We think of some places as entirely blue because they are largely blue, and conservatives never win there. Massachusetts and NYC come to mind*. We regard other places as bright red - Utah and Wyoming, for example. But each have those who disagree within, and enough that they get heard. We think of the New York Times, but the NY Post makes a living as well. Someone reads its content. The Boston Globe is the bigger name, but the Boston Herald gets read. Howie Carr is popular on the radio around Boston. I'm not on the ground in Utah, but have to figure there are some liberals writing there.
*The sometimes elect Republicans to govern themselves, you'll notice. They just want to make sure they only send liberals to govern the rest of us.
I believe this phenomena occurs because Congress capped the number of House seats at 435. This allows Representatives to ignore up to 600K+ people and still get elected. Now, if we had more seats (my state, NH, is a good example) it would not necessarily mean a change in the balance of power, but it would mean less power for each Representative and they would have to listen to their constituency more.
ReplyDeleteUtah has two major newspapers: The Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune. The Deseret News is very conservative while the Tribune has a much more liberal/left-leaning bent. Salt Lake City itself is much more left leaning than the rest of the state. Only democrats have been elected mayor in Salt Lake since 1976.
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