I would bet they can see it. But what can they do about it? Wasn't Austin the only blue city of any size for quite some time? And that's understandable since it's a college town.
I watched Taxifornia get more and more blue every year, from the front row. Nothing I could do about it. Here, it's LA, and the SF bay area that dominate state politics. It's always the big cities that drag down the rest of the state.
Washington is another great example. My buddy had to get out of there, because Seattle was destroying the entire state. People in the country have common sense (and better values, imo.)