Western KY would be my recommendation.

I grew up there. It’s as conservative as you can get. You can live on 100 acres and drive 30 minutes and be in Paducah.  Even the big city of Paducah is pretty conservative. There’s no shortage of American flags flying, that’s for sure.

The humidity ain’t too bad in the summer. My perspective on the weather might be skewed, though, as I’ve lived in places like Virginia and Mississippi, as well as done a few deployments in Africa.  

Interstate 24 and Interstate 69 are well maintained and the majority of the traffic actually understands how to stay out of the passing lane (unless they have an Illinois or Tennessee license plate).

Regarding storms, I’d say tornadoes are fairly infrequent. There’s been a few decent storms so far this year, but most of the stuff has missed western Kentucky and hit south in Tennessee or eastern Kentucky.

Not sure where in Texas, but a drive to San Antonio is about 12 hours from Paducah.

Currently, we live outside of Louisville with family 3 hours away in west Kentucky.

Look around Land Between the Lakes. Hills, beautiful countryside, hunting, fishing, and proximity to major interstates for ease of travel.

What others have said, Bowling Green, Western Kentucky in general. Other than the political climate, the larger cities are mostly where your high humidity areas are gonna be, because of their location on rivers (Lexington being the exception, but spoke-and-hub city planning regarding roadways is abysmal, and whoever designed it should have been flogged).

E-Town is just far enough from Louisville to be not terrible as far as politics, from what I've heard. There seems to be a fair amount of land every time I look on Trulia. You have the benefit of the large regional airport in Louisville, or if you go closer to Bowling Green, you can fly out of Nashville. But, getting to Texas shouldn't be difficult at all.

I don't hunt or fish, so I can't give any advice three.

We would be honored to welcome you here, EdAvilaSr.

I've lived in Elizabethtown. I didnt like it. Granted, I have been gone for almost 10 years, maybe it's better. If you're unfortunate enough to live or work on or off of 31W, traffic sucks. Radcliff is almost entirely ghetto and white trash, which spills over into Etown. The surrounding towns (Leitchfield, Lebanon Jct, Glendale, Sonora, Hardinsburg) are nice places for the most part, although shopping and restaurants are sparse.

Kentucky summers can be brutal. 100 temp 100% humidity is common.

I live dead center between Madisonville, bowling green, owensboro and e-town.

Owensboro and it's city are become increasing liberal.
Bowling Green is the best.
Madisonville is pretty redneck
And Etown isn't too bad besides Radcliff leach over.


Come on down.

People say that it's hot and humid around KY and TN, but I've been to several places up North that are equally bad if not worse.

Liberal Democrats.  KY's governor is Beshear.  I'll just leave that there for you to think about.

I'm in Clarksville, TN and travel to Paducah pretty regular for work, and used to go to Bowling Green & Louisville as well.  I like the Paducah area, but its fairly flat and it really doesn't have a good airport near by.  Bowling Green is an hour from Nashville and 2 hours to Louisville.  It's 1.5hrs to either Ft Campbell or Ft Knox and KCR.  Personally, I would choose a little north of BG over Paducah.  

Good deer hunting can be a trick question down here.  I hunt a 2K acre farm in Trigg county KY and normally only shoot 1 or 2 a season, because that's all I need.  The land owner shot 72 doe this past season.  I would guess that well over 100 were shot there last season.  I normally get in the blind just before sun up and I'm back on the road by 9am.  The deer are also not as big as they are up North.  However, what they lack in size they make up for in numbers and bag limits or the lack there of.

There's plenty of good fishing in the area as well.  Lake Malone, Barkley Lake, KY Lake, the Ohio and Cumberland Rivers are all near by.

Gas was $1.29 at the Hucks in Kuttawa this morning, so that's another good point about the South is the gas prices.   If you use Tobacco, I don't, but it's not $12 a pack here.  I do wish they would do a bottle deposit in KY and TN though.

Coming from the State of NY you will be used to paying State and Local income tax, expensive tag renewals etc.  New York State's political situation is just a shame, because it's really has a lot of nice areas.  The area around West Point and even Watertown to Rouses Point is beautiful, but NYC screws it up.

I think everything you want is here except the weather.

KY summers ARE HOT (90 degrees plus) and very HUMID (well above 60%) for lots of July and August. It is not uncommon for humidity to be high other months as well but with lower temps, it is not so noticeable.

You won't be able to check off the heat/humidity box in your requirements. Kentucky summers are HUMID, even when temperatures are average.  July through August can be pretty dang tropical with pop up thunderstorms etc.  September transitions to cooler weather, but can still be fairly hot as well.

My recommendation would be to look into the Somerset area.  Plenty of lakes, farmland and a national forest.  It's about an hour and change south of Lex off US 27 and a 45 minute drive south to the Tennessee state line. South central KY, including Somerset, London and Corbin is probably the most conservative area of the state.

Very welcome Sir.

Another vote for Western KY. If you want to check it out sometime, I'll be happy to give you a tour.

Regarding deer hunting, here is the recent report:

https://fw.ky.gov/Hunt/Documents/2018-19KentuckyDeerReportFinal.pdf