… Election outcomes in America have become increasingly correlated with population density, a pattern that also appears in other industrialized countries. Rural areas are now reliably Republican, urban areas overwhelmingly Democratic. The suburbs are lodged in between, with many economically conservative but socially liberal voters who have a foot in each party — or for whom neither party is a perfect fit. The midterms were fought in large part in these suburbs. …
Today Democrats are benefiting from both the changing nature of the suburbs and the changing preferences of white college-educated voters there who are repelled by the president. But the second trend is more precarious for Democrats.
That’s because, as the political scientist Jefferey Sellers puts it, many suburban voters tend toward an eclectic mix of preferences that can seem contradictory. Particularly in denser, close-in suburbs, voters tend to be more cosmopolitan than in rural areas and turned off by culture war issues that animate other Republican voters. But they’re also more fiscally conservative than many urban voters, and opposed, for example, to the higher taxes some liberal policies would require. CONT.
Emily Badger, Quoctrung Bui & Josh Katz, New York Times