D.C. is probably a better example here. California is 1/6th of the US economy. It's not really creating "good" jobs relative to its size.
And D.C. is only doing that because it's just one city. Cities are the winners in the current economy. They happen to be liberal. Cities in Texas and Tenesee happen to be conservative, and they're doing swimmingly also.
Despite how much people get worked up, policy doesn't have a huge macroeconomic effect.
That's a very recent development -- starting around 2008. Even still -- beside Austin -- they are barely liberal. You do realize places like SF, Los Angeles, NYC, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Seattle etc vote democratic at rates close to 75% for like 30 straight years.
Even most southern cities like Atlanta, Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando, and Miami are well into the 60s.
Even if Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio are like ~52% for the last 8 years, they're a bit of an outlier as far as major cities go.
Houston hasn't had a single Republican mayor since 1982. I'm a Houston native so I know that the city has skewed liberal since long before 2008, and while I can't speak to other cities in as much detail, for Houston specifically this shift is not as recent as you're trying to portray.
