The immediate post-election story has focused on the continued Republican problems in the suburbs. But there’s another part of the story that is good news for the GOP, a part that shows our continuing realignment moves in two directions. That story is the ongoing movement of formerly Democratic regions and […] Read more »
Democrats extend their dominance of the suburbs, with an eye to 2020
New flashes of Democratic electoral strength Tuesday from the outskirts of Memphis, Cincinnati and Philadelphia to the neighborhoods of Northern Virginia marked an advancement of the party’s dominance across America’s fast-changing suburbs. The results underscored the profound electoral realignment that has been unfolding since President Trump’s ascent upended the nation’s […] Read more »
Density Increasingly Decides State Elections, Too
Tuesday’s election results show how America is continuing to polarize along an urban-rural continuum. But it’s not playing out the same everywhere. Voters on Tuesday gave Democrats a resounding victory in races for Virginia’s general assembly, a narrow victory in Kentucky’s gubernatorial election, and a defeat in Mississippi’s gubernatorial race. […] Read more »
The Suburban Backlash Against the GOP Is Growing
The shift of metro areas away from the Republican Party under President Donald Trump rumbled on in yesterday’s elections, threatening the fundamental calculation of his 2020 reelection plan. Amid all the various local factors that shaped GOP losses—from Kentucky to Virginia, from suburban Philadelphia to Wichita, Kansas—the clearest pattern was […] Read more »
Tuesday’s elections highlight the anti-Trump fervor in America’s suburbs
There was mostly bad news for Republicans in Tuesday’s elections, but the most concerning of all for party leaders should be the Democrats’ steady march in converting suburban America into a political stronghold during the era of President Trump. Virginia’s dramatic and rapid transition from red to purple to blue […] Read more »
The Border Between Red and Blue America
The suburbs are up for grabs. Anybody who’s paying attention to the 2020 election knows that. But there’s a more fundamental question: Just what are the suburbs anyway? In a statistical sense, they are surprisingly hard to define. The United States Census Bureau, the primary source of demographic data, doesn’t […] Read more »