Whether RINO Tom likes it or not, they will focus on places like GA-06 and VA-10 and not Ohio or Iowa.
They'll "focus" wherever they think they can win, but that isn't going to push them into a conservative economic platform to become, as you've so eloquently put it in the past, a "Fairfax County party." They who most of their voters are, and their interests are diametrically opposed with a Democratic Party that becomes GOP lite on economic issues.
The thing is... I highly doubt that economic issues are all these voters care about (and even if that were the case, a good chunk of them would vote for Democrats). These places are also changing demographically and much more receptive to the Democratic message (whatever you think it is) than they would have been in 2010 or so. There's a reason why Jon Ossoff is likely to win the special election in GA. I'm not sure why many Republicans assume that places like GA-06 will trend Republican again once Trump is no longer on the ballot.
I'm also not saying that Democrats won't be competitive in statewide or even Senate races in many of these states like WI or MI or that all suburban areas are destined to trend Democratic, but IMO it's pretty clear that their future lies in the Sun Belt rather than the Rust Belt. And you can make fun of the term "Fairfax County party" for as long as you want, but the Democrats have been courting these voters for a long time now (although I agree that NoVA is not your "typical" suburban area).
Sorry, but I just don't really buy this whole thing. Do rich White suburbanites not vote as Republican as they used to? Sure. But this myth of affluent Whites becoming big Democrats only seems to appear in the nerdy minds of our friends here at Atlas. Most people think closer to the narrative of, "a rich billionaire Republican just won POTUS, what realignment?" Let's use DuPage County, IL - a county that had voted Republican every election until 2008 - as an example. It was 84.05% White in 2000 and onlly 77.8% White in 2010 (and less than that now). If the GOP won 55% of Whites and 25% of minorities in 2000 (a totally legitimate guess for this county), they would have won the county 50.22%-49.79% in a two-way vote. Given the margins, they clearly won north of 55% of Whites that election. In 2008, with the exact same percent of Whites, McCain still would have lost the county 48.34%-51.66%. There was also probably increased minority turnout.
Affluent, White suburban counties starting to vote Democratic does not necessarily mean that affluent White suburbanites are switching their voting habits, and to go with that analysis without digging into how the county has changed is lazy. GA-06 going Democratic would almost CERTAINLY have more to do with it being more diverse than wealthy Whites - an incredibly natural Republican demographic, just as much in 2017 as ever - deciding one day that they are now Democrats.
You're also neglecting the fact that just as many voters are swung on social/Culture Wars type issues as economic issues. Democratic positions on race, religion, gender, gay rights, abortion, and immigration are all more aligned with your average voter in DuPage County than the Republicans' positions on these same issues.
Religious fundamentalism was enough to make Southern Whites abandon the Democrats en masse, and I expect Millennial-inspired inclusive social liberalism is enough to cause northern suburbanites to flock to the Dems as well.
