I was texting yesterday with someone whose political views are a near match for my own—my sister, so no light shed on the nature v. nurture question as both genes and environment overlap. I teased her that the Minnesota county she lives in, Rice, had voted for Trump by 69 votes. She held out hope that the estimated 5% of outstanding ballots would lift Biden over the top. If that happened, Rice would be the fifth Minnesota county that went from red in 2016 to blue in 2020. The other four are Clay, Nicollet, Blue Earth, and Winona. (None went the other direction.) When I ticked through this list, she immediately replied that the county seats of these counties—Moorhead, St. Peter, Mankato, and Winona—are all college towns. Faribault is the county seat for Rice, but the second biggest town is Northfield, where there are two colleges—the road sign welcoming you to town advertises "cows, colleges, and contentment."
She's onto something, of course. The professors and administrators and support staff, such as the food service workers, prefer the Democrats. Same for the students, though this year most probably voted absentee in the venue where their parents live. If not for a "college effect," I don't know how to account for the voting patterns around these outstate counties. For example, regarding Clay County, where Biden won 51% of the vote: in the county just to the north (Norman), he got 41%; in the county just to the east (Becker), he got 34%; and in the county just to the south (Wilkin), he got 30%. The county just to the west is Cass County, North Dakota, home to Fargo and North Dakota State University. Biden won 47% of the vote there.
The main campus of the University of Minnesota is in the middle of a major metropolitan area that would be a Dem stronghold in any event. Many of the other Big Ten universities, however, are in relatively small towns. Does a similar pattern hold? Penn State, which is in the middle of nowhere in central Pennsylvania, might be the best test. Here's how the state voted, by county:
Want to take a guess where Penn State is? (It's in the blue county surrounded by red at the very center of the map.) Here's Indiana:
My question is where's Indiana University and my hint is that it's not at Indianapolis. Since there's only two dark blue counties in the state, that's a very good clue. For Iowa, no clue needed:
Got it, right? Johnson County, home to Iowa City, which is in turn home to the University of Iowa, is the only dark blue one on the map. And on and on it goes, not just in the Big Ten. On the map for North Carolina, you can make out the Research Triangle area in the north central part of the state, where Duke, the University of North Carolina, and North Carolina State are all served by the same airport. I have a funny story about that. Our dad worked as a physicist and liked telling a story about how, when he was young, there was a conference at one of these three universities. A famous physicist flew in for the event but, perhaps because his mind was full with the contemplation of the actions of subatomic particles, forgot which campus he had to go to. This would have been in the early 1960s. Instead of panicking, he approached one of the uniformed airport assistants who helped you with bags, getting a cab, renting a car, etc. "Say," says the physicist, "if you've noticed a lot of dweeby looking guys coming through, white shirts, pocket protectors, luggage mainly papers and journals and the like, I'd appreciate it if you could tell me which university they're all going to." Worked!
Back then, the conference attendees shared a look but probably divided their votes in roughly equal fashion between candidates of the different parties. Their descendants have a more diverse appearance but form a voting bloc. They aren't likely to support a candidate who holds that climate change is a hoax, and they tend not to regard mask wearing as an absurd or excessive burden on their "freedom."
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