Why did Williamson County TN not swing left much?

[Tekken_Guy]

Williamson County is Tennessee’s most educated county yet the swing towards Clinton was surpassingly small. She still failed to crack 30% and the county moved leftward by about only 10 points. Why?

[ElectionsGuy]

It was a pretty substantial swing for a county in a Republican state that wasn't contested. People don't start voting a different way in a matter of a few years. 70%+ of these people are still Republicans, even if they didn't vote for Trump.

If there was a variable that somehow combined % voting Republican and % with a college degree I think Williamson County would be the #1 county for that.

[Smash255]

Williamson County is Tennessee’s most educated county yet the swing towards Clinton was surpassingly small. She still failed to crack 30% and the county moved leftward by about only 10 points. Why?

It was still about a 13 point trend compared to the national average.  While not exactly as large as some other similar areas, it isn't like a 13 point trend is anything small either.  Williamson's County is just so heavily Republican even a sold swing and trend is still going to make the county heavily GOP/

[TDAS04]

Um, it was a huge swing.  It swung more in Hillary's direction than any state but Utah.   If you're asking about comparable counties, even Shelby County, AL didn't swing as much as Williamson.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Also, the primary ballot for 2018 was more Republican in Williamson than the county was in 2012.  That probably won't hold in a somewhat competitive general, but Williamson is Safe R even in close-ish statewide races for a while at least.

An interesting question is why Williamson swung less than otherwise similar, high-income Republican areas of Davidson County, and I think part of that might be a "rich evangelical" (Williamson) vs. "country club Republican" (Belle Meade/Wealthy Davidson) divide.  Belle Meade typically was even slightly more Republican than Brentwood/Franklin/Nolensville (the population bases of Williamson) pre-Trump, but it swung harder against Trump than most of Williamson did.  When I looked back to 2014, I saw that Belle Meade actually voted No on Amendment 1 (a ballot imitative that said that there is no right to abortion "including, but not limited to cases where the pregnancy results from rape or incest or when abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother"), while Williamson voted Yes on that vote by slightly more than the state did as a whole.

[Adam Griffin]

If you just look at it in terms of well-educated suburban Republican areas, the swing seems underwhelming.

If you look at it in terms of Deep South suburban areas, the swing still seems underwhelming.

However, I'd say the real way you need to look at is in the category of suburban areas in Deep South states that weren't considered competitive. Places like GA & TX (and even AZ, for some purposes of this comparison) have huge metro areas, were relatively close and did get some attention in 2016. Hell, even GA got something like $1.5 million invested it in by various PACs and the Clinton campaign toward the end.

The "large metro" element is more important than some think. Of the ten biggest metropolitan areas in the country, there were only 3 prior to 2016 that weren't demonstrating substantial movement to or substantial support for the Democrats: Houston, Atlanta and Phoenix. In 2016, those three finally caught up to some degree, as they were among the most improved metros nationwide for Clinton; of course, most other big metro areas are either already solidly Democratic or were in contested areas.

Tennessee doesn't have a massive metro area influencing the trajectory of millions of people (I think big metros reach a certain point where they're bound to swing in a more liberal direction; Nashville isn't big enough for that yet) nor was it considered competitive in 2016. I think if you compare Williamson to other counties in states where these criteria apply, its performance will be more impressive (or at least on par when comparing its % of college grads to swing).

[NOVA Green]

fwiw...

I think ExtremeConservative and myself took a few looks at some individual parts of Williamson County quite some time back on another thread....

A +22% swing in Brentwood, TN was nothing to sneeze at although paled to Belle Meade, and other wealthier communities in Davidson County...

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=259050.msg5554407#msg5554407

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Too many rednecks.

[NOVA Green]

Too many rednecks.

I know way too many true rednecks than you might well meet in your lifetime, from places much more remote and much more "Outlaw" than anywhere within Williamson County.

I guess our definition of "Rednecks" differs a bit much, or an alternative hypothesis might be that "Tennessee Rednecks from Williamson County are so so much more redneck than folks out in rural parts of Douglas, Josephine, and Jackson County Oregon (Not to mention going out to Eastern Linn and Marion County Oregon)....

I can tell a few stories, mi amigo....

[100% pro-life no matter what]

The one area of Franklin that I think there is potential for the Democrats that they are not reaching is the Cool Springs area (mostly within Franklin, but it extends a little bit into Brentwood too).  Cool Springs is a giant strip mall (plus an actual mall) of offices, restaurants, and shops, but the key that could help the Democrats is that it contains several large upscale apartment complexes that are relatively young (and not necessarily native Tennessean either).  I work in an office in Cool Springs and our office is very young and only a minority are from Tennessee originally.  I would guess Trump still won my office, but it would be narrower than you might expect in Williamson County.

What might help Republicans in these places are that more liberal minded young people moving to Nashville might self select into trendier neighborhoods near downtown Nashville like 12th South and The Gulch.  While, these apartments would cater more towards younger upper-middle class people who don't need to be in the heart of Nashville.  I just thought I would bring my local knowledge into this and say that this is the one area to watch in Williamson County.  On the other hand, I don't see a massive generational shift flipping Williamson County blue or anything, especially if more liberal people would prefer to live closer to downtown Nashville or move to more liberal areas of the country, while more conservative people like what Williamson County has to offer.

By the way, I right now live about a mile over the line into Davidson County, but I plan to move to Cool Springs (Franklin, Williamson County) in December, when my lease is up.

Cool Springs election results (using Precinct 4-1 where a couple of the largest apartment complexes are, though Precinct 4-3 has some, as do 12-1 and 8-2):

2018 Primary Vote: 72 GOP, 28 DEM (WillCo as a whole was 74% GOP, if I remember)
2016 General 2 Party-Vote: 66.3% Trump (WillCo was 68.7% Trump)
2016 House 2 Party-Vote: 75.6% Blackburn (WillCo was 76.6% Blackburn)
2014 Amendment 1 (no right to abortion in TN Constitution, no exceptions): 52.2% Yes (WillCo was 56.6% Yes) (precinct 4-3 did have a bigger victory for yes than countywide though)
2014 Governor 2 Party-Vote: 86.6% Haslam (WillCo was 85.8% Haslam)

So, while this precinct isn't showing a strong trend towards the Democrats yet and is overwhelmingly Republican, if you squint, you might be able to see it a tad to the left of the county on more controversial votes, but it still more resembles Brentwood than Belle Meade.  The same might be noticeable in Franklin's downtown, I'm not sure.

I think I will go see Gosnell (a movie about an abortionist arrested for dozens of murders of live-born babies and mothers) in Cool Springs after work on Monday, so it will be interesting to see what it is like around that movie