How College Towns Are Decimating The GOP

[Yoda]

Figured this was the best board for this topic:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/21/gop-college-towns-00106974?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Interesting read on how dozens of rapidly growing college towns across the country have/are turning or are threatening to turn some purple states solidly blue. Wisconsin, Colorado and Virginia  are the best examples given, with most of the rest being observations that given the trends, the same thing could happen to some extent in some other states (Michigan, North Carolina and, much less likely, Montana).

The Supreme Court results blew up that model. Dane County alone is now so dominant that it overwhelms the Milwaukee suburbs (which have begun trending leftward anyway). In effect, Dane has become a Republican-killing Death Star.

“This is a really big deal,” said Mark Graul, a Republican strategist who ran George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign in Wisconsin. “What Democrats are doing in Dane County is truly making it impossible for Republicans to win a statewide race.”

The national realignment of politics along cultural and educational lines is also playing a role. Larimer ranks as one of the most educated counties in Colorado, which itself ranks among the most educated states in the nation. Even if newcomers aren’t registering as Democrats, many possess the traits associated with a Democratic voter profile — environmentally conscious, closely attuned to climate change issues, white and college-educated. As Larimer and the other high-population areas along the state’s urbanized Front Range corridor have drifted leftward, so has the state: Democrats now hold all the levers of power in Colorado, including the governor’s office and the legislature.

Though considerably smaller than some of the other college towns in the state, Asheville’s Buncombe County has added just over 66,000 residents since 2000 and grown a robust 12 percent in just the last decade. Over that period, those new residents have played a key role in Buncombe’s evolution from a red county that gave George W. Bush a comfortable 54-45 victory to a blue stronghold Biden won by a 21-point margin.

[ProgressiveModerate]

It's really when you have a college that then develops a ton of industry around it when things become dangerous for the GOP. Madison is the best example of this; so many of the industries created there were thanks to the college originally but now it's just a ton of liberal professionals, most of whom aren't actually going to UW Madison.

The one bad thing for Dems is that these large liberal college towns are often extreme vote sinks since they tend to be high turnout and overwhelmingly D and because there's a sphere of blue around them, they can be hard to "unpack" even if you want to.