Comment by bpodgursky
4 hours ago
It's interesting how Texas and Florida are both "red" states but have pivoted into really different political paths under the same flag.
Texas is leaning into becoming the manufacturing and R&D hub for the US, and is courting gigascale data centers and rolling out nuclear power, near-infinite solar, wind, and gas to power it as fast as possible.
Florida is leaning into the retired and populist factions of the GOP, banning data centers and taking on populist anti-tech positions that Texas wouldn't dare (because they want the investment).
As a lifelong citizen of Texas, I would emphasize the decades-long renewable energy expansion has been happening _despite_ our political leadership, not because of it.
The fact that it’s easier to build stuff in Texas—whether it’s oil rigs or solar farms—is related to the political leadership. There may be no intention to facilitate renewables, but intentions and effects are two quite different things.
This isn’t really true. FL population has exploded so much with high earners that they’re talking about getting rid of property taxes, and Miami is like #2 behind Houston in terms of tech jobs growth.
> Miami is like #2 behind Houston in terms of tech jobs growth
Source? (Not doubting. But I’m finding conflicting figures.)
I was going off of a summary of an outdated report. If I can find a better one I'll post it.
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As an aside, it is very clear in reports like this one[0] how tech job growth nationwide has stagnated. Incredible.
[0]: https://www.comptia.org/en-us/resources/research/state-of-th...
Texas is becoming a hub for educated professionals and Florida is a hub for non-college retirees
> Texas is becoming a hub for educated professionals
Source? It’s been an open secret in academia and medicine that professors [1] and doctors [2] are fleeing Texas’s political climate.
[1] https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/05/texas-faculty-univer...
[2] https://www.texastribune.org/2024/10/08/Texas-obstetrics-gyn...
The interesting thing about living in a big city in Texas (and now basically all the big cities in TX lean left, not just Austin) is that the tension between city governments and the state, while frustrating at times and definitely dangerous for certain populations (I know folks with transgender kids who have moved out of TX solely for that reason), actually provides something of a decent balance that is appealing to a lot of educated professionals. I feel like a lot of the worst impulses of Dem-run cities get moderated in TX compared to west coast, Dem-run states.
For example, you can look at the housing crises in most CA cities brought on by NIMBY liberal policies, and while Austin is still very expensive, they (IMO) took the only sane approach to skyrocketing housing costs by actually building a shit ton of housing over the past few years. Austin passed a plastic bag ban a while back that was eventually overturned by the state legislature, but in the meantime a lot of people still bring their own reusable bags (stores can still charge for bags) and I've noticed much less bag pollution in creaks and streams compared to 15 years ago.
Of course, it remains to be seen what happens in the near future. The Republican party in TX is now fully showing their complete moral bankruptcy by nominating the criminal Ken Paxton for Senate, so we'll see if they fall further down the personality cult or if they eventually break.
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[1] is incredibly vague. Professors of what specifically? Computer science? Feminist theory? The second doesn't produce 'educated professionals'.
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> Texas is becoming a hub for educated professionals
Becoming? This has been true for decades in the urban areas
i live in FL and i think the banning data centers thing is also just political posturing - we are in hurricane alley after all. i really don't think anyone was seriously considering building an AI data center in like St. John's County or whatever
If anything Florida (Desantis in particular) more closely resembles traditional conservatism in the US, as opposed to MAGA populism. I think, or hope, that's a good thing in the long run as AI shapes up to be a horseshoe political issue.
Is populism when politicians claim to care about little people issues instead of making economy arrow go up?
Florida is a purple state
Kinda? Maybe?
Florida, at least for local Florida stuff, like what GP is talking about, has had R governor, senate, and house for 25+ years. With a supermajority R for most of that I think.
Not really anymore. The house seats are 20R and 8D, they haven't voted blue for president since Obama, and haven't elected a democrat as governor since the 90s. Voter registration is also heavily skewed republican.
To be fair, "since Obama" isn't very long ago, and Hillary and Biden weren't very inspiring candidates, to say the least.
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It was one 25 years ago.
Interestingly, both FL and TX had the same vote for Trump in 2024: 56.1%
The people, sure. The elected officials? Nope.
It used to be, just like Virginia used to be solidly red. But Trump won Florida by more than Harris won New York.