Popular college towns in battleground states may pose a threat to former President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, if past trends continue.
A Politico analysis last year found that two in three college counties had grown more Democratic since 2000. Now, a report by moveBuddah – a technology company with a focus on relocation – has revealed the most sought-after college towns in the U.S. by comparing the quantity of internet searches for moving into each city to the number out. Three cities in the top 10 were in North Carolina, where Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are neck-and-neck in the race to win the state’s crucial 16 Electoral College votes.
To determine which college cities could be growing the most, moveBuddah gave locales an in-to-out move ratio based on the number of searches about moving into a given city versus the number out.
The full list of cities in the top 10 were:
- Johnson City, Tennessee
- Hickory, North Carolina
- Asheville, North Carolina
- Wilmington, North Carolina
- Fort Smith, Arkansas
- Corvallis, Oregon
- Abilene, Texas
- Chattanooga, Tennessee
- Knoxville, Tennessee
- Saratoga Springs, New York
Since 2016, Republicans only saw their support grow in one of these college towns’ counties – Catawba County, North Carolina (where Hickory is partly located) according to Politico.
In the remaining counties that housed the cities on the list, the share of votes for the Republican Party fell whilst the share of votes for the Democratic Party rose between 2016 and 2020.
Two counties – New Hanover, North Carolina (where the college town of Wilmington is based) and Saratoga in New York – flipped from red to blue between 2016 and 2020.
“Biden won voters under 30 by 24 points in 2020 – and ran very well in university towns. Republican policies on abortion, academic freedoms, and the environment have been a particular turn off,” Iwan Morgan, Emeritus Professor of United States History at University College London told Newsweek.
“But concerns about Biden’s age saw considerable slippage in his student support before his withdrawal from the race. Harris has rekindled enthusiasm. She is targeting Generation Z and younger millennials as critical constituencies in swing states.”
Morgan added: “In a tight election, the university vote could be crucial in swinging it for Harris if the Democrats maximize turn-out in university towns and counties, particularly in swing states. Even in solidly Republican Nebraska, college students could help Harris get one of its proportionally allocated votes – which could be the one to get her to 270.”
Republican National Committee spokesperson Taylor Rogers provided Newsweek with the following statement: “Thanks to Kamalanomics, the American Dream is unreachable for young Americans, college students, and families across the country. President Trump will restore the American Dream by defeating inflation, bringing down the cost of living, and cutting taxes.”
Andrew Moran, head of Criminology, Sociology, Politics and International Relations at London Metropolitan University told Newsweek that in such a tight race, Harris’ easiest route to victory lies in the battleground states, many of which have sizeable college towns.
“I once interviewed President Gerald Ford, who famously came from Michigan, and what struck me about his politics was the home-grown conservative, community, Republican values he expressed. Though he proposed ideas that would sound familiar – a smaller Federal Government, low inflation and low taxation – what came with that was the idea that America was a place for everyone.
“It is the latter that has become a battleground within the polarizing politics of the U.S. I’m not sure Michigan’s most famous son would recognize the Republican Party of today, and, perhaps, it is partly this that the Democrat campaigns in the college towns are seeking to capitalize on.”
Newsweek has contacted the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment via email.
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