The people in these counties deeply care about environmental issues, including/especially the wealthy home owners.
Notice how at the same time WV swung against the Dems because they wanted to destroy the Earth, these places swung for the Dems because they kinda don’t want to destroy the Earth.
It’s especially easy to want to conserve when much of your lifestyle/town depends on it.
The wealthy home owners here also don’t mind the Dems raising taxes if it means they get to prevent their ski slopes from degrading. I would argue climate change is the number 1 reason the GOP won’t win these places back.
Interestingly enough, I have a theory that a bunch of WV counties will soon become tourist centers and will act like the ski counties out here in the 2040s.
By this theory, wouldn't a county like Sevier, TN, that is heavily influenced by the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge mountain tourism destination be a little less Republican? Now, it's not really known for skiing since it's in the South (though, there is actually one place above Gatlinburg that does offer skiing on artificial snow in the winter), but it's still a mountain town reliant on tourism. I guess a decent number of people live in Sevierville (rather than Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge), but DRA shows that Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge themselves are much more Republican. Of course, Pigeon Forge especially feels more like Myrtle Beach that just happens to be in the mountains, so that's part of it (even though Gatlinburg tries to give off a sophisticated vibe). Wouldn't a hypothetical West Virginia tourism spot wind up more like that than the ski slopes of Colorado?
I think you got the nail on the head with the MB comparison. Horry is one of the most republican county in the state (possibly the whole east coast) because it attracts “republican tourist”. That’s the difference between Sevier, Horry, etc. then these “ski resort counties”. You can see this a little in South Carolina as Horry is growing and staying republican while Charleston is growing and turning blue due to attracting “democratic” tourists
