxed out for that party, which I think is another misconception I also see "well WI rurals are already red so they can't get any redder/NOVA is already safe blue so it can't get bluer". Nowhere is truly maxed out until you start getting to +90 levels in this era of partisanship

Even then there might be more gains left to squeeze out through relative turnout levels; in 2022 the GOP did very poorly in swing areas but still kept margins not-awful through most of the Midwest (and outright good in much of the South) just through totally ridiculous rural turnout levels. It remains insane that IL-Gov swung right between 2018 and 2022 even as every population center of any significance at all swung left in a pretty urban state; but rural turnout was through the roof.

[kwabbit]

New York certainly would be more competitive if NYC was only D+15.

Exactly. NYC being the nation's biggest city isn't what inherently makes NY so blue; one could argue FL and TX are just as urban, but metros in those states are generally much more conservative.

There must be some self-selection factors involved. One can say the self-selection factors in New York's case are among the most heavily pro-Dem of any big metro in the US.

NYC doesn’t have extreme sorting. Maybe in Manhattan, but the broader city and metro votes similarly to what you would expect given the demographics.

[Vosem]

New York certainly would be more competitive if NYC was only D+15.

Exactly. NYC being the nation's biggest city isn't what inherently makes NY so blue; one could argue FL and TX are just as urban, but metros in those states are generally much more conservative.

There must be some self-selection factors involved. One can say the self-selection factors in New York's case are among the most heavily pro-Dem of any big metro in the US.

NYC doesn’t have extreme sorting. Maybe in Manhattan, but the broader city and metro votes similarly to what you would expect given the demographics.

If anything, many parts of the NYC metro are surprisingly red -- Staten Island is by far the densest county in the US to support Trump, and it wasn't even particularly close!

[kwabbit]

New York certainly would be more competitive if NYC was only D+15.

Exactly. NYC being the nation's biggest city isn't what inherently makes NY so blue; one could argue FL and TX are just as urban, but metros in those states are generally much more conservative.

There must be some self-selection factors involved. One can say the self-selection factors in New York's case are among the most heavily pro-Dem of any big metro in the US.

NYC doesn’t have extreme sorting. Maybe in Manhattan, but the broader city and metro votes similarly to what you would expect given the demographics.

If anything, many parts of the NYC metro are surprisingly red -- Staten Island is by far the densest county in the US to support Trump, and it wasn't even particularly close!

Yeah counties like Nassau and Bergen would be going 65-35 if they were suburbs of any other Northeastern city. They don’t stick out compared to the nation, but definitely in the Northeast.

[Sol]

New York certainly would be more competitive if NYC was only D+15.

Exactly. NYC being the nation's biggest city isn't what inherently makes NY so blue; one could argue FL and TX are just as urban, but metros in those states are generally much more conservative.

There must be some self-selection factors involved. One can say the self-selection factors in New York's case are among the most heavily pro-Dem of any big metro in the US.

NYC doesn’t have extreme sorting. Maybe in Manhattan, but the broader city and metro votes similarly to what you would expect given the demographics.

If anything, many parts of the NYC metro are surprisingly red -- Staten Island is by far the densest county in the US to support Trump, and it wasn't even particularly close!

Yeah counties like Nassau and Bergen would be going 65-35 if they were suburbs of any other Northeastern city. They don’t stick out compared to the nation, but definitely in the Northeast.

Philly has a bit of a similar dynamic; a quirky characteristic of the non-New England northeast is the penchant of certain inner suburbs to vote Republican.

[patzer]

New York certainly would be more competitive if NYC was only D+15.

Kinda.  If you shift the five boroughs to D +15, Biden still wins New York by ~9 points.  That's a lot closer, but it's not exactly "swing state" territory. 

If Biden won NY by only 9 points, then that means Zeldin would have almost certainly been elected Governor last year, and Joe Pinion would have had a strong shot at the senate seat. That's not a safe D state.

[kwabbit]

New York certainly would be more competitive if NYC was only D+15.

Exactly. NYC being the nation's biggest city isn't what inherently makes NY so blue; one could argue FL and TX are just as urban, but metros in those states are generally much more conservative.

There must be some self-selection factors involved. One can say the self-selection factors in New York's case are among the most heavily pro-Dem of any big metro in the US.

NYC doesn’t have extreme sorting. Maybe in Manhattan, but the broader city and metro votes similarly to what you would expect given the demographics.

If anything, many parts of the NYC metro are surprisingly red -- Staten Island is by far the densest county in the US to support Trump, and it wasn't even particularly close!

Yeah counties like Nassau and Bergen would be going 65-35 if they were suburbs of any other Northeastern city. They don’t stick out compared to the nation, but definitely in the Northeast.

Philly has a bit of a similar dynamic; a quirky characteristic of the non-New England northeast is the penchant of certain inner suburbs to vote Republican.

Yeah in the northeast there’s not much of a relationship between distance from the CBD and income. Even in DC, which is scarcely the South, you have the richest areas pretty close to DC, but the richest parts of NJ are pretty far from the city. With Philly, Lower Bucks and the White parts of Delco are closer than Chester and most of MontCo.