Red counties are doing better under Trump — but not as well as blue cities

Large, mostly Democratic-leaning, metropolitan centers are consolidating their dominance of the national economy even as smaller, mostly Republican-leaning communities at their periphery show clear signs of economic revival under President Donald Trump, according to an extensive new analysis of regional economic dynamics published Tuesday.

These twin trends — consolidation at the core, revival at the periphery — underscores the breadth of the economy’s gains during the prolonged expansion that began over a decade ago following the financial crash of 2008. But they also document the continued divergence between the economic power concentrating in large places mostly resistant to Trump and the political power centered on the primarily smaller places that underpin his support. CONT.

Ronald Brownstein, CNN