Large counties vs. small counties

[Verily]

-MA's less populous counties have lots of colleges, maybe?

Not particularly. They're just fairly Anglo, Vermont-like rural areas (Hampshire, Franklin and Berkshire Counties) or resort islands (Dukes/Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket).

Hampshire County does contain the Five Colleges, and Williams is in Berkshire County, but Williams contributes only a negligible amount of the Berkshire County vote, and of the Five Colleges, only UMass-Amherst is particularly large. Most MA college students are in Suffolk (BU, BC, Northeastern, UMass-Boston, etc.) or Middlesex (Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Brandeis, etc.) Counties.

[Verily]

Japanese Americans tend to be fairly Republican.

Really? I thought Japanese were among the most Democratic Asian-American voters, having neither the Chinese and Vietnamese anti-Communist thing nor Filipino- or Korean-style Christian conservatism.

They are. BRTD is just bullsh**tting.

Honolulu is relatively conservative compared to the rest of Hawaii because (a) There are actual rich people who vote there (all year round), (b) The whites in Honolulu are more representative of whites on the mainland, while the whites elsewhere in Hawaii vote like whites in resort areas, (c) military installations, (d) There are more native Hawaiians in the rural areas than in Honolulu, and (e) Ethnic identity and tensions are higher in Honolulu than elsewhere in the state, prompting some level of ethnic voting that allows for ethnicity-based political machines (for both parties, but that tends to be a moderating effect on the overall vote)