Is there even such a thing as a red city? I'm not talking about politicians in power but how the majority of people identify politically in a town larger than 300k.
According to Bard, hardly any. (edit but... Its Bard..) Here are the cities in the US that have a population over 300,000 where the majority of voters are Republican: Colorado Springs, Colorado (475,229) Fort Worth, Texas (916,429) Greensboro, North Carolina (291,767) Omaha, Nebraska (496,916) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (649,071) Phoenix, Arizona (1,660,272) Salt Lake City, Utah (200,574) San Antonio, Texas (1,547,407) Tulsa, Oklahoma (413,976) Wichita, Kansas (389,127) It is important to note that these cities are not all solidly Republican. In some cases, the Republican margin of victory is relatively narrow. For example, in Colorado Springs, the Republican candidate for president won by just over 1 percentage point in 2020. Bard may display inaccurate or offensive information.
well, that's the thing. I know there are cities where republicans dominate politically and where democrats don't even bother voting, I just don't believe the majority of the constituency identifies republican. Texas is notoriously rigged and suppressed.
San Antonio is solid blue,Biden won it by 18 points and Hillery 14.Forth Worth went for Biden by a small %(San Antonio is Bexar and Forth Worth is Tarrent). Some of those other cities listed might be wrong too I don't have time to check them all. Most big cities that is responsible for red states GDP are blue.Houston,Dallas,San Antonio,Austin in Texas.Memphis and Nashville in Tennessee.New Orleans and Baton Rouge in Louisiana.Phoenix and Tucson in AZ,Atlanta and Augusta in GA etc.
My view for a couple of decades is that the left right division is rooted in evolutionary biology back to small early ancestor bands then tribes. Left leaning is the majority everywhere, even in Iran and the US which is why surpression in various forms is required for them to hold power. To be dominant the right had to be authoratarian. I have extensively seen what is writ large in the US writ small in little African communities.
All I can say is that the Target stores near us in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina have not seen a change in customer traffic in recent days (according to local social media posts, etc.). Most Target stores tend to be located in suburban areas while focusing on a customer demographic of middle to upper middle income levels. Most of these areas are either blue or purple in overall political demographics. Target does not place stores in rural red cities/towns generally -- they leave that market to Walmart and Dollar General. For example, there is no Target store in Roxboro, North Carolina but you certainly find a Walmart store there.
Target I only know surface level. On a trip to Cedar Point we went to some large Target the store was decent the family liked it. When Target expanded to Canada to great fan fare they totally botched it up, put in pricey low inventory stores that failed and they closed all their shops in short order. So there are potentially many reasons to not invest in them that have nothing to do with short term news. The US is a mess these days socially. I can't believe in 2023 we have DeSantis pushing book bannings and the watering down of sex education in high schools as positive steps to make him an attractive President. One of the reasons Hitler came to power in Germany was he leveraged a small vocal minority ( I believe originally the Nazis only had something like 23% of the popular vote ) and a lot of blaming minorities for economic hardships to gain power ( barely ). Once in power he just used dirty tricks / violence and new laws to eliminate the opposition and morph into a fascist regime with no free elections. A lot like the Trump cult would have liked to see these days in the US. The religious zealots in the US also tend to muscle in on these ultraconservative movements to push their various often immoral causes. Anyone who thinks DeSantis or Trump are a positive answer to anything is basically a nut with a flawed moral compass. No matter how vocal and insistent they are about it. This goes far beyond parties and supposed policies and opinion.
The Canadian market was brutal on Target because as you stated... totally botched it up, put in pricey low inventory stores that failed, and closed all their shops in short order. I was shocked they lasted as long as they did but maybe because they were less susceptible to people making a political statement and more susceptible to pricing wars with local stores that carried the same brands that were determined to keep the profits within the Canadian community. I was glad they packed up and went back to the States where they're more at risk of other issues not related to pricing. Another contrast, was Future Shop from the United States. They lasted much longer than Target because they had deeper pockets but cater to a higher end market. Yet, at the end of the day...economics was their doom along with better competition from another American company named Best Buy. A company that eventually purchased Future Shop with one of their goals to "remove" Future Shop from the Canadian market. wrbtrader