Why has Colin County trended so much to the left while Montgomery hasn't budged?

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Title. Both were around the same in 2004, both are exurban Texas counties, but for whatever reason even in 2012 Colin County voted significantly to the left and in 2018 there was almost a 20 point gap between the two. What happened?

[Sol]

Collin is more heavily inner-ring suburbs--more Fort Bend than Montgomery as far as distance from the central city is concerned.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Collin is more heavily inner-ring suburbs--more Fort Bend than Montgomery as far as distance from the central city is concerned.

What is the "Montgomery" of Dallas then?

[ON Progressive]

Not only what Sol said, but also Collin is less white and much more educated.

Collin County is currently 56% non-Hispanic white according to 2018 Census estimates, while Montgomery is 65% non-Hispanic white. 51% of Collin County residents have at least a bachelor's degree, compared to just 34% in Montgomery County.

[cvparty]

Collin is more heavily inner-ring suburbs--more Fort Bend than Montgomery as far as distance from the central city is concerned.

What is the "Montgomery" of Dallas then?

some parts of tarrant are similar

[DINGO Joe]

Not only what Sol said, but also Collin is less white and much more educated.

Collin County is currently 56% non-Hispanic white according to 2018 Census estimates, while Montgomery is 65% non-Hispanic white. 51% of Collin County residents have at least a bachelor's degree, compared to just 34% in Montgomery County.

Fort Bend's college education is 46%.  I'm really out of touch with metro Houston.  I guess Montgomery is more like the Parker of DFW.

[Oryxslayer]

Not only what Sol said, but also Collin is less white and much more educated.

Collin County is currently 56% non-Hispanic white according to 2018 Census estimates, while Montgomery is 65% non-Hispanic white. 51% of Collin County residents have at least a bachelor's degree, compared to just 34% in Montgomery County.

Fort Bend's college education is 46%.  I'm really out of touch with metro Houston.  I guess Montgomery is more like the Parker of DFW.

DFW doesn't really have a 'Montgomery' because  of how Texas breaks down culturally. This culture, influenced by geography and history, determined settlement patterns. DFW is more a 'plains' or western style city that sprawls outwards  and consumes suburbs identity-wise into the greater whole - think Phoenix, Denver, or Kansas City. Houston is more  Southern alligned, and has the  racial voting patterns we expect from thee south. Houston, while gready with annexations, has left places like Montgomery or Gavelston to develop their own Suburban identities. Montgomery has many cousins to the west outside  of Baton Rouge, Birmingham, and Columbia SC.

[lfromnj]

Collin is more heavily inner-ring suburbs--more Fort Bend than Montgomery as far as distance from the central city is concerned.

What is the "Montgomery" of Dallas then?

The counties surrounding the big 4.

[ElectionsGuy]

Montgomery has budged, just not as much. It used to vote 80% R easily now votes 70-75% R. Montgomery is (for comparison's sake) the equivalent of what would be the northern halves of Denton and Collin along with the counties north of that. It's only slightly suburban and mostly exurban. Denton and Collin are mostly suburban and slightly exurban.

[jimrtex]

It is 20 miles from Dallas to Plano, 30 miles from Houston to The Woodlands.

North is the preferred growth direction for Dallas, and better educated, better paid persons will move to Collin County which is largely suburban sprawl. Plano itself has a lot of office jobs, which while not requiring a college education would likely require college credentials.

If one wanted some wooded land with terrain, where they could have horses or ride four-wheelers, Montgomery would be much preferred. Firefighters who might only commute once a week, and can have a side business would much prefer Montgomery. Montgomery is better placed relative to IAH, than Collin is to DFW, particularly for workers who might not have a college degree.

Someone could buy a lot and build a house in Montgomery or Magnolia, or Willis or Splendora, while in their 50s, intended it to also be their retirement home. That's not going to be the case in Frisco, McKinney, etc. where the housing is suburban tract homes.

[The Mikado]

For some reason, no one ever mentions the absolutely staggeringly large Asian American population (10%!) in Collin County when discussing its demographics.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

For some reason, no one ever mentions the absolutely staggeringly large Asian American population (10%!) in Collin County when discussing its demographics.

Isn't that mostly Vietnamese, who are an R-leaning demographic?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Anyway the two are not really that similar.

[lfromnj]

For some reason, no one ever mentions the absolutely staggeringly large Asian American population (10%!) in Collin County when discussing its demographics.

Isn't that mostly Vietnamese, who are an R-leaning demographic?

Its lots of Indians. IIRc planes 6% Indian and vietnamese would actually explain the 2012 to 2016 swing considering Romney won them in 2012 bt 10 but Trump lost em by 30.

[Smash255]

Title. Both were around the same in 2004, both are exurban Texas counties, but for whatever reason even in 2012 Colin County voted significantly to the left and in 2018 there was almost a 20 point gap between the two. What happened?

Colin is a bit more suburban than Montgomery.  It is also the type of suburban area that has been trending hard against the GOP.   It is more diverse than Montgomery, also just about half of Colin county's population has a Bachelor's degree, just over 1/3 of Montgomery's population does. 

[The Mikado]

I just feel like people don't talk about the very large Asian population in Texas' allegedly "lily-white" suburbs enough as part of the factor as to how their voting patterns have changed so quickly. Even areas where the black population is only 2 or 3% and the Hispanic population not much higher will be 15% or so Asian.

Texas as a whole is 4.4% Asian, but that's overwhelmingly concentrated in a few areas so there are some pretty dense concentrations.

[Tekken_Guy]

Montgomery is less uniform than Collin. The Woodlands may be a typical “rich suburban” town, but Conroe is mostly blue-collar and shifting rightward.

[Indy Texas]

A few areas of contrast:

HISTORY:
The area that would become the DFW metroplex, including Collin County, was initially settled by people from the Upper South and some Yankees. Slaveholding wasn't a major institution in the area - it was mostly ranching and smallholder white farmers. Secessionist sentiment was relatively mild.

Montgomery County, along with most of southeast Texas, was settled by people from the Lower South. It's more culturally Southern. It was once a major hub for the timber industry, which tended to be very right-wing (this is also part of why the Tyler-Longview area went Republican before the rest of East Texas). In 1968, it was one of the few Texas counties carried by George Wallace - emblematic of the exurban white character of the county.

INDUSTRY:
DFW is, nowadays, basically a headquarters headquarters. It's a favorite area for multinational/national corporations to relocate to because it has low taxes but many of the benefits of higher tax states (a nice international airport, ample supply of educated workers, new roads). More and more people are corporate transplants from elsewhere.

Montgomery County is more blue-collar. The Woodlands, which is located at the very southern edge of the county, has mainly attracted oil and chemical company offices, which means your white collar workers may be more Republican-favorable than the white collar workers in Plano and Las Colinas.

GEOGRAPHY:
Collin County is much more built out and suburban in nature. Montgomery County still has wide swaths of mostly undeveloped areas that are a magnet for conservative white people who want to buy some cheap land and build a "homestead" where they can shoot their guns and ride their ATVs around. The eastern part of the county is basically poor white trash: they aren't voting Republican, but the people with a little bit more money who resent seeing the meth users buying groceries at Dollar General with an EBT card definitely are.

[Indy Texas]

Collin is more heavily inner-ring suburbs--more Fort Bend than Montgomery as far as distance from the central city is concerned.

What is the "Montgomery" of Dallas then?

Johnson County and Ellis County

[lfromnj]

Also Montgomery county has even started moving left really. Trump only had a 500 worse vote margin than Mittens,