As the 2018 midterm campaigns hit their stride last summer, there was finally some mainstream recognition that post-2016 grassroots groups — sometimes discussed as “Resistance” groups — had become an electoral force to be reckoned with. Reporters and academics have established certain baseline facts:
• The new groups are disproportionately composed of middle-aged to retirement-age college-educated women.
• They are especially prominent in America’s “suburbs.”
• Their hands-on campaigning formed part of the “Blue Wave” that flipped suburban seats to the Democrats in November 2018.Can we gather a more detailed assessment of where the new grassroots are? A previous post here tried to answer that question for Pennsylvania, combining electoral stats and firsthand observations to trace variations in grassroots intensity by county type and show the 2018 electoral swings linked to them. What does the data show across the nation as a whole? CONT.
Lara Putnam & Gabriel Perez-Putnam, American Communities Project