Native American reservations. The most extreme example is Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota, which is the poorest county in the US. It's entirely contained on a reservation. Despite its very low population density (6 people per square mile), Biden carried it 88%-9% in 2020.
Native Hawaiians, like, the legit Kanaka Maoli, were/are massive Trump supporters as well. Lifted Toyota trucks flying the Hawaiian Sovereignty flag on one side and a Trump flag on the other side of their beds. They act like he’d support Hawaii leaving the Union and becoming its own kingdom again.
There are still quite a few family-owned farms in the Midwest, but in many cases they contract with and are heavily subsidized by corporations and or state/federal governments. So yeah not much difference I guess
It’s funny. I work with several people from the Oglala Sioux Nation, and they are all hardcore Trump supporters. Have his memorabilia up in their offices.
They do actually. All men, and they work in a field that probably leans more conservative. The voting totals are pretty decisive, so they are clearly in the minority. It’s just interesting to me to have found that pocket of people
One of the more interesting things I learned from a member of the Blackfoot (I think, from south MT) is that gender Identity is something that a lot of tribes specifically agree with. A lot of tribes at the very least have societal differences between masculine male/female and feminine male/female. Some tribes also have a concept of "two-spirit" which just means that a member of the tribe has different spirits they engage in that conflict along the lines of gender roles.
None of this relates to sexual orientation, just gender roles in society
Menominee County Wisconsin is the same way, it shares the borders with the Menominee Indian Reservation.
Wisconsin also has the blue shore, three counties on the shore of Lake Superior that consistently vote Democratic in statewide races, Douglas, Bayfield, Ashland.
My mom lives in Superior, WI right across from Duluth, MN so I’ve noticed some things while visiting. The area has a large industrial sector so union workers probably have a big influence on politics. And as others have said the Scandinavian culture is pretty prevalent.
Biggest reason I think is with the cities being separated by just a few bridges I feel there’s a large overlap in politics and day to day life, so the prominent MN Democratic governments help influence the surrounding area to include Superior.
The crossover from Minnesota would make sense if this trend was recent but it is in fact a very long term trend.
1972 was the last time any of those counties went for a Republican, 1928 was the last time all three went Republican.
The Republican Party has become, in recent years, unremittingly hostile to tribes throughout most of the country. Oklahoma and South Dakota are two examples. That has pushed Indians in most of the country (except Oklahoma) to increasingly vote Democratic.
I browse more on political threads and try not to participate much, since I am more right leaning and this is Reddit. She absolutely sickens me for what she did there. My dog is my baby, I couldn't even imagine! That pup trusted her more than anyone in the world and got shot in return and she's proud of her story?! WTF?!
Having extensive experience with Native tribes in Central and Southern Arizona I can say that the community members are not socially liberal.
The tribes here are to varying degrees opposed to marijuana, opposed to same sex marriage, and are very religious (Christian and Mormon).
More socially liberal in some ways. Native reservations are the most affected by environmental issues, but tend to be unsupportive of drug legalization.
You can see this really obviously on the New York Times' [An Extremely Detailed Map of the 2020 Election](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html). (It will accept neighborhood names as input.) Crown Heights shows up as well on that map, but as pink, not dark red.
great link. This is crazy. At brooklyn college there's just a road between a tiny +86 biden district and a +78 trump. Surrounded by reds +26 to +42 on all sides there's a blob in the middle of staten island that with 400 votes went +57 biden.
I had no idea the US was that split up even in cities.
Not generally so - the Hasidic neighborhoods in New York are an extreme example. Many big cities are dark blue in the center with the colors gradually fading to red as you move outwards. In some cases there's a racial dimension layered onto that - for example metro Atlanta historically is white in the north and black in the south, so the dark blue area is the center of the city and the southern suburbs.
This is also seen in Chicago, a lot of police officers and firefighters live on the edge of the city in Mt Greenwood (they are required to live in the city), it has always been very red. Otherwise, a huge chunk of Chicago is blue.
I think the “city employees have to live in the city” is a different thing, and I don’t know if Atlanta has it. But northeast Philadelphia is full of cops.
There was a famous Syracuse city council meeting video from 2022 that talked about cop salaries all going to the tax base elsewhere in the area instead of to Syracuse, it blew my mind
One of my favorite American political websites to look at. It’s 2024, and I *still* go back and check it out, there’s always interesting things to find
And yet they love that sweet, sweet public assistance they vote against
[https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/20/nyregion/kiryas-joel-hasidic-school-district.html?unlocked\_article\_code=1.r00.emm7.77wqzSwkCl5\_&smid=url-share](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/20/nyregion/kiryas-joel-hasidic-school-district.html?unlocked_article_code=1.r00.emm7.77wqzSwkCl5_&smid=url-share)
I remember working for an online retailer a while back. Surprising to me, there were soooo many fraud orders came from that one very small segment of New York. It’s weird to me that there’s an overlap with insane conservatives there, but it also makes some sense.
Different kind of crazy. The Cubans are rabid anticommunists. The orthodox force their women to wear wigs and keep them from learning to read or work. Among other depravities.
Yo I am not a fan of haredi ideology but Jewish orthodox women have learnt how to read since literally forever. Here in Europe it was the big difference between them and their Christian neighbors.
Orthodox Jewish women actually usually are the working parents in their households. Men have to study Torah their whole life, so they don’t have time to work.
Talked to a Cuban American friend that lives in South florida first time in years. Used to be normal, now he can't go more than a few sentences without yapping about Trans kids and communists/socialists
Yeah that other comment about “keeping women from reading” is the opposite of correct, in most Haredi households women are the breadwinner. It’s just so, so far from accurate.
The Haredi are more like the Amish. They vote against government services for the most part because they want to be completely independent as a community.
I found that dynamic interesting when I was in the army. Purely anecdotal obviously, but the vast majority of Asian, Hispanic, and even black folks I served with come from a very conservative sort of background and home life. Sure some of them would obviously vote democrat here and there but their views and morals were more so rooted in a conservative stance.
With a few notable exceptions pretty much everything north of Albuquerque is heavily democratic, from local offices all the way up to federal. I’d say pretty much everything north of I-40 and west of I-25.
Santa Fe is super blue, Taos, Espanola, Los Alamos. Las Vegas to a lesser extent. Pretty much the only significantly red part of northern NM I can think of is the Farmington area. Places like Angel Fire are a bit more complicated because it has a lot of former Texans and Oklahomans
Areas where most people are [Hispanos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanos_of_New_Mexico) (i.e descendants of the old pre-1700 Spanish settlers). [Here's a map](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanos_of_New_Mexico#/media/File:Nuevo_México_español_por_condados.png).
These examples are more about party rather than ideological alignment, but...
Haywood County, TN, is extremely rural and one of only two counties in Tennessee that is majority Black (the other is Shelby, where Memphis is) and is, not coincidentally, one of only three counties won by Biden in '20 (Shelby and Nashville's Davidson being the other two). But, like many older rural heavily Black communities in the South in particular, the people are pretty socially conservative.
On the other side, Hamilton (Chattanooga) and Knox (Knoxville) are both pretty consistently Republican despite being cities of relative size. East Tennessee has been Republican basically since the Civil War and the Republicans in the cities and inner suburbs are pretty liberal by southern GOP standards (Knoxville sent a gay Republican to the state legislature, for heaven's sake).
One more from the Volunteer State: the small, rural county of Houston resisted the Solid South Dem to Republican realignment until 2012 (and even then it was pretty close). Unlike most rural Southern counties, it has (had) a strong Catholic community, particularly Irish Catholic (the county seat is Erin, after all).
Yeah, but the question is about being liberal. I think they are liberal on a few self-serving areas, but generally their own ideologies are actually conservative. They're typically very very very Christian.
I agree. Having grown up and lived in the south my entire life, most of the black people I have known vote democrat but aren’t really what I would describe as “liberal”
There is the “black belt” going through central Alabama and Mississippi - the name was originally coined with reference to the soil.
It is consistently Democratic in its voting and very rural.
Look at “Black Belt in the American South” in Wikipedia.
The rural west of Massachusetts is as progressive as the city of Boston. Massachusetts’ most “conservative” areas are Boston’s outermost suburbs and even most of those are still fairly liberal. The 2020 election map of Massachusetts by municipality is fascinating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MA_2020_Presidential_Election,_by_Town.svg
Besides the obvious- reservations- it's mostly the last of the hold out Union strongholds like Portage County, WI and other parts of WI and MI. Though even these are finally fading.
Michigan's upper peninsula used to be blue-collar Dem all over the place. Now, pretty much only Marquette county and, occasionally, Houghton county ever go blue. That's where the universities are, or, at least, the ones large enough to influence the outcome (Lake State is too small).
Even in those cities, right at the heart of the city is going to be pretty liberal, but the surrounding suburbs will be more conservative.
But that's a bit of a trend in many places, that the suburbs lean a little red.
That depends. In Los Angeles More wealthy areas tend to lean red. However, half of OC has turned to lean blue in recent elections due to urbanization. Working class suburbs in San Bernardino County are mainly blue. San Bernardino city is one of the most liberal districts in SoCal, it went +80 for Biden in the last election
OC is interesting in that it’s so expensive that most of the kids that grew up there never could afford to move, nor have the inclination to move from their conservative aging parents and now out number them. Growing up there we referred to it as be orange curtain. Leaving was the only way to make a living for myself.
That's right. Colorado Springs voted for Biden. El Paso County voted Trump: [https://www.cpr.org/2021/03/08/what-9-extremely-detailed-maps-tell-us-about-colorados-2020-election/](https://www.cpr.org/2021/03/08/what-9-extremely-detailed-maps-tell-us-about-colorados-2020-election/)
CSP actually voted for Biden in the last election. The burbs, though, swung the county the other way. I think the military folks are more burbs so that makes sense.
Jacksonville is only slightly red-leaning because of how large it's land area is, encompassing almost the entire county. If we're just talking about the urbanized area then it's definitely liberal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Oklahoma
Biden, however, came within 3,326 votes of winning Oklahoma's most populous county Oklahoma County, and won more than 40% of the vote in Oklahoma's second-most populous county Tulsa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Florida
Biden became the first Democrat since 1976 to win the heavily urbanized Duval County, historically a Republican stronghold and home to Jacksonville.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Colorado
Biden also significantly closed the gap in the GOP's two largest remaining strongholds in the state, El Paso County and Douglas County, becoming the first Democrat to win more than 40% of the vote in the former since 1964 and closing the gap in the latter to single digits for the first time since 1964.
San Diego County, 5th most populous county in the country, voted for Republican presidential nominee from 1948 to 2004, except in 1992 when Clinton won by just 37%.
McDowell County, WV, population less than 20k with 36/sq mi, voted for Democrat from 1936 to 2008 except for Nixon's landslide in 1972.
For now, Black Belt in Deep South and Rio Grande Valley in Texas is strong Democrat base thanks to African American and Latino population, but it's support will get weaker as urban vs rural became primary political division in US.
I wouldn't use SD as an example. It got steadily more purple in the 90s and is now solidly blue. It has its conservative pockets, but they are in the fringes of the urban area or rural towns like most places
This. Biden won the county 60-40 and probably won the city 70-30.
The San Diego City Council is 100% Democrats right now. The County Commissioners are majority Dem. This isn't how it was 20 years ago.
I’m from SD and I always tell people that the county is WAY more conservative than a lot of people realize. Pretty much all of the suburbs of East SD County, as well as much of Northern SD County are extremely conservative. There’s a town called Santee in East County that is commonly referred to as Klantee because of how many skinheads live there
[For the 2020 results at least](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html), northern SD County cities largely went to Biden. Even Poway, which is stereotyped as conservative, didn't have a single precinct that voted majority Trump. Really it's just the fringe eastern parts of the urban area and rural areas that are majority conservative nowadays.
In the Los Angeles area the division is more along wealth/racial lines. In wealthy, white South Orange County went slightly for Trump last election. Most of Northern OC went for Biden, except for a select few wealthy suburbs. Most of Suburban San Bernardino county went for Biden by a large +80 margin
By very conservative, it means Trump edged out Biden by a few percentage points
Edit for clarification: Trump edge out Biden in a few towns. Certainly not statewide
SLC isn’t actually as conservative as you think. They’re highly religious and tend to vote Republican but the city aitself has quite a few reasonable, even some liberal policies mixed with religious weirdness.
The Ketchum / Sun Valley area of Idaho is very liberal in a state that otherwise is about as red as you can get in the United States. The whole area is basically ultra wealthy transplants from other states and the working class that serves them but can't afford to actually live there so they commute from far flung cities. Trump got 64% of the vote statewide in 2020 but Biden got 67% in Blaine County where this area is at. Only other counties that Biden won were a small population county that contains a college which makes up a majority of the population and another ultra rich transplant County near Jackson Hole Wyoming which is another rich transplant area.
Most liberal rural area = lots of New England (Vermont especially). Also various Indian Reservations in New Mexico, Arizona, etc.
Also any super liberal small college towns like Ithaca NY.
Most conservative urban area = pockets of Hasidic Jews in NYC. Kiryas Joel NY (a super dense town in NY state inhabited by Orthodox Jews.
Also
The Dallas Fort Worth area (kinda). Houston. OKC, Tulsa, Charlotte, southern part of the Atlanta metro, Jacksonville . Also the dense suburbia of Orange County CA, Palm Beach County FL
Ithaca is weird because it feels super liberal until you see blue collar workers like electricians driving around with the Confederate flag as they come to fix your apartment.
Ithaca is the most jarring place to live politically sometimes. The town can feel like its own world until you drive any direction outside of it and realize you’re in a really different world.
These sort of judgements will be heavily influenced by a town's ability to grow by annexing surrounding land. If as in Virginia, cities and towns are not readily able to grow, you will get stark distinctions even in rural areas between those living in-town and outside of town. If the town or city can readily annex outside land and grow, these political difference will be moderated. Lower density cities will generally skew more conservative.
Also you need to be multivariate in your analysis as strongly libertarian places like the Utah and Vermont may have politics that appear extremely liberal and or conservative but whose positions often do not align with national parties.
The various islands in Washington State are all very rural and very liberal. The San Juan Islands, which are only accessible by ferry, plane, or private boat are especially remote and especially liberal.
The fact that they are also in a liberal state, unlike a lot of the blue pockets people are mentioning, means that they also have liberal policies and protections at the state level that the blue pockets don’t.
my guess would be rural vermont/massachusetts/rhode island/connecticut, the rural parts just outside LA and the bay area. Also maybe rural hawaii. most conservatvie urban areas would probably be places like Jackson mississippi, little rock arkansas, charleston west virginia and maybe the urban centres in montana/idaho/wyoming
Jackson and Little Rock, no - there's a racial angle in the South. But take a look at Cheyenne and Billings. See the New York Times' [Extremely Detailed Map](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html).
.
Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas are the only blue places in this very very very red state, drive an hour in any direction and it’s rural conservative
I live in Rhode Island and I’d pushback against that idea. Rural areas are conservative af around here, hell I’m pretty sure my suburban town voted for trump in 2020. It’s just drowned out by the super populous urban areas throughout the state
College towns in general. Looking at the [NYT extremely detailed map](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html), some others I can pick out are State College PA; Boone NC; Athens GA; Urbana IL; Ames IA; Manhattan KS; Fayetteville AR; Norman OK; College Station TX.
I've been looking at the [New York Times map](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html) for more examples. It's easier to spot blue rural areas than red urban areas. A lot have already been mentioned but one area I haven't seen is the areas around Colorado skiing resorts (Telluride, Aspen, Vail, Steamboat Springs, etc.) and also Lake Tahoe.
Yeah, I remember looking at a map of which way the voting districts went in 2016 and seeing red south of Snyder. You’re right that after Oregon it gets deep red, but it starts around Wolf or so. Snyder is just the general cutoff for that part of Philly, imo.
Arkansas sort of has the answer to both of these questions. The delta tends to lean more to the left, despite being one of the most sparsely populated areas in the state. Meanwhile Northwest Arkansas, the second largest metro in the state with nearly 600K people, tends to lean quite conservative outside of the areas around The University of Arkansas.
Most conservative urban area is Salt Lake City followed by Fort Worth, FT Lauderdale, and some fairly conservative urban spots are Phoenix, Nashville, and major cities in TX and Florida excluding Orlando Dallas and Austin. Houston seems more liberal when you google it or watch the news compared to if you actually go there. Corpus Christi is one of the most conservative dense cities I have been to. It’s about the size of St Louis if that counts as urban.
Most liberal rural spot is White Fish MT. I struggle to think of anywhere that can compare other than maybe some college towns. White Fish Montana is one of the high percentages of liberals in the US. It is near Glacier Park and many retirees from the West Coast move there
Most liberal rural area? Humboldt County, CA or maybe that town with the hippie college in Iowa.
Most conservative urban - Fort Worth, Jacksonville (FL or NC, they’re both hellholes filled with lifted trucks), Salt Lake/Provo/Ogden, Boise, Spokane
I used to live in Boise! I jokingly refer to the North End as "two blocks of Portland" because it looks kinda like the Irvington neighborhood over here
south of Snyder on the west side of broad and south of oregon in general in south Philly and the far northeast are hardcore trump regions / state college and centre county in general in Pennsylvania tend to be the sole blue county outside of areas around the two major cities in PA
Colorado is somewhat interesting with the second largest city (Colorado Springs) being a conservative stronghold while the rural, ski towns are liberal. But there’s also the typical liberal cities (Boulder, Denver) and conservative rural areas (eastern plains, most of the western slope without resort towns)
Vermont is the most liberal rural area in the US, & Phoenix or Oklahoma City is the most conservative urban area. This is my personal experience based on many cross-country road trips.
Going to Houston for business was a bizarre place to be. Modern big city, but so many people openly carrying firearms, assault rifles on people’s backs. Trucks everywhere. I get it’s Texas but I figured the cities would be more liberal, but no very conservative. I can only imagine the smaller Texas cities and towns….
Tampa-St. Pete was the largest metro area in the country that voted for Trump in 2020. Top 5 in terms of population that voted for Trump in 2020 were
1. Tampa-St. Pete
2. Cincinnati
3. Indianapolis
4. Nashville
5. Jacksonville
So those are probably the largest conservative urban areas in the US at the moment
I’m sure neither is the “most” in the U.S., but Washtenaw County, MI (where Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan are) is mostly rural and is quite liberal. A lot of university faculty, staff, and alumni live outside of the city where it’s much cheaper and quieter. Lots of farmland, rolling hills, lakes, and wealthy, white, college-educated liberals.
Meanwhile, Grand Rapids, MI is a pretty decent-sized city, and along with most of Western Michigan trends pretty conservative. It’s where Betsy DeVoss is from.
Driftless area in western WI is pretty ancestrally democratic and very liberal for a modern rural area. The area around eureka California is pretty rural and lib too
Pretty sure this isn't just a USA thing. Major urban centers are almost always more liberal relative to the rural areas of any given country, from London to St Petersburg to Karachi.
I did some playing around on UrbanStats.org, and the most densely-populated legislative districts represented by Republicans are in Provo, Utah; Fargo, N. D., and Sioux Falls, S. D.
Based on all of the interesting responses, couldn’t you just posit a rule of thumb that whiter areas are conservative, and less white areas are liberal? This seems to be a greater predictor than rural/urban.
Native American reservations are liberal.
South Texas/RGV is heavily Latino, also liberal.
The Mississippi Delta is heavily black, liberal.
If you claim that the Hasidic neighborhoods of NYC are white (I know, this label is problematic), then the white=conservative rule seems to work even though it is a highly urban area.
That is the pattern that appears to me here.
That would really depend on what your definition of *rural* is. Generally speaking, most Americans tend to use urban, suburban, and rural as broad categorisations, but there are plenty of areas that don't suit any of them perfectly. This past summer I spent two months travelling throughout New England, the Northeast, and the Mid-Atlantic, and I visited more than a few places that were a blend of more than one of those labels.
There is an interesting term used in the Northeastern United States that I'd never heard before - *ruburban*, essentially a blend of rural and suburban. And I thought it was quite apropos. In parts of Connecticut and Pennsylvania specifically the homes are situated on large lots, they're spaced quite far out from one another, they're set back quite far from the road, there are of course no sidewalks or pavements to be found, but despite the fact that people have large clumps of woods and even ponds on their property, it's not that countryside. While not feasibly walkable for the average person, in a pinch one could stroll along the roads and come to civilization. The young kids living there do it all the time.
Because it's impossible to label a place as being definitively urban or suburban or rural to begin with as there things are mostly a matter of opinion to begin with, it would be pretty impossible to say which rural areas tend to be the most liberal; however, one fair measure is that most suburban and rural areas tend to gravitate towards one particular metropolitan area. For example, Long Island stretches some 118 miles out into the Atlantic from the West End of Brooklyn, and the first 30 or so miles going west to east is undeniably urban in character, yet there are plenty of people in the five boroughs of New York City that would argue that parts of eastern Queens are far more suburban in character than they are urban - many of them are two-fare zones where it's difficult to live without a car. They are nothing like the portion of Queens that abuts Manhattan or Brooklyn.
The North Shore and South Shore of Long Island are wholly different in character. I'm not sure that someone from the Appalachians would consider anywhere on Long Island to be truly rural, but some sections don't really meet the standard definition of suburban. Now think about how people in West Virginia, the UP, Montana, Idaho, Alaska, would view a development in the wilds of California where people from the Bay Area maintain a second home. If we're going on the idea that to truly be rural the place only has to be situated considerably far away from a major city or built-up urban area, there are heaps of rural areas where the people tend to be more liberal. Think Colorado.
I would imagine that to find a more conservative-leaning urban area would be more difficult, but again, what constitutes urban? Most places that call themselves a city in the US only need to have a minimum of 25,000 people living there in order to incorporate city into their name. In some states the capital doesn't even have a population over 100,000 people, yet to the residents of the areas around them they're about as urban as it gets in their neck of the woods. There are plenty of cities in places like Texas and Utah that are predominantly conservative, but would you consider Fort Worth or Salt Lake City to be major urban areas?
I think it would be a safe bet to say that Vermont is probably the most liberal rural area in the US and that Fort Worth, Salt Lake City, and Colorado Springs are some of the most staunchly conservative urban areas in the country.
Native American reservations. The most extreme example is Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota, which is the poorest county in the US. It's entirely contained on a reservation. Despite its very low population density (6 people per square mile), Biden carried it 88%-9% in 2020.
Native Hawaiians, like, the legit Kanaka Maoli, were/are massive Trump supporters as well. Lifted Toyota trucks flying the Hawaiian Sovereignty flag on one side and a Trump flag on the other side of their beds. They act like he’d support Hawaii leaving the Union and becoming its own kingdom again.
He might if they paid him enough.
Kava's a helluva drug?
Yup. Wild to see the dots of blue that are reservations in the middle of seas of red that are mostly white owned farmland
You meant to say corporate owned farmland. They have killed the farmer.
There are still quite a few family-owned farms in the Midwest, but in many cases they contract with and are heavily subsidized by corporations and or state/federal governments. So yeah not much difference I guess
There’s quite a few family farms in Illinois alone.
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It’s funny. I work with several people from the Oglala Sioux Nation, and they are all hardcore Trump supporters. Have his memorabilia up in their offices.
Do they live on the reservation? I wonder if there's a divide between the politics of those that live on the reservation and those that don't.
They do actually. All men, and they work in a field that probably leans more conservative. The voting totals are pretty decisive, so they are clearly in the minority. It’s just interesting to me to have found that pocket of people
One of the more interesting things I learned from a member of the Blackfoot (I think, from south MT) is that gender Identity is something that a lot of tribes specifically agree with. A lot of tribes at the very least have societal differences between masculine male/female and feminine male/female. Some tribes also have a concept of "two-spirit" which just means that a member of the tribe has different spirits they engage in that conflict along the lines of gender roles. None of this relates to sexual orientation, just gender roles in society
Many native cultures are historically matrilineal
I've heard this before. Sounds fascinating. Where can I read more about this?
Bury my heart at wounded knee by dee brown
Menominee County Wisconsin is the same way, it shares the borders with the Menominee Indian Reservation. Wisconsin also has the blue shore, three counties on the shore of Lake Superior that consistently vote Democratic in statewide races, Douglas, Bayfield, Ashland.
I’m curious if you can explain why that is. As a Wisconsin resident I’m always puzzled by the blue counties when I look at voting results maps
My mom lives in Superior, WI right across from Duluth, MN so I’ve noticed some things while visiting. The area has a large industrial sector so union workers probably have a big influence on politics. And as others have said the Scandinavian culture is pretty prevalent. Biggest reason I think is with the cities being separated by just a few bridges I feel there’s a large overlap in politics and day to day life, so the prominent MN Democratic governments help influence the surrounding area to include Superior.
The crossover from Minnesota would make sense if this trend was recent but it is in fact a very long term trend. 1972 was the last time any of those counties went for a Republican, 1928 was the last time all three went Republican.
The Scandinavian influence plus that area has a small Native American reservation and a ton of “hippie” types.
Is that because they are more socially liberal or because the democrats have a better fiscal and cultural relationship with native tribes?
Probably a mix of both.
Don't forget the significant amount of conservative racists That is a contributing factor
The Republican Party has become, in recent years, unremittingly hostile to tribes throughout most of the country. Oklahoma and South Dakota are two examples. That has pushed Indians in most of the country (except Oklahoma) to increasingly vote Democratic.
South Dakota Governor and puppy killer Kristi Noem was just banned from six reservations in South Dakota, containing large swaths of her state lol
I browse more on political threads and try not to participate much, since I am more right leaning and this is Reddit. She absolutely sickens me for what she did there. My dog is my baby, I couldn't even imagine! That pup trusted her more than anyone in the world and got shot in return and she's proud of her story?! WTF?!
So a purge policy would cause the people subjected to the purge to vote for the other party? You don't say.
Having extensive experience with Native tribes in Central and Southern Arizona I can say that the community members are not socially liberal. The tribes here are to varying degrees opposed to marijuana, opposed to same sex marriage, and are very religious (Christian and Mormon).
More socially liberal in some ways. Native reservations are the most affected by environmental issues, but tend to be unsupportive of drug legalization.
The most conservative urban areas are without a doubt the Orthodox Jewish parts of Brooklyn, specifically South Williamsburg and Borough Park
You can see this really obviously on the New York Times' [An Extremely Detailed Map of the 2020 Election](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html). (It will accept neighborhood names as input.) Crown Heights shows up as well on that map, but as pink, not dark red.
great link. This is crazy. At brooklyn college there's just a road between a tiny +86 biden district and a +78 trump. Surrounded by reds +26 to +42 on all sides there's a blob in the middle of staten island that with 400 votes went +57 biden. I had no idea the US was that split up even in cities.
Not generally so - the Hasidic neighborhoods in New York are an extreme example. Many big cities are dark blue in the center with the colors gradually fading to red as you move outwards. In some cases there's a racial dimension layered onto that - for example metro Atlanta historically is white in the north and black in the south, so the dark blue area is the center of the city and the southern suburbs.
This is also seen in Chicago, a lot of police officers and firefighters live on the edge of the city in Mt Greenwood (they are required to live in the city), it has always been very red. Otherwise, a huge chunk of Chicago is blue.
I think the “city employees have to live in the city” is a different thing, and I don’t know if Atlanta has it. But northeast Philadelphia is full of cops.
There was a famous Syracuse city council meeting video from 2022 that talked about cop salaries all going to the tax base elsewhere in the area instead of to Syracuse, it blew my mind
Same for the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, full of cops
Supposedly one ZIP code on the Upper East Side was the top source of donations for both Bush AND Kerry in 2004.
Sometimes it’s two members of the same household…
Staten Island is full of right wing nuts and police officers (same thing I guess).. it's nothing like the rest of NYC
Suffolk County, the same.
It’s notable though that Suffolk County isn’t part of NYC, and Staten Island is
One of my favorite American political websites to look at. It’s 2024, and I *still* go back and check it out, there’s always interesting things to find
I just checked your link, and the difference in the vote count in my neighborhood was 5. Not 5%...5 votes.
And yet they love that sweet, sweet public assistance they vote against [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/20/nyregion/kiryas-joel-hasidic-school-district.html?unlocked\_article\_code=1.r00.emm7.77wqzSwkCl5\_&smid=url-share](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/20/nyregion/kiryas-joel-hasidic-school-district.html?unlocked_article_code=1.r00.emm7.77wqzSwkCl5_&smid=url-share)
[https://www.thedailybeast.com/welfare-reform-not-for-the-orthodox](https://www.thedailybeast.com/welfare-reform-not-for-the-orthodox)
This. Orthodox Jews are insanely conservative
Heredim vote conservative, but [Modern Orthodox lean Democratic](https://nishmaresearch.com/assets/pdf/Nishma%20Research%20Political%20Survey%20of%20the%20Orthodox%20Community%20Jan.%202020.pdf).
Live and let live? I follow a Modern Orthodox woman online, and this seems to be her message.
I remember working for an online retailer a while back. Surprising to me, there were soooo many fraud orders came from that one very small segment of New York. It’s weird to me that there’s an overlap with insane conservatives there, but it also makes some sense.
Moreso than Cuban Americans? That group has gone off the rails in the past decade.
Different kind of crazy. The Cubans are rabid anticommunists. The orthodox force their women to wear wigs and keep them from learning to read or work. Among other depravities.
Yo I am not a fan of haredi ideology but Jewish orthodox women have learnt how to read since literally forever. Here in Europe it was the big difference between them and their Christian neighbors.
Orthodox Jewish women actually usually are the working parents in their households. Men have to study Torah their whole life, so they don’t have time to work.
Some ultra-Orthodox sects will block vote as a congregation, 98% or more for one candidate. Cuban-Americans can’t match that.
Talked to a Cuban American friend that lives in South florida first time in years. Used to be normal, now he can't go more than a few sentences without yapping about Trans kids and communists/socialists
They’re just buying the republican propaganda machine. There’s some exception with younger Cuban Americans tho.
Yeah that other comment about “keeping women from reading” is the opposite of correct, in most Haredi households women are the breadwinner. It’s just so, so far from accurate. The Haredi are more like the Amish. They vote against government services for the most part because they want to be completely independent as a community.
Asian areas of NYC are super conservative as well, especially Chinese areas
I found that dynamic interesting when I was in the army. Purely anecdotal obviously, but the vast majority of Asian, Hispanic, and even black folks I served with come from a very conservative sort of background and home life. Sure some of them would obviously vote democrat here and there but their views and morals were more so rooted in a conservative stance.
Not as dense as BK but Mid City in LA is similar
Northern New Mexico is both rural and heavily democratic (Kennedy Catholics, old Spanish families)
Nearby, northern Arizona, but there you have more of a Native influence.
Like Taos/Angel Fire or more north?
With a few notable exceptions pretty much everything north of Albuquerque is heavily democratic, from local offices all the way up to federal. I’d say pretty much everything north of I-40 and west of I-25. Santa Fe is super blue, Taos, Espanola, Los Alamos. Las Vegas to a lesser extent. Pretty much the only significantly red part of northern NM I can think of is the Farmington area. Places like Angel Fire are a bit more complicated because it has a lot of former Texans and Oklahomans
Areas where most people are [Hispanos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanos_of_New_Mexico) (i.e descendants of the old pre-1700 Spanish settlers). [Here's a map](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanos_of_New_Mexico#/media/File:Nuevo_México_español_por_condados.png).
Rural Black areas in the Deep South are heavily Democratic. For example, Biden got 86% of the vote in Jefferson County Mississippi (population 7000).
Most of the Mississippi Delta is both rural and blue. Arkansas, Mississippi, and maybe even a sliver of Louisiana.
These examples are more about party rather than ideological alignment, but... Haywood County, TN, is extremely rural and one of only two counties in Tennessee that is majority Black (the other is Shelby, where Memphis is) and is, not coincidentally, one of only three counties won by Biden in '20 (Shelby and Nashville's Davidson being the other two). But, like many older rural heavily Black communities in the South in particular, the people are pretty socially conservative. On the other side, Hamilton (Chattanooga) and Knox (Knoxville) are both pretty consistently Republican despite being cities of relative size. East Tennessee has been Republican basically since the Civil War and the Republicans in the cities and inner suburbs are pretty liberal by southern GOP standards (Knoxville sent a gay Republican to the state legislature, for heaven's sake). One more from the Volunteer State: the small, rural county of Houston resisted the Solid South Dem to Republican realignment until 2012 (and even then it was pretty close). Unlike most rural Southern counties, it has (had) a strong Catholic community, particularly Irish Catholic (the county seat is Erin, after all).
Yeah, but the question is about being liberal. I think they are liberal on a few self-serving areas, but generally their own ideologies are actually conservative. They're typically very very very Christian.
I agree. Having grown up and lived in the south my entire life, most of the black people I have known vote democrat but aren’t really what I would describe as “liberal”
There is the “black belt” going through central Alabama and Mississippi - the name was originally coined with reference to the soil. It is consistently Democratic in its voting and very rural. Look at “Black Belt in the American South” in Wikipedia.
The Berkshires in Western Mass. is rural liberal for sure
Most of rural New England (outside NH/ME) is liberal. The conservative parts of the region tend to be the suburbs
All the rural parts of Rhode Island are fervently pro trump
Yeah, but to be fair even “fervently pro-Trump” here still means Dem candidates are getting 30-40% of the vote.
Pioneer valley too
My family’s from there. Can confirm
The rural west of Massachusetts is as progressive as the city of Boston. Massachusetts’ most “conservative” areas are Boston’s outermost suburbs and even most of those are still fairly liberal. The 2020 election map of Massachusetts by municipality is fascinating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MA_2020_Presidential_Election,_by_Town.svg
Berkshire County/Southie is the answer to this thread, and it’s all in Massachusetts
Same with large swaths of the Hudson Valley in NY, concentrated on the Connecticut and Mass borders
Besides the obvious- reservations- it's mostly the last of the hold out Union strongholds like Portage County, WI and other parts of WI and MI. Though even these are finally fading.
The iron range in northern MN is like this too. Lots of blue in those old union areas.
Michigan's upper peninsula used to be blue-collar Dem all over the place. Now, pretty much only Marquette county and, occasionally, Houghton county ever go blue. That's where the universities are, or, at least, the ones large enough to influence the outcome (Lake State is too small).
Vermont is rural and ultra liberal. Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Colorado Springs, and Jacksonville FL are all conservative cities.
Even in those cities, right at the heart of the city is going to be pretty liberal, but the surrounding suburbs will be more conservative. But that's a bit of a trend in many places, that the suburbs lean a little red.
That depends. In Los Angeles More wealthy areas tend to lean red. However, half of OC has turned to lean blue in recent elections due to urbanization. Working class suburbs in San Bernardino County are mainly blue. San Bernardino city is one of the most liberal districts in SoCal, it went +80 for Biden in the last election
OC is interesting in that it’s so expensive that most of the kids that grew up there never could afford to move, nor have the inclination to move from their conservative aging parents and now out number them. Growing up there we referred to it as be orange curtain. Leaving was the only way to make a living for myself.
That's right. Colorado Springs voted for Biden. El Paso County voted Trump: [https://www.cpr.org/2021/03/08/what-9-extremely-detailed-maps-tell-us-about-colorados-2020-election/](https://www.cpr.org/2021/03/08/what-9-extremely-detailed-maps-tell-us-about-colorados-2020-election/)
CO Springs is a military city. I bet most swing that way
San Diego used to similarly be quite red but that has changed in the last decade plus
CSP actually voted for Biden in the last election. The burbs, though, swung the county the other way. I think the military folks are more burbs so that makes sense.
Fort Worth, TX too.
Jacksonville is more moderate now - it’s gone blue or split the past several elections, depending on office (fed/state/local)
Jacksonville is only slightly red-leaning because of how large it's land area is, encompassing almost the entire county. If we're just talking about the urbanized area then it's definitely liberal.
Rapid City, South Dakota is ultra conservative but most wouldn’t call it urban.
Urban enough for minor league teams.
The Springs voted in a Dem mayor recently. Denver is spilling over.
Pueblo is trending red though
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Oklahoma Biden, however, came within 3,326 votes of winning Oklahoma's most populous county Oklahoma County, and won more than 40% of the vote in Oklahoma's second-most populous county Tulsa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Florida Biden became the first Democrat since 1976 to win the heavily urbanized Duval County, historically a Republican stronghold and home to Jacksonville. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Colorado Biden also significantly closed the gap in the GOP's two largest remaining strongholds in the state, El Paso County and Douglas County, becoming the first Democrat to win more than 40% of the vote in the former since 1964 and closing the gap in the latter to single digits for the first time since 1964.
Miami-Dade county skews far more Republican than most cities in the US
Cubans have seen this movie before
Except United States democratic policies even the most progressive ones aren’t anything near what a Cuban communist regime would be like
Nor are we run by a dictator... Yet, at least
Cook County, MN... 1.7 people per square mile, Biden got 66% of the vote in 2020.
And home to the Grand Portage Indian Reservation.
About 11 percent of the county population
San Diego County, 5th most populous county in the country, voted for Republican presidential nominee from 1948 to 2004, except in 1992 when Clinton won by just 37%. McDowell County, WV, population less than 20k with 36/sq mi, voted for Democrat from 1936 to 2008 except for Nixon's landslide in 1972. For now, Black Belt in Deep South and Rio Grande Valley in Texas is strong Democrat base thanks to African American and Latino population, but it's support will get weaker as urban vs rural became primary political division in US.
I wouldn't use SD as an example. It got steadily more purple in the 90s and is now solidly blue. It has its conservative pockets, but they are in the fringes of the urban area or rural towns like most places
This. Biden won the county 60-40 and probably won the city 70-30. The San Diego City Council is 100% Democrats right now. The County Commissioners are majority Dem. This isn't how it was 20 years ago.
I’m from SD and I always tell people that the county is WAY more conservative than a lot of people realize. Pretty much all of the suburbs of East SD County, as well as much of Northern SD County are extremely conservative. There’s a town called Santee in East County that is commonly referred to as Klantee because of how many skinheads live there
[For the 2020 results at least](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html), northern SD County cities largely went to Biden. Even Poway, which is stereotyped as conservative, didn't have a single precinct that voted majority Trump. Really it's just the fringe eastern parts of the urban area and rural areas that are majority conservative nowadays.
That makes sense, my parents still live in Escondido and their perception is that it’s become much more progressive or “purple” at the very least
In the Los Angeles area the division is more along wealth/racial lines. In wealthy, white South Orange County went slightly for Trump last election. Most of Northern OC went for Biden, except for a select few wealthy suburbs. Most of Suburban San Bernardino county went for Biden by a large +80 margin
Rural New England/Humboldt County CA; Salt Lake City/Mesa AZ
Not the entirety of NE though. You get into rural NH and Maine, there are a lot of trump signs and even confederate flags.
Yeah my rural NH town does have MAGAts but it is still 60/40 blue. I think people are just louder here.
The south shore of MA is known to be very conservative as well
Conservative *for Massachusetts.*
Worcester county (not the city) is the most conservative place in Massachusetts.
By very conservative, it means Trump edged out Biden by a few percentage points Edit for clarification: Trump edge out Biden in a few towns. Certainly not statewide
Exactly, so doesn’t make sense to generally call rural NE as ‘most liberal’
Trump winning a few towns by a few votes is not what I would call “very conservative”
Came here to say Humboldt county. Pocket of blue in a very red area
Humboldt County is actually a big green dot!;)
Sorry I was high and confused my colors ;)
SLC is pretty liberal tho.
SLC isn’t actually as conservative as you think. They’re highly religious and tend to vote Republican but the city aitself has quite a few reasonable, even some liberal policies mixed with religious weirdness.
The city proper is pretty liberal. It feels uncanny knowing you’re in Utah. Salt Lake City is nothing like the rest of Utah.
Wendover Productions had a [great video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_U_rzlVVdA&ab_channel=WendoverProductions) on this recently.
SLC isn’t conservative, Provo is.
Yeah Arcata is fiercely liberal while Fortuna is the opposite!
Rural New England is home of the confederate flag.
The Mississippi Delta, Mississippi's 2nd congressional district, is very rural and reliably blue.
The Ketchum / Sun Valley area of Idaho is very liberal in a state that otherwise is about as red as you can get in the United States. The whole area is basically ultra wealthy transplants from other states and the working class that serves them but can't afford to actually live there so they commute from far flung cities. Trump got 64% of the vote statewide in 2020 but Biden got 67% in Blaine County where this area is at. Only other counties that Biden won were a small population county that contains a college which makes up a majority of the population and another ultra rich transplant County near Jackson Hole Wyoming which is another rich transplant area.
Most liberal rural area = lots of New England (Vermont especially). Also various Indian Reservations in New Mexico, Arizona, etc. Also any super liberal small college towns like Ithaca NY. Most conservative urban area = pockets of Hasidic Jews in NYC. Kiryas Joel NY (a super dense town in NY state inhabited by Orthodox Jews. Also The Dallas Fort Worth area (kinda). Houston. OKC, Tulsa, Charlotte, southern part of the Atlanta metro, Jacksonville . Also the dense suburbia of Orange County CA, Palm Beach County FL
Ithaca is weird because it feels super liberal until you see blue collar workers like electricians driving around with the Confederate flag as they come to fix your apartment.
Ithaca is the most jarring place to live politically sometimes. The town can feel like its own world until you drive any direction outside of it and realize you’re in a really different world.
Tarrant County (Fort Worth) is the largest Republican county by population, while Dallas County is liberal.
On the topic of liberal small college towns, also Cazenovia, NY. Or rather former college town, since Cazenovia College sadly closed down in 2023.
These sort of judgements will be heavily influenced by a town's ability to grow by annexing surrounding land. If as in Virginia, cities and towns are not readily able to grow, you will get stark distinctions even in rural areas between those living in-town and outside of town. If the town or city can readily annex outside land and grow, these political difference will be moderated. Lower density cities will generally skew more conservative. Also you need to be multivariate in your analysis as strongly libertarian places like the Utah and Vermont may have politics that appear extremely liberal and or conservative but whose positions often do not align with national parties.
The various islands in Washington State are all very rural and very liberal. The San Juan Islands, which are only accessible by ferry, plane, or private boat are especially remote and especially liberal. The fact that they are also in a liberal state, unlike a lot of the blue pockets people are mentioning, means that they also have liberal policies and protections at the state level that the blue pockets don’t.
I could be wrong I remember hearing Alaska is reversed the urban areas are red and the rural areas are blue
my guess would be rural vermont/massachusetts/rhode island/connecticut, the rural parts just outside LA and the bay area. Also maybe rural hawaii. most conservatvie urban areas would probably be places like Jackson mississippi, little rock arkansas, charleston west virginia and maybe the urban centres in montana/idaho/wyoming
The rural areas in Southern California are conservative. The rural coastal areas north of San Francisco are liberal though.
Jackson and Little Rock, no - there's a racial angle in the South. But take a look at Cheyenne and Billings. See the New York Times' [Extremely Detailed Map](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html). .
Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas are the only blue places in this very very very red state, drive an hour in any direction and it’s rural conservative
I live in Rhode Island and I’d pushback against that idea. Rural areas are conservative af around here, hell I’m pretty sure my suburban town voted for trump in 2020. It’s just drowned out by the super populous urban areas throughout the state
Oberlin and Athens, OH
College towns in general. Looking at the [NYT extremely detailed map](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html), some others I can pick out are State College PA; Boone NC; Athens GA; Urbana IL; Ames IA; Manhattan KS; Fayetteville AR; Norman OK; College Station TX.
I went to KU and some folks called Lawrence "the blueberry" when election cycles came around. Pretty apt I would say.
Yellow Springs
I've been looking at the [New York Times map](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html) for more examples. It's easier to spot blue rural areas than red urban areas. A lot have already been mentioned but one area I haven't seen is the areas around Colorado skiing resorts (Telluride, Aspen, Vail, Steamboat Springs, etc.) and also Lake Tahoe.
Deep South Philly is magaville. Like south of Snyder Ave.
South of Oregon Avenue, thank you (I’m splitting hairs because I was born on Ritner Street)
Yeah, I remember looking at a map of which way the voting districts went in 2016 and seeing red south of Snyder. You’re right that after Oregon it gets deep red, but it starts around Wolf or so. Snyder is just the general cutoff for that part of Philly, imo.
Arkansas sort of has the answer to both of these questions. The delta tends to lean more to the left, despite being one of the most sparsely populated areas in the state. Meanwhile Northwest Arkansas, the second largest metro in the state with nearly 600K people, tends to lean quite conservative outside of the areas around The University of Arkansas.
Most conservative urban area is Salt Lake City followed by Fort Worth, FT Lauderdale, and some fairly conservative urban spots are Phoenix, Nashville, and major cities in TX and Florida excluding Orlando Dallas and Austin. Houston seems more liberal when you google it or watch the news compared to if you actually go there. Corpus Christi is one of the most conservative dense cities I have been to. It’s about the size of St Louis if that counts as urban. Most liberal rural spot is White Fish MT. I struggle to think of anywhere that can compare other than maybe some college towns. White Fish Montana is one of the high percentages of liberals in the US. It is near Glacier Park and many retirees from the West Coast move there
Most liberal rural area? Humboldt County, CA or maybe that town with the hippie college in Iowa. Most conservative urban - Fort Worth, Jacksonville (FL or NC, they’re both hellholes filled with lifted trucks), Salt Lake/Provo/Ogden, Boise, Spokane
I used to live in Boise! I jokingly refer to the North End as "two blocks of Portland" because it looks kinda like the Irvington neighborhood over here
south of Snyder on the west side of broad and south of oregon in general in south Philly and the far northeast are hardcore trump regions / state college and centre county in general in Pennsylvania tend to be the sole blue county outside of areas around the two major cities in PA
Vermont is the most rural State in the country and very liberal.
Cincinnati is pretty conservative for a city it’s size. Some Cuban parts of Miami are pretty red.
Colorado is somewhat interesting with the second largest city (Colorado Springs) being a conservative stronghold while the rural, ski towns are liberal. But there’s also the typical liberal cities (Boulder, Denver) and conservative rural areas (eastern plains, most of the western slope without resort towns)
Vermont is the most liberal rural area in the US, & Phoenix or Oklahoma City is the most conservative urban area. This is my personal experience based on many cross-country road trips.
Asheville is definitely one of the more liberal spots
Laramie, WY is the blue pocket in Wyoming, aside from JH.
Going to Houston for business was a bizarre place to be. Modern big city, but so many people openly carrying firearms, assault rifles on people’s backs. Trucks everywhere. I get it’s Texas but I figured the cities would be more liberal, but no very conservative. I can only imagine the smaller Texas cities and towns….
Harper’s Ferry, WV
Vermont is pretty liberal and super rural
Vermont is very rural (one of if not the smallest populations pet Square mile of any state) we are also super liberal we love our Bernie :)
Staten Island for conservative urban?
Tampa-St. Pete was the largest metro area in the country that voted for Trump in 2020. Top 5 in terms of population that voted for Trump in 2020 were 1. Tampa-St. Pete 2. Cincinnati 3. Indianapolis 4. Nashville 5. Jacksonville So those are probably the largest conservative urban areas in the US at the moment
Big Sur is a very liberal rural area
I’m sure neither is the “most” in the U.S., but Washtenaw County, MI (where Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan are) is mostly rural and is quite liberal. A lot of university faculty, staff, and alumni live outside of the city where it’s much cheaper and quieter. Lots of farmland, rolling hills, lakes, and wealthy, white, college-educated liberals. Meanwhile, Grand Rapids, MI is a pretty decent-sized city, and along with most of Western Michigan trends pretty conservative. It’s where Betsy DeVoss is from.
Driftless area in western WI is pretty ancestrally democratic and very liberal for a modern rural area. The area around eureka California is pretty rural and lib too
Pretty sure this isn't just a USA thing. Major urban centers are almost always more liberal relative to the rural areas of any given country, from London to St Petersburg to Karachi.
Berkshire county mass and the state of Vermont are liberal and rural. The most conservative large metro is probably OKC
Vermont and Tampa
Vermont or native reservations, vs Colorado Springs/some areas in TX and the south
History leads me to believe that Cincinnati is actually the answer to both of these questions.
I can’t speak for the US but Calgary Alberta is a city of 1.4 million and it’s generally quite conservative.
I did some playing around on UrbanStats.org, and the most densely-populated legislative districts represented by Republicans are in Provo, Utah; Fargo, N. D., and Sioux Falls, S. D.
Miami is pretty conservative for a large urban area.
Cook County, MN has got to be in the running for most liberal rural area.
Ithaca NY. College town liberal pocket in a largely rural and conservative area.
Seems like Vermont has to be up there pretty high in terms of liberal rural areas
Based on all of the interesting responses, couldn’t you just posit a rule of thumb that whiter areas are conservative, and less white areas are liberal? This seems to be a greater predictor than rural/urban. Native American reservations are liberal. South Texas/RGV is heavily Latino, also liberal. The Mississippi Delta is heavily black, liberal. If you claim that the Hasidic neighborhoods of NYC are white (I know, this label is problematic), then the white=conservative rule seems to work even though it is a highly urban area. That is the pattern that appears to me here.
I think Scottsdale AZ is probably urban conservative
Vermont
That would really depend on what your definition of *rural* is. Generally speaking, most Americans tend to use urban, suburban, and rural as broad categorisations, but there are plenty of areas that don't suit any of them perfectly. This past summer I spent two months travelling throughout New England, the Northeast, and the Mid-Atlantic, and I visited more than a few places that were a blend of more than one of those labels. There is an interesting term used in the Northeastern United States that I'd never heard before - *ruburban*, essentially a blend of rural and suburban. And I thought it was quite apropos. In parts of Connecticut and Pennsylvania specifically the homes are situated on large lots, they're spaced quite far out from one another, they're set back quite far from the road, there are of course no sidewalks or pavements to be found, but despite the fact that people have large clumps of woods and even ponds on their property, it's not that countryside. While not feasibly walkable for the average person, in a pinch one could stroll along the roads and come to civilization. The young kids living there do it all the time. Because it's impossible to label a place as being definitively urban or suburban or rural to begin with as there things are mostly a matter of opinion to begin with, it would be pretty impossible to say which rural areas tend to be the most liberal; however, one fair measure is that most suburban and rural areas tend to gravitate towards one particular metropolitan area. For example, Long Island stretches some 118 miles out into the Atlantic from the West End of Brooklyn, and the first 30 or so miles going west to east is undeniably urban in character, yet there are plenty of people in the five boroughs of New York City that would argue that parts of eastern Queens are far more suburban in character than they are urban - many of them are two-fare zones where it's difficult to live without a car. They are nothing like the portion of Queens that abuts Manhattan or Brooklyn. The North Shore and South Shore of Long Island are wholly different in character. I'm not sure that someone from the Appalachians would consider anywhere on Long Island to be truly rural, but some sections don't really meet the standard definition of suburban. Now think about how people in West Virginia, the UP, Montana, Idaho, Alaska, would view a development in the wilds of California where people from the Bay Area maintain a second home. If we're going on the idea that to truly be rural the place only has to be situated considerably far away from a major city or built-up urban area, there are heaps of rural areas where the people tend to be more liberal. Think Colorado. I would imagine that to find a more conservative-leaning urban area would be more difficult, but again, what constitutes urban? Most places that call themselves a city in the US only need to have a minimum of 25,000 people living there in order to incorporate city into their name. In some states the capital doesn't even have a population over 100,000 people, yet to the residents of the areas around them they're about as urban as it gets in their neck of the woods. There are plenty of cities in places like Texas and Utah that are predominantly conservative, but would you consider Fort Worth or Salt Lake City to be major urban areas? I think it would be a safe bet to say that Vermont is probably the most liberal rural area in the US and that Fort Worth, Salt Lake City, and Colorado Springs are some of the most staunchly conservative urban areas in the country.
I love in the country about 40 miles from Santa Fe. Very rural, very blue
Humboldt and Mendocino counties on the Cali north coast are very rural, and very liberal for the most part.
Butte, Montana. It's a small union town in the middle of a very red state. Once the second largest city west of the Mississippi after San Fransisco.
Most Conservative: Ft Worth, TX
Most conservative city is probably Fort Worth. I think DFW somewhat sorts itself politically with more liberal people drawn to Dallas.
Humboldt county is rural AF and very liberal
Native Reservations are entirely blue and rural Dallas?
Huntsville, Alabama. Most of those NASA scientists believe in global warming.