The PVI of this district is kind of misleading, it's a combination of heavily Republican rural areas that probably swung toward Trump along with Ithaca. Ithaca prevents it from being too Republican but the district is heavily polarized and there's not a whole lot a Democrat could gain in Ithaca. Of course one possibility is Ithaca turnout surges and rural turnout craters, very likely in a bad Trump midterm.
...or that Republican support in rural areas craters.
Does anyone think that Donald Trump is any more knowledgeable about agricultural issues than he is about defense or foreign policy?
2017 is beginning to look like another "Year Without a Winter"... see also 2012, when the usual blizzards that leave behind heavy snows that blanket the Corn Belt and protect the ground water while melting late in the spring just in time to allow copious soil moisture for germinating grain crops. Although summer 2012 was not really dry, the corn crop was much below average. I can imagine southern Michigan looking much like the northern San Joaquin Valley of California with yellowed laws (which also reduced our lawn mowing). But streams were low, suggesting a low water table.
Global warming cause poor crop yields and will hit farmers in their bank accounts, and what has usually been a reliable constituency for Republicans could turn on the GOP.
My district (MI-07, a declining-industrial district with agriculture returning to the importance that it once had) would be a Democratic takeover. This is the Corn Belt.
I'm thinking of some rural districts in Iowa, southern Wisconsin and Michigan, and northern Illinois and Indiana, and northwestern Ohio that would become vulnerable.
Were I running on a Democratic ticket for Representative (state of federal) I would take on global warming for its effect upon agriculture.
Don't like the blizzards? There's a solution for you. It's a seven-letter word that begins in F and ends in A. We really do need our grain crops, and they need some winter blizzards.
How long would you say it would take for the rurals to turn against the GOP if this is the case, and what districts would have the largest swings from such a backlash?
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