“The other blue/red are college towns.”
That’s only because college kids know everything. At least until they have to pay their own way and take care of their own families.
It is not just the kids. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of university/college employees that make a lot of money off the college system.
The Union Leader newspaper out of Manchester, NH used to list the top paid state employees. They did one addition just for the University system. The Men’s UNH hockey coach was always the highest paid employee followed by the chancellor. However, there were a lot of professors making big salaries. So when you add up the people sucking off the UNH Durham, UNH Manchester, Keene State College, Plymouth State College, and half a dozen community colleges it really adds up. These people are almost all Democrats.