I'd like to know more about "why." For example, what fundamentally makes younger voters more liberal? I see lots of "they are urban," or that sort of thing. But what about their lived, daily experience besides just their geographic location makes them more liberal that conservative? Not sure if any polling or research has been done on this. Same for other segments of the electorate, I guess.
Alas, we need more data to be sure! To the question of what makes people in cities more liberal, the demographics answer is that they're younger, less white and more educated than people outside cities. But there's more to it. Other causes include a history of left-labor/socialist/workers' movements , the salience of things like public funding for transit systems and income inequality, etc.
The income inequality thing is interesting, now that you bring it up. My son lives in Seattle, which has high housing prices. It's much easier to see income disparity there just by looking at what you can't afford and knowing there are whole neighborhoods filled with people who make more - sometimes much more - than you. Whereas in a more rural area the range of housing prices may not be so wide, with relatively fewer outliers that are way out of reach. It's easier to understand, perhaps, that a local businessman or rancher is richer and therfore able to live in a larger house. But when you know that so many people are doing essentially the same thing as you (e.g. sitting in a cubicle staring at a computer screen) but making so much more doing it...that can start to grate (and make you look for a bit more income to be redistributed in some way).
I'd like to know more about "why." For example, what fundamentally makes younger voters more liberal? I see lots of "they are urban," or that sort of thing. But what about their lived, daily experience besides just their geographic location makes them more liberal that conservative? Not sure if any polling or research has been done on this. Same for other segments of the electorate, I guess.
Alas, we need more data to be sure! To the question of what makes people in cities more liberal, the demographics answer is that they're younger, less white and more educated than people outside cities. But there's more to it. Other causes include a history of left-labor/socialist/workers' movements , the salience of things like public funding for transit systems and income inequality, etc.
The income inequality thing is interesting, now that you bring it up. My son lives in Seattle, which has high housing prices. It's much easier to see income disparity there just by looking at what you can't afford and knowing there are whole neighborhoods filled with people who make more - sometimes much more - than you. Whereas in a more rural area the range of housing prices may not be so wide, with relatively fewer outliers that are way out of reach. It's easier to understand, perhaps, that a local businessman or rancher is richer and therfore able to live in a larger house. But when you know that so many people are doing essentially the same thing as you (e.g. sitting in a cubicle staring at a computer screen) but making so much more doing it...that can start to grate (and make you look for a bit more income to be redistributed in some way).