Almost every part of Franklin County is strongly Democratic, it having undergone the same political transformation in the late twentieth century as the rest of Western Massachusetts and Vermont.
The swing towards Democrats in this region is fascinating. Crazy to look at past election results (of both states) compared to now. I've seen that it was due to the in migration of liberals from New York? And does the extreme conservative nature of the Republicans play into that as well?
Yes and yes. First a more left-wing population base started migrating in from New York and Boston, then the original population base became more left-wing as well both because of social influence from their new neighbors and from how far right the Republicans moved.
I was always under the impression that, while a lot of NY/Boston folks started
vacationing in western MA/VT, the absolute number of people that moved there were actually pretty small, certainly too small to move the partisan needle like it's been moved. Though the growth of that tourism certainly plays a part as well in terms of changing the attitudes and incentives of the locals.
I wonder if conservatives moving away to other parts of the country plays a part as well?
