Did generational turnover help create the “Blue Wall” in 1988-2000?

[darklordoftech]

Did older generations tend to be more Republican and younger generations more Democratic in these states, and did older generations dying off and younger generations reaching the age where they start turning out to vote help create the “Blue Wall”?

[Don Vito Corleone]

The issue with this is back then the older generations were the GIs and thus Democratic (see Dukakis's best age cohort being 64+) Indeed, the remaining GIs today are still Democratic (Fun fact: Obama won the 84+ vote).

[darklordoftech]

The issue with this is back then the older generations were the GIs and thus Democratic (see Dukakis's best age cohort being 64+) Indeed, the remaining GIs today are still Democratic (Fun fact: Obama won the 84+ vote).

Might this only be true for certain demographics and regions? For example, GIs were/are more Democratic in the South but more Republican in New England.

[sg0508]

No. I think more just the decline of unionized labor, and the feeling of the blue collars that the GOP was out of touch with their lives and needs.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The issue with this is back then the older generations were the GIs and thus Democratic (see Dukakis's best age cohort being 64+) Indeed, the remaining GIs today are still Democratic (Fun fact: Obama won the 84+ vote).

Might this only be true for certain demographics and regions? For example, GIs were/are more Democratic in the South but more Republican in New England.

This is correct. They were also more Republican in California.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

What created the Blue wall was the shift in emphasis of the GOP to the the sunbelt and especially the priorities of the sunbelt suburbs, which being very religious, and favoring lesser government intervention and free trade made them decidedly less appealing to the rust belt states.

[Arbitrage1980]

Bill Clinton deserves a lot of credit for it. He is underrated by today's Dems.

Clinton 1992 made massive gains in the suburbs that went for Reagan and HW Bush. He moved the Dems to the center on economy, crime, culture. During his presidency, the economy boomed, and Clinton signed critical welfare reform and crime bills. The latter played an instrumental role in the reduction of crime during the 90s. These policy successes re-aligned affluent suburbs in WA, CA, IL, MD, PA, NJ, CT.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Bill Clinton deserves a lot of credit for it. He is underrated by today's Dems.

Clinton 1992 made massive gains in the suburbs that went for Reagan and HW Bush. He moved the Dems to the center on economy, crime, culture. During his presidency, the economy boomed, and Clinton signed critical welfare reform and crime bills. The latter played an instrumental role in the reduction of crime during the 90s. These policy successes re-aligned affluent suburbs in WA, CA, IL, MD, PA, NJ, CT.

This is true and Republicans created the opening in two basic ways.

1. In prior recessions, white collar workers had never really been hit the way blue collar workers were as many recessions were in the industrial era part of the business/inventory cycle. IBM for instance went through the whole of the Great Depression without laying people off. This changed with the 1991 recession.

2. Republicans had started to shift on social/cultural issues from crime and busing, which had actually helped to juice GOP margins in both crime and/or race conscious suburbs, to the religious based social issues such as abortion and traditional marriage and this had a geographic cleaving effect on suburbia because while Southern suburbs were still on the whole rather religious, northern suburbs were becoming increasingly secularized.

When you combine Republicans no longer being seen as your economic protectors and now advancing social issues that make you uncomfortable with a newly crime conscious Democratic Party that is suddenly more pro-business than it has been in years, and you have the recipe for a realignment in those suburbs.

[Skill and Chance]

What created the Blue wall was the shift in emphasis of the GOP to the the sunbelt and especially the priorities of the sunbelt suburbs, which being very religious, and favoring lesser government intervention and free trade made them decidedly less appealing to the rust belt states.

I'm not convinced this explains it.  Both parties were nearly down the line free traders from 1935-2015.  If anything it was George W. Bush who flirted with protectionism with the steel tariff in 2003.  I do think the Blue Wall was mostly an illusion.  The Upper Midwest likely would have given out on Democrats in 2004 were it not for the Iraq War.

I think it's a combination of 1. The labor market basically being continuously awesome for low-moderately skilled people from 1945-1990 (the 70's were rough economically, but that was mainly because of inflation, not unemployment) and then that system (and the congressional consensus it supported based on dividing up the surplus from all that economic growth) suddenly showing weakness in 1991 and 2001 and then breaking down completely in 2008.   So it was more of a swing vote to whoever seemed to be looking out for them better economically during 1992-present than it was a solid Democratic vote, but they also tended to be very dovish on foreign policy which significantly limited Republican upside between Reagan and Trump.