Why are downtown Austin precincts not very D?

[Tintrlvr]

Just one added factor that seems to be being ignored here is that Austin is the state capital of a still solidly Republican state, so a significant number of white Republicans from elsewhere in the state who otherwise would probably not prefer to live in Austin are going to live right next to the capitol building for work.

[Tintrlvr]

Just one added factor that seems to be being ignored here is that Austin is the state capital of a still solidly Republican state, so a significant number of white Republicans from elsewhere in the state who otherwise would probably not prefer to live in Austin are going to live right next to the capitol building for work.

There might be some truth to that but then what about the fact that the precinct right next to the Capitol building in Bismarck, North Dakota is by far the most D precinct in Bismarck and the only one where Trump got under 50% in, and the only such precinct anywhere in North Dakota more than 10 miles from the Red River that isn't on a Reservation?

Bismarck and Austin, and North Dakota and Texas, are just very obviously not comparable cities and states in scale.

[Tintrlvr]

The CBDs of many Sun Belt cities are more GOP-voting than their other urban neighborhoods.  A lot of it is explained by racial demographics, but it's also the case that suits-in-a-glass-penthouse will skew more conservative than the kombucha-drinking gentrifiers who prefer more creative neighborhoods.  

Austin isn't even the best place to see this.  The main downtown precincts in Houston and Nashville voted for Romney!

Also the wealthy condo-dwellers in downtown Houston mostly still today work in the oil and gas industry. Nashville as the state capital is going to have a similar effect to Austin where Republican-oriented lobbyists and other workers related to the fact that the Republican-dominated state government is based there will live downtown near the capitol building.

Which is roughly the same point I was making earlier.