Suburban counties that are bluer than their core anchors?

[Oryxslayer]

Anyway here's a legitimate answer: Until the 2020 Election Osceola County FL voted Democratic at a higher percentage than Orange. And this is of course cause Orange has many more moving parts and demographic cleavages than Osceola, and getting them all to move in one direction is harder than in Osceola where a majority of voters are Hispanic and most of those Puerto Rican. And it was more Democratic cause of those internal migrants buying up comparatively cheap homes during the housing crisis. Of course in 2020 this reversed for the same reasons above: both experienced the same trends in voter behavior, but Orange has other non-Hispanic groups that behaved differently.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Anyway here's a legitimate answer: Until the 2020 Election Osceola County FL voted Democratic at a higher percentage than Orange. And this is of course cause Orange has many more moving parts and demographic cleavages than Osceola, and getting them all to move in one direction is harder than in Osceola where a majority of voters are Hispanic and most of those Puerto Rican. And it was more Democratic cause of those internal migrants buying up comparatively cheap homes during the housing crisis. Of course in 2020 this reversed for the same reasons above: both experienced the same trends in voter behavior, but Orange has other non-Hispanic groups that behaved differently.

I wonder if the St Cloud area (the whitest are most R part of Osceola County) could become heavily minority, and make Osceola vote to the left of Orange again.

Long term though, I see more upside for Dems in Orange than Osceola just due to shifting coalitions.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Anyway here's a legitimate answer: Until the 2020 Election Osceola County FL voted Democratic at a higher percentage than Orange. And this is of course cause Orange has many more moving parts and demographic cleavages than Osceola, and getting them all to move in one direction is harder than in Osceola where a majority of voters are Hispanic and most of those Puerto Rican. And it was more Democratic cause of those internal migrants buying up comparatively cheap homes during the housing crisis. Of course in 2020 this reversed for the same reasons above: both experienced the same trends in voter behavior, but Orange has other non-Hispanic groups that behaved differently.

I wonder if the St Cloud area (the whitest are most R part of Osceola County) could become heavily minority, and make Osceola vote to the left of Orange again.

Long term though, I see more upside for Dems in Orange than Osceola just due to shifting coalitions.

Seminole trends are really bad for Rs, and I could see it voting to the left of Osceola soon as well.

[CookieDamage]

I can only really think of Miami and even then it's not a stark difference.

A lot of the examples provided aren't exactly suburbs, and are either part of the core anchor or are host to their own satellite cities/college towns. Washtenaw, DeKalb, Summit, Alameda, Ramsey etc are all home to their own cities that themselves are either large enough to have mini-suburbs or are apart of a larger core.

I think the issue is comparing urban (anchor) counties with their neighboring suburban counties. In tons of cases, the suburbs are actually within the anchor counties, while the suburban counties are more exurban in nature or home to smaller, Democratic satellite cities. The exceptions are independent city-counties, like New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Denver, and San Francisco; small counties that effectively only contain the urbanized communities while the surrounding counties contain true inner suburb communities.

In Wayne county, Detroit's most immediate suburbs are all within the county. Same for Cook, Hennepin, and Milwaukee counties, to name a few. Surrounding counties typically have less-dense, farther flung suburbs that naturally are not as diverse and more republican.

Anyway here's a legitimate answer: Until the 2020 Election Osceola County FL voted Democratic at a higher percentage than Orange. And this is of course cause Orange has many more moving parts and demographic cleavages than Osceola, and getting them all to move in one direction is harder than in Osceola where a majority of voters are Hispanic and most of those Puerto Rican. And it was more Democratic cause of those internal migrants buying up comparatively cheap homes during the housing crisis. Of course in 2020 this reversed for the same reasons above: both experienced the same trends in voter behavior, but Orange has other non-Hispanic groups that behaved differently.

Osceola has Kissimmee. If you gave Kissimmee to Orange county, then Osceola wouldn't vote more Dem in either 2016 or 2020. However, Kissimmee did vote more Dem than Orlando in 2016, so if you consider it a suburb than yes, it would be bluer than Kissimmee. Although I feel Kissimmee has somewhat of its own economy and serves more as a satellite city with its own mini-suburbs.

I also wouldn't count Broward or Palm Beach county as fully suburban counties considering how Ft Lauderdale and West Palm Beach are better characterized as satellites of Miami rather than Suburbs.

However within Dade County is where it gets interesting in 2020. In 2020, Miami voted only 59-40 Dem, while some of the immediately surrounding black communities voted MUCH more Dem. BUT, some of the other suburbs like Hialeah voted much much more republican.

Miami-Dade County voted 53.3 D to 46.0 R in 2020. Miami-Dade minus Miami proper votes 52.4 D to 46.9 R. A 7 point Dem win down to a 5 point win by taking out the city. If the shifts accelerate I could see Miami-Dade County sans Miami City vote to the left of the county as a whole.

[NorCalifornio]

If we include independent cities, Petersburg is bluer than Richmond, VA. Like Clayton County, GA, it's mostly black.

[Sol]

If we include independent cities, Petersburg is bluer than Richmond, VA. Like Clayton County, GA, it's mostly black.

Petersburg, like Durham or St. Paul, is historically a separate center though one which is much less significant overall.

[nclib]

Exactly, especially Durham and St. Paul. The only reason Ramsey is bluer than Hennepin is because it is smaller geographically and therefore St. Paul is a greater proportion of Ramsey than is Minneapolis is of Hennepin.

[Jay 🏳️‍⚧️]

Durham is bluer than Wake, though tbf it’s debatable if Durham is really a suburb of Raleigh or its own thing.

I don't think it's very debatable on if Durham is separate from Raleigh lmfao.

[RI]

This is almost certainly a more interesting question at the city/CDP level than the county level.

In the western states, I don't think there are any such cases in Washington. Oregon sort of has one where Phoenix and Jacksonville are more Dem than Medford.

Several of Las Vegas's inner suburbs are more left-leaning than the city itself: North Las Vegas, Sunrise Manor, Winchester, Paradise, Spring Valley. The city limits sprawl out into the western suburbs, though.

Phoenix has several such cases again because its city limits are quite large. Tempe, Tolleson, Avondale. Tucson has Drexel Heights and Summit.

Some of the non-metros immediately around Los Angeles which are more Dem-voting: East Los Angeles, Commerce, Maywood, Huntington Park, Florence-Graham, Walnut Park, Lynwood, Willow Brook, West Rancho Dominguez, Compton, Inglewood, Ladera Heights, Culver City, Hawthorne, Westmont, West Athens, Topanga, Santa Monica (kind of its own thing), West Hollywood (enclave).

San Francisco has Sausalito, Mill Valley, Marin City, and Tamalpais-Homestead Valley if you count going across the Golden Gate Bridge. San Jose has a bunch as cities become bluer the closer you get to Stanford/Palo Alto and the city itself is relatively right-leaning for the area.

The most left-leaning part of the St. George, Utah metro is the suburb/exurb of Ivins due to the Kayenta art village.

Albuquerque's suburb of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque is more Dem leaning than the city. Santa Fe has some minor ones: Santa Fe Foothills, Arroyo Hondo, Sunlit Hills, Eldorado, Tesuque, Encantado. Las Cruces has University Park and Mesilla. Farmington's western exurbs are further left than the city itself. Gallup has a couple small ones as well.

Fairbanks's western suburbs are more left than its core: College, Ester, Chena Ridge, Goldstream.

[Roll Roons]

This is almost certainly a more interesting question at the city/CDP level than the county level.

In the western states, I don't think there are any such cases in Washington. Oregon sort of has one where Phoenix and Jacksonville are more Dem than Medford.

Several of Las Vegas's inner suburbs are more left-leaning than the city itself: North Las Vegas, Sunrise Manor, Winchester, Paradise, Spring Valley. The city limits sprawl out into the western suburbs, though.

Phoenix has several such cases again because its city limits are quite large. Tempe, Tolleson, Avondale. Tucson has Drexel Heights and Summit.

Some of the non-metros immediately around Los Angeles which are more Dem-voting: East Los Angeles, Commerce, Maywood, Huntington Park, Florence-Graham, Walnut Park, Lynwood, Willow Brook, West Rancho Dominguez, Compton, Inglewood, Ladera Heights, Culver City, Hawthorne, Westmont, West Athens, Topanga, Santa Monica (kind of its own thing), West Hollywood (enclave).

San Francisco has Sausalito, Mill Valley, Marin City, and Tamalpais-Homestead Valley if you count going across the Golden Gate Bridge. San Jose has a bunch as cities become bluer the closer you get to Stanford/Palo Alto and the city itself is relatively right-leaning for the area.

The most left-leaning part of the St. George, Utah metro is the suburb/exurb of Ivins due to the Kayenta art village.

Albuquerque's suburb of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque is more Dem leaning than the city. Santa Fe has some minor ones: Santa Fe Foothills, Arroyo Hondo, Sunlit Hills, Eldorado, Tesuque, Encantado. Las Cruces has University Park and Mesilla. Farmington's western exurbs are further left than the city itself. Gallup has a couple small ones as well.

Fairbanks's western suburbs are more left than its core: College, Ester, Chena Ridge, Goldstream.

Another one is that Brookline and Cambridge are both bluer than Boston.

[Хahar 🤔]

San Jose has a bunch as cities become bluer the closer you get to Stanford/Palo Alto and the city itself is relatively right-leaning for the area.

This is true, but it's not the explanation that I would think of. The communities in Santa Clara County that are closest to Stanford (Palo Alto, Los Altos, Mountain View) are in fact the most Democratic, but even Mountain View is not a place I would expect to have significant university-related population and I cannot really imagine that the university has a lot to do with why Sunnyvale is more Democratic than Milpitas. My alternate explanation would be Vietnamese population: the further east you go in the Santa Clara Valley, the more Vietnamese it gets.

In any case, I do not think it is meaningful to speak of San Jose and San Francisco as separate metropolitan areas.

[Sol]

In North Carolina, Spring Lake is more Democratic than Fayetteville. It feels a bit odd to call it a suburb, but East Spencer is a good bit more Democratic than Salisbury.

Chapel Hill and Carrboro are also more Democratic than Durham. Although most people wouldn't consider them suburbs, they still have some strong suburban qualities.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

City-wise, Falcon Heights (home of the state fair) voted for Biden stronger than Saint Paul did.