Western Massachusetts (Berkshire, Franklin, etc.)

[traininthedistance]

Yeah, the Berkshires are basically Vermont, except even moreso.  Their ancestral Republicanism was of the Congregationalist, Party-of-Lincoln, anti-South strain which was always moderate and easily flipped as the Republicans became more of a Southern and conservative party.

Also, tourism is big there, it's probably the area's biggest industry now that the mills are all gone (hey, depressed mill towns, that's another reason) and it was never the greatest soil for farming.  And not just any tourism, but artsy, cultural tourism anchored by such things as Tanglewood (summer home of the Boston Symphony) and Mass MoCA (a contemporary art museum housed in an old factory).  And there are plenty of colleges even outside the Amherst-Northampton nexus- Williams, for instance.