Downtown results

[lfromnj]

https://www.kxan.com/news/your-local-election-hq/2024-presidential-precinct-results/

Been looking at the Texas precinct map and comparing it to 2020 downtowns shifted right hard in Dallas/Austin. Trump only won one precinct in Dallas in 2020 with 100 people.  The surrounding downtown precincts voted Biden +13ish. This time around all those precincts flipped to Trump. In Austin the downtown precinct was Biden +40 but now only Harris +20. Conservative in migration to downtowns in Texas atleast? Both of these regions are heavily white and educated so I doubt its due to differential turnout

[ProgressiveModerate]

One thing that makes this even more curious is it appears downtown Houston actually shifted left, so I wonder what explains this discrepancy.

TX downtowns are very underdeveloped for the size of their metro areas, there's a specific crowd of people who tend to self-sort into those few genuinely urban downtown precincts and live in an apartment building. Additionally, these downtowns tend to be more transient since many of the buildings are rentals where people may temporarily live for a couple years before saving up to live somewhere or moving for work.

One theory is that because these downtowns tend to be more transient, if there has been an increase in Conservatives self-sorting into TX it'd disproportionately show up in these precincts, but that doesn't explain why downtown Houston would've swung left.

One thing worth noting about Austin is that it's downtown precincts have always stood out as being more Conservative, even when compared to suburban precincts of similar demographic compositions. Houston and Dallas downtowns are both relatively Conservative, but fairly liberal for how white they are in both metros.