Most Conservative Areas (Richmond, Chester, Laurel: middle-class, 2013, how much)

[webster]

Conservative is a relative term. Senator Chase, Corey Stewart are not the face of the GOP. It's more moderate than the extremists fringes. The Virginia course has always been moderation. Even Youngkin had Ann McLean resign from the Board of Historic Resources after she was outed as an apologist for the Confederacy and floated the idea of having statues put back up.

[JoeJunior]

If you go as far as Southwest VA, just go a short distance farther to the Tri-Cities area of Northeast Tennessee.

The region is incredibly conservative and those mountain folks are full of common sense. I used to travel for work up there and it's a place where the people like to tell tales, they like to joke and the personalities are just so good.

Tennessee has no state income taxes and property taxes are low. It's also a very good place to retire to. The mountainous East Tennessee is just so beautiful too with great, great lakes.

[Watchful]

Originally Posted by 16 Acres

Other than Northern Virginia (up near DC) and parts of Eastern Virginia, Virginia is very Red.

In addition to the aforementioned Northern Virginia and parts of Eastern Virginia, you would do well to put these on your NO FLY list as being somewhat more likely places to encounter some of the dreaded woke-ness. All of these voted blue in the 2020 presidential election. (They are sometimes hard to see on the color coded maps because of the unique way in which VA divides up the county vote and the city vote!)

Blacksburg
Charlottesville
Danville
Emporia
Harrisonburg
Lexington
Lynchburg
Radford
Roanoke (city - but not county)
Staunton
Winchester
Albemarle County
plus parts of Southside with a strong African-American presence - namely
Brunswick
Franklin (city)
Greensville
Martinsville (city)
Prince Edward
Sussex

There's still a nice long safe list for you, but you may want to scratch these off

The little side conversation about the differences between NC and VA are a reminder that the big divides in our country are the urban/rural divide as well as the white/black divide.

People smarter than me can figure out whether statewide VA or NC will be more likely to trend blue or revert red, but as noted by others, Tennessee is a safer bet if you are looking for a red situation statewide.

[16 Acres]

Originally Posted by Watchful

Blacksburg
Charlottesville
Danville
Emporia
Harrisonburg
Lexington
Lynchburg
Radford
Roanoke (city - but not county)
Staunton
Winchester
Albemarle County
plus parts of Southside with a strong African-American presence - namely
Brunswick
Franklin (city)
Greensville
Martinsville (city)
Prince Edward
Sussex

Most of what you have posted are Cities. Cities vote Democrat. I really don't think you could find any size-able City that votes Republican. But for the most part, Cities in Virginia are just a Blue Dot in a Sea of Red, especially in our region of Central, Southwest and Extreme SW Virginia.

[16 Acres]

Watchful, I'm not that good on posting pictures, but check out this map for our last election, for Governor. Funny as the report is even using my terminology "Sea of Red". This is exactly what I was referring to:

https://wset.com/news/beyond-the-pod...on-biden-trump

[Veritas Vincit]

Originally Posted by 16 Acres

Hope you are aware that right now we have a Republican Governor, a Republican Lt Governor, a Republican Attorney General as well as a Republican Majority in the Virginia House of Delegates?

Other than Northern Virginia (up near DC) and parts of Eastern Virginia, Virginia is very Red.

Yes Republicans did well in one off-year election. Very little indicates that this is going to be the rule or sustainable. The 2022 election where Democrats - in spite of it being a "Republican Year" mid-term with a weak and unpopular Democratic president - maintained their 6/5 advantage in the congressional delegation showed that.

"Other than NoVa and all urban centers" Virginia is very red. lol. Other than major metro areas and cities full of kids, public sector employees and minorities almost every state in the country is red. It's just that most of the population lives in such areas rather than rural communities. The 'sea of red' is mostly empty land, and land is apolitical. Land doesn't care. It's the people that matter, and a 100 acre farm with 1 Republican farmer isn't more influential than 50 acres of developed urban land with thousands of Democrats living on it.

If you just want to be surrounded by like-minded conservatives in your immediate vicinity you can find small towns in California or New York even that would meet your requirements, but your laws will be made by the liberal lawmakers elected by all those 'city folks'.

[16 Acres]

Originally Posted by Veritas Vincit

Other than major metro areas and cities full of kids, public sector employees and minorities almost every state in the country is red.

And your point is?

Originally Posted by Veritas Vincit

The 'sea of red' is mostly empty land, and land is apolitical.

This so called "Empty Land" you are talking about is where the OP wants to live.

(You may want check the population stats on it sometime by the way)

[Watchful]

My favorite political commentator - Michael Smerconish (neither blue nor red) describes it as self-sorting.

The article he wrote on it is behind a paywall, but this article references it too.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/07/polit...ess/index.html

(Personally I would not have been comfortable choosing either an "all woke" or a "no woke" place to live. But maybe that's just me!)

[Riley.]

Originally Posted by VA Outdoorsman

Forgot to mention, since you're from Rhode Island, you may want to be close to the bay/coast. If that's the case both the Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck by the Chesapeake Bay are also very conservative (CD-1), so are the parts a little bit inland. The lower Peninsula is also fairly conservative except for the cities -- mainly due the colleges nearby and sizable Black populations.

Rural Virginia is more conservative than rural New England but we also have rural Black areas in the South that vote predominately Democratic, so keep that in mind when you're looking. Those areas aren't necessarily bad and I don't mean to generalize or stereotype people but the politics is what it is. If an area votes Democratic the 'woke' policies will be present regardless of whether the population is socially liberal or not, that's just the way things are these days. Many of those rural Blacks are socially conservative Christians too, so it's quite a dilemma for them I'm sure.

This is the most accurate map available from the 2022 election, by precinct:

https://www.vpap.org/visuals/visual/...s-by-precinct/

Thanks for your comments VAOutdoorsman. Hubs and I like TN but VA was a possibility. We also need to get out of a deep blue state, realizing that there may be super liberal politics wherever we go. We are just tired of every.single.issue and every.single.news story being something far left AND that will cost us more in taxes. VT is one of the highest taxed places in the nation. What are your property taxes like there?
We are moderate conservatives.

Since you are outdoorsy how are your recreational opportunities? I asked on the TN website about rail trails and such but it still seems like that's a bit lacking in the upper east end. I want to be able to do a short drive, like here, and be near a river, pond, lake, or bike trail where I can spend the time. Not drive an hour to get there although there are some places here that are that far, but are worth getting to.

thanks again.

[Riley.]

Originally Posted by Watchful

My favorite political commentator - Michael Smerconish (neither blue nor red) describes it as self-sorting.

The article he wrote on it is behind a paywall, but this article references it too.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/07/polit...ess/index.html

(Personally I would not have been comfortable choosing either an "all woke" or a "no woke" place to live. But maybe that's just me!)

I tend to agree with your take. I do think you have to have a mix. But a one directional state government can make a place feel really oppressive. Like VT. We have a wishy washy republican governor who will likely be voted out soon and in the last election the people gave him a progressive LT Gov who himself was voted out last time around and who the current governor 'shut out' because he advocated for issues the Gov didn't want to spend $$ or time on.