Northern Kentucky River Cities

[Sol]

(Paging Bandit)

Northern Kentucky is a highly conservative area, like most of the Cincinnati metro area. However, the areas nearest to Downtown Cincinnati along the river are fairly dense and are basically urban neighborhoods, and unsurprisingly vote Democratic.

However, these urban areas are still way less Democratic than you would expect. Going off of DRA and VEST data, Democrats still do way worse in these places than they do in Cincinnati across the river. In 2020, Trump outright won Ludlow and Dayton, and won a precinct each in Newport and Bellevue. Even in Covington, Biden's margins were fairly tepid for an urban area outside of the plurality Black Eastside neighborhood.

Is this just a function of Trump doing well with more working class voters? Or is it an example of the Cincy area having parochially Republican voting patterns? Or is it both?

[ProgressiveModerate]

I think it's definitely culturally related to the Cinci metro. One factor is that western and southern Cinci suburbs have a high German ancestry which tends to be a very Republican contingent of whites. In general, Cinci has pretty decent racial political polarization with very few liberal white pockets and the Kentucky side is almost entirely white. Map below



I think another factor is that frankly the Kentucky side of Cincinatti is still underdeveloped relative to Cinci. This is a common theme of American cities built on rivers that also serve as borders of two states like Omaha Louisville, and Memphis - one side just becomes really dominant and the other underdeveloped by comparison even if there is close proximity to downtown.

[Roll Roons]

The three NKY suburban counties aren't really WWC. They are all at (Boone) or above (Campbell and Kenton) the national average as far as college education goes. All three have trended left in the Trump era, but it doesn't get a huge amount of attention because the state isn't competitive and Democrats were starting from such a low base.

Cincy has always been a fairly conservative metro. Hamilton County was only Biden +16, while Franklin was Biden +31 and Cuyahoga was Biden +34. The city itself is deep blue, but a lot of the suburbs in Hamilton County (especially the western part) are still very red, as are Butler, Warren and Clermont Counties. Maybe one reason for this is that Cincy was largely settled by Germans and also has more of a Southern influence, while Northeast Ohio was settled by New England Yankees.

[Sol]

The three NKY suburban counties aren't really WWC. They are all at (Boone) or above (Campbell and Kenton) the national average as far as college education goes. All three have trended left in the Trump era, but it doesn't get a huge amount of attention because the state isn't competitive and Democrats were starting from such a low base.

This is true for the counties as a whole, but not for the specific area I was bringing up. Ludlow, Covington, Newport, Bellevue, and Dayton all make below the 2022 U.S. MHI, and all but Bellevue are below the college education average for those 25 and up.

[Sol]

I think another factor is that frankly the Kentucky side of Cincinatti is still underdeveloped relative to Cinci. This is a common theme of American cities built on rivers that also serve as borders of two states like Omaha Louisville, and Memphis - one side just becomes really dominant and the other underdeveloped by comparison even if there is close proximity to downtown.

I think this is true overall; development on the NKY side is definitely less, which is why this more urban part of northern Kentucky is mainly along the river. But it's not negligible either; these areas are comparable to urban parts of Cincinnati on WalkScore or Streetview. It's not the same thing as Council Bluffs or West Memphis.

[ottermax]

Really interesting topic; always surprised by how Republican the Cincinnati metro is - I believe it might be the most Republican metro now (of a certain size) due to the trends in the South towards Democrats?

Any idea why the suburbs of Cincinnati have been fairly resistant to the leftward swing of suburbs in this era?

[kwabbit]

Really interesting topic; always surprised by how Republican the Cincinnati metro is - I believe it might be the most Republican metro now (of a certain size) due to the trends in the South towards Democrats?

Any idea why the suburbs of Cincinnati have been fairly resistant to the leftward swing of suburbs in this era?

I don't think they have been resistant to trends. Butler and Clermont have below-average educational attainment. Warren and eastern Hamilton County, which are more educated, have pretty strong D trends.

[Sol]

Really interesting topic; always surprised by how Republican the Cincinnati metro is - I believe it might be the most Republican metro now (of a certain size) due to the trends in the South towards Democrats?

Any idea why the suburbs of Cincinnati have been fairly resistant to the leftward swing of suburbs in this era?

I don't think they have been resistant to trends. Butler and Clermont have below-average educational attainment. Warren and eastern Hamilton County, which are more educated, have pretty strong D trends.

Also, if you look at shifts over time all of the core metro counties have swung Democratic this century.