I think Wilson has made some extreme remarks about a lot of topics. He has criticized Republicans, but he has also taken positions that are not exactly in line with the Democratic party. Generally a university professor will get into more trouble by becoming controversial in local university politics than by taking a stand on larger national politics.

"There is no arguing the point that academics are way to the left politically of the rest of the population. Do you think this is because Democrats are smarter or something else?"

Academics do at least appear to be a little more to the left (I haven't seen any hard evidence of academic political philosophy). I don't know the definite reason for that. We could speculate, but it would be just that---speculation.