County gains for Kerry?

[English]

Anyone noticed that Kerry gained the counties containing Austin (Travis?) and Indianapolis. Does anybody know why? Are these cities trending leftwards?

[minionofmidas]

Kerry gained about 60 counties nationally (Bush about 160).
Indianapolis, long a Republican city, appears to be trending leftward.
Travis 2000 for Bush was a fluke, the result of home state advantage plus an extreme Nader showing (over 10%, highest percentage in a major urban county). Bush won it with about 46% of the vote. The county is traditionally Democratic and remains so.

[jimrtex]

Anyone noticed that Kerry gained the counties containing Austin (Travis?) and Indianapolis. Does anybody know why? Are these cities trending leftwards?

Austin is the location of the main campus of the University of Texas, which has close to 50,000 students.  Many choose to continue to live in the area after graduation or dropping out.  Add in the faculty and there is significant leftwing bias.  The other major state university, Texas A&M is fairly conservative, so you have a polarizing effect.  Nationally, there appears to have been a really strong effort to register students and to get them to turn out across the US.  It may be a lot easier to round up a bunch of students, than a similar sized group of people who are not students, who are more dispersed, are moving, switching jobs, etc.

As the state capital Austin it is also the headquarters of many stage agencies.  Workers way tend to align themselves more with government rather than with private enterprise.  LBJ was from just west of there, and he owned the TV station in town.   In Texas, you can run against the liberals in "Austin and Warshington DC".

After the 2000 election it was remarked that the magnitude of the landslide in Texas was such that Bush even carried Travis County.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Austin was (IIRC) were Ralph Yarborough was based most of his political career.

[English]

Strange though that Bush's victory in 2004 was even greater in Texas than in 2000, yet he lost Travis. Dallas also swung away from Bush. Urban trend towards the Democrats perhaps?

[minionofmidas]

Strange though that Bush's victory in 2004 was even greater in Texas than in 2000, yet he lost Travis. Dallas also swung away from Bush. Urban trend towards the Democrats perhaps?

In Texas, yes. Dallas, Austin and Houston swung Dem, so did some of the Dallas and Houston suburban counties.
In Austin, the college vote matters too.
Jim, I think it's more relevant that college town turnout had been very low in 2000 (and many of those liberal college students who did vote voted Ralph Nader). Bush energized many people there to drag their asses to the polls this time.
Most college town-dominated counties, the US over really, swung heavily Dem this time.

[danwxman]

Anyone noticed that Kerry gained the counties containing Austin (Travis?) and Indianapolis. Does anybody know why? Are these cities trending leftwards?

Austin is the location of the main campus of the University of Texas, which has close to 50,000 students.  Many choose to continue to live in the area after graduation or dropping out.  Add in the faculty and there is significant leftwing bias.  The other major state university, Texas A&M is fairly conservative, so you have a polarizing effect.  Nationally, there appears to have been a really strong effort to register students and to get them to turn out across the US.  It may be a lot easier to round up a bunch of students, than a similar sized group of people who are not students, who are more dispersed, are moving, switching jobs, etc.

As the state capital Austin it is also the headquarters of many stage agencies.  Workers way tend to align themselves more with government rather than with private enterprise.  LBJ was from just west of there, and he owned the TV station in town.   In Texas, you can run against the liberals in "Austin and Warshington DC".

After the 2000 election it was remarked that the magnitude of the landslide in Texas was such that Bush even carried Travis County.

Austin and San Antonio have more culture and nightlife then Dallas and Houston put together, it makes sense they are more liberal.

Also, I don't buy the argument that state workers align themselves with Democrats. If you look at most state capitals they actually tend to be conservative/Republican, case in point PA's capital of Harrisburg which is the center of the most Republican area in the Northeast.