Talk Elections

Particularly middle-income to upper-income white suburbs? I can't determine if the current GOP problem among white suburbanites is reactionary to the era of Trumpism, or if this is really a geographical realignment. Romney did better than McCain did in the suburbs. There seems to be a ton of "never-Trump" Republicans living in suburbs.

EDIT: Can the moderator move this question? I posted it in the wrong category.

1) Did Trump really do better in lower income suburbs (as opposed to middle or upper)?  Not talking countries here, deeper inspection than that metric.  His vote share was directly tied with a higher income, so that would surprise me.  Obviously, he lost uncharacteristic ground in the higher income ones, but was his vote share actually higher in low income ones (as I believe your post assumes)?  I’m genuinely curious.

2) It will depend.  I think the 2024 GOPer will ABSOLUTELY do better with, say, *Romney-Clinton voters*, but we’ll have a different voter pool by then.  Younger voters will likely remain pretty Democratic and they’ll constitute a larger share of this group by then.  Same with minoroties.  So, IMO it’s the answer to a simple math equation that I don’t feel I can predict yet.

If 2/3 of these things happen almost certainly:

1. Trump is defeated in 2020
2. A Recession Happens in the early 20s(say early 90s style) under a Democratic President
3. Establishment Republican is the nominee


If all 3 happens they would do a better in the Suburbs than they have in any election since 2004

Depends entirely on the performance of the Democratic president.

More than likely better. It'll boil down to whoever the Democrat is and who the Republican is. If its Sanders vs. Haley or Baker (or Haley/Baker), then I think the Republican would do about as good as Bush '04 or better. If its Gillibrand vs. Cotton, then the Democrat does about the same as 2016 or better.

Not of Trump is still president,

But if a Democrat is President and it is a moderate (not Cotton or Pence) then about 5-10 pp better

Depends on which party is the incumbent. If Trump/Pence is still the President/VP no, if it's the Dems, probably yes (with the significant caveat of an economic crash in the next 18 months)

Will the 2016 Democratic candidate do better than Obama in Coal Country?

If it's someone like #populist Clinton, of course. #populist WWC Clinton wins back Mingo County with 70% of the vote, tbh imo tbh.

If Obama lost in 2012 the answer would have been yes unless of course, Romney was winning in a big in 2016.

Also The Democrats dont need Coal Country while Republicans need the suburbs

If 2024 is an open election with Trump at the end of his second term, no (eight-year itch will mean Democrats will be poised to win big)

If 2024 is the reelection campaign for an incumbent Democratic president, yes

The reason the suburbs (especially in the sunbelt) are trending so fast is because of generational turnover so no

There is absolutely no empirical evidence to suggest this is the case.

Umm no, I am also of Gen Z, and most of the friends at school are hardcore liberals. Young people are always extremely liberal and change as they get older, for the next 10 years, Gen Z will vote 80-20 Dem, once they get settled, people tend to trend conservative, and as seniors, most people are conservative, but there are liberal seniors

This theory has been mostly discredited. However you vote at 25 is generally how you'll vote for the rest of your life. Some people may switch, but they are the exception. What my happen is that the political center of the country moves left or right and then people are judged relative to that center, but there's little chance that a given liberal will become a conservative in their old age or vice versa.

As for Gen Z being liberal, however, you are most certainly correct.

Absolutely

LOL. The “Conservative Gen Z” theory has been proven to be nothing but bull. Conservatives are too arrogant to admit it.

Besides you, though, right?

Also, just to clarify to the red avatars (and Tekken_Guy, who is doing his best to be the heir apparent to Badger when he FINALLY registers as a Democrat) ... will Republicans ever get any voters again?  Once White Boomers die off, will they get 20-30% of the vote in all national elections?  There is a strange paradox present on Atlas that holds two truths:

1) People do NOT get more conservative as they age, as a rule (which I agree with), AND younger voters (i.e., younger than Millennials) do not appear to be significantly more conservative than Millennials (I again agree).

2) 2016/2018 trends will continue into the foreseeable future (here is where I disagree).

You all do realize that if both of these things are true, the GOP will be down to ~35% of the popular vote by the 2030s, right?

The trends will continue until the GOP gets desperate enough to drop the reactionary Boomer shtick and move to the center. This will take a while given the aggressive propaganda campaign that Fox News is waging, but I expect that by the late 30s they will nominate an actual moderate (i.e an Eisenhower or Clinton type).

This actually wouldn't be unprecedented. Just look at 1920 and 1924. GOP dominance was so extreme by that point that the Dems only got 34.1% and 28.8% respectively in those elections.

It will require the GOP change drastically, just as the Democrats did with FDR, for them to win again if and when it reaches that point.

I don't see our current state of polarization lasting forever, nor do I see Millennials/younger becoming diehard conservatives. So something's gotta give, and it will probably force the GOP to either adapt or die and be replaced by a new party. That also wouldn't be unprecedented -- the GOP itself was formed out of the ashes of the Whigs, which was formed out of the ashes of the Federalists. Only the Democratic Party has endured in one form or another since (almost) the founding of the nation.

It could be Trump himself if he runs again after losing 2020. I'm not kidding.

If the candidate decides to mimic Trump, then no way.

If the candidate decides to mimic establishment Republican candidates (e.g. McCain, Romney, etc.), then it could be possible.

If he loses in 2020 (and is forced to step down), he'll be in prison by then.

Trump refusing to step down is the biggest boogeyman event atlas dems have ever pushed. Seriously, he's not going to do that.

He'd be too old IMO.

Assuming Haley/Abbott/DeSantis or someone is the nominee, probably. I doubt they'll reach Romney 2012 levels in areas like NOVA, but winning back the Romney-Clinton Houston/Phoenix/Dallas/Sunbelt suburbs seems pretty likely outside of areas with special factors like NOVA and government workers.

No. Suburban culture is simply trending away from conservatism and I don't see any sociopolitical event disrupting that in the next five years.

If Trump is reelected in 2020: definitely not
If Trump loses in 2020: depends on how much the party distances itself from Trump, what the economy is looking like, and who the GOP nominee is.

Nope nope nope. You can’t say that one party reforms out of others, and that qualifies as “dying,” but the Holy Democratic Party has always existed “in one form or another.” What’s more, this reductionist idea that we’ve always had the dichotomy of today just makes you sound completely stupid.

Yes, as long as it isn't Ted Cruz.

Considering how well Cox/Ducey/Abbott etc performed in the same "trending away" suburbs, it seems clear imo that the big change is political and not generational.

Did "establishment" characters like McCain or Romney do worse with the Religious Right than Bush did?

Nope! Relative to overall performance, both McCain and Romney did better with white evangelicals than Bush did (McCain did worse in absolute terms, but also performed 9 points worse overall). That's because candidates don't bring the change in the electorate, rather they result from those changes. Suburbs are not a monolith, and there's a possibility that the next GOP candidate will do better in certain suburbs than Trump, but the suburbs that have diversified (think TX-32 and GA-07) will not back the GOP again and will only continue to trend farther and farther to the left as the olds of today exit the electorate and are replaced with the youngs.

Yes and no
2016 trends are clearly white voters flipping. The strongest swings are in the rich white areas. Now minorities provided a base but white voters going from 75-25 R to 60 40 R was the major fact that flipped areas like Tx 7th.

Or Mitt Romney in 2012, for that matter. The kinds of swings we saw in Orange County, CA or Mason County, WV can’t be explained generational turnover alone, unless you’re being deliberately obtuse.

DARIEN CT
+26 Bush 04 Standard TAX CUTS
+9 Mccain 08, PANIC WE NEED SOCIALIZED LOSSES FOR OUR BANKS
2012 + 32 Romney BARACK HUSSEIN OBUMMER PASSED DODD FRANK, cut my dividend by 0.5%. +
2016 +11 Clinton, ORANGE MAN BAD.

The voters in these suburbs have come unhinged -- Trump really broke people and sent them into permanent derangement like no one else could. Most of these places will be voting communist for at least the next generation. Face it.
Hell, if the GOP nominated someone like Baker or Hogan in 2024, even they would probably underperform Romney '12 significantly.

Nice meme.

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/

I do think the ~35 y/o Millennial couples buying their single family home in the suburbs and having their 1-3 kids are markedly more liberal than Boomers were at the age when they did the same.  That seems an underrated part of the story.  The suburbs are now taking on these voters that turned many city centers from 65% to 85% Dem during 2004-12, and the center cities are if anything moving a bit to the right since ~2015.  This shows up most in states with small counties.

I'd also add that the impetus behind the migration to suburban areas is much different than it was in the mid-to-late 20th century. In many American cities, the price of housing and other living expenses is increasing at a dramatic rate that many people are moving out of the central city to find more affordable options in other parts of the metro area (this is especially true for victims of gentrification). Many of these new suburban residents are not only more left-wing on social issues but also fiscal issues than previous generations of suburbanites.

Depends on who the candidates are, but it is heading in that direction

The shift in the suburbs, especially the well educated upper middle class ones have been going on since before Trump.  Romney stemmed that tied a bit as we was as good of a GOP candidate for that type of voter, and Trump was pretty much the worst so the trend between 12 and 16 was larger than it otherwise would have been, but the trend was still likely going to be there.  Trump, just accelerated it, and many of these voters aren't coming back.

No, not until urban poverty is solved, Trump exacerbated the income inequality gap, that was improving when Obama left office. GOP will be the underdog in the following elections, unless a Rubio, who can move Latinos, gets the nomination

Maybe.