Talk Elections

And really, the crucial movement in the balance of power of the parties.  The suburbs usually decide key races and the GOP used to have a stranglehold on America's burbs (where I live).

Obviously, the GOP's social stances and movements to the right probably triggered the movement, which started in the early 90s. Pat Buchanan's speech turned off a ton of moderate republicans in Long Island, NY that year and since then, the GOP never won our burbs back along with the burbs in many key states, including those that have become solidly blue (i.e. CA, IL, NJ, DE, etc)

Suburban voters tend to be mostly white, well-educated, with moderate to moderate/high incomes.

The GOP never really had a "stranglehold" on America's suburbs, FWIW.

Consider that a lot of suburbs aren't as lily-white as they were in the '50s and '60s. But whatever the GOP has lost in suburbs it has gained many times over in exurbs: Acres of non-denominational white Protestants with no more and no less education than a bachelor's degree, living in massive pasteboard McMansions that have libraries with no books in them, commuting 50 miles to and from work in Expeditions and Suburbans, shopping at Mediterranean-themed strip malls that all feature a Starbucks, a Chipotle, a Best Buy and a Kohl's. No public spaces. No poor minorities looking for a handout (just the ones who vacuum their living rooms and make their pillow-sized burritos at Chipotle). It's the Tea Party's natural home.

Nassau County is 65% non-Hispanic white. And Jews are about 15%. The GOP would have to do as well among non-Jewish white people as the Dems do with Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and Jews just to break even. It's amazing the Republicans do as well as they do. Must be a lot of Peter King type folks out there.

its all myth. Social issues didn't kill the republicans. Remember that for decades, the Chicago suburbs was represented by Henry Hyde who was a virulent anti-choicer. Not all suburbs have always been republican either. A lot of the LA suburban areas, particularly the working class ones to the south and east of LA, have always been democrat leaning. Plenty of suburbs also still vote republican. Much of the movement to the democrats was in the older metro areas. In areas like ATL, Houston, DFW etc., the republicans still win the suburbs.

Well, minorities tend to have lower turnout, so the GOP wouldn't have to do quite as well, but yeah.  The fact that the suburbs are less and less white is a big reason that many of them have trended D.

True.  Suburbs actually tend to lean Democrat everywhere outside of Republican-leaning states, because they are moderate/high income and politically moderate (and view Republican as a bunch of crazy right-wing religious nuts), and Clinton got them to vote Democrat starting with the '92 realignment, and they've been doing it ever since.

Voter suppression.