THREAD: The 2018 midterms coined by some pundits as the "Whole Foods Election." Fueled by many factors, including but not limited to a diversifying electorate and massive shift of college-educated voters against Republicans, America's suburbs were ground zero for this blue wave.

The presence of Whole Foods Market in a given district is seen as a good proxy for these factors, as the store has historically appealed to a type of affluent yet globally conscious person, the very same demographic that Democrats did so well with in 2018.

Whole Foods Market was founded in my hometown of Austin, Texas in 1980, and as both a resident of Austin and one from a a Whole Foods demographic upbringing, I was curious to see how this idea of a "Whole Foods Election" played out with the data.

I began by mapping my home state. In Texas, every single district that was decided within 10 percentage points in 2018 was home to at least one Whole Foods store. However, many Safe Democratic seats in places like Dallas and Houston had none at all.

This is in many ways a testament to the way that the districts are drawn in Texas. Whole Foods' consumer base is made up of predominately white, middle to upper class consumers. It also has a reputation as a symbol of gentrification, one that plays out in the data.

In TX-33, a DFW based house seat represented by Democrat Marc Veasey, the median household income is $42,229. While Whole Foods has a reputational association with liberalism, that view is skewed to a predominately white-centric view of the Democratic Party.

The reality is that Whole Foods actively excludes working class people of color, the backbone of the Democratic base, from its marketing strategy. You can argue all day about the merits of this, but it's verified by the data.

TX-35, represented by Democrat Lloyd Doggett, has a comparable median income. However, in recent years as Austin's population has boomed, the 35th has become home to a Whole Foods location, located in a formerly predominately Hispanic neighborhood on the east side of town.

Here's the same map with margins included. Several narrow misses obscure just how instrumental these patterns are in recent Democratic successes.

Some of these districts, like TX-25 or TX-21 owe their correlation to extreme gerrymandering that splits up Democratic strongholds like Austin, while others, like TX-22 in suburban Houston owe it to a combination of diverse suburbs and college-educated white voters shifting left.

While well-educated, diverse districts like TX-22 are shifting left, comparable-on-paper districts like TX-08 are holding steady. Why? The key lies in educational attainment and demographics. In TX-22, roughly 45% of residents have a college degree. In TX-08? Only 32%

Similarly, only 38% of voters in TX-22 are white. In TX-08? That number is 63%. These two factors, generally speaking, account for almost all of the gains Democrats made in the Sun Belt in 2018. A majority of DCCC 2020 targets are these districts.

Overall, I was interested in seeing how these numbers correlated. This map displays some anomalies. Utah, is heavily urbanized yet GOP friendly thanks to its conservative Mormon roots. Many stores in urban areas of the South are drawn into GOP districts due to VRA maps.

Others, like Vermont, are rural and white but remain liberal due to traditional and a relatively secular population. Hope all of y'all enjoy these maps as much I do. Here's some individual states:

California, New Jersey, Florida, Virginia

Thank you for viewing. I'm open to constructive criticism as always and I'm just getting started with mapping (hoping to learn QGIS over the summer).
Sources:
http://census.gov 
http://censusreporter.org 
http://govtrack.us 
http://mapchart.net 

Thanks to @StephieTheLefty , @xxxneonslavexxx , @SenhorRaposa , @JMilesColeman , and many others for providing inspiration.