The shift in suburban, relatively Middle / Upper- Middle Class, Educated areas away from the Republican Party at a Federal Level has actually been a phenomenon that has been developing over the past 2-3 decades, although this has played out at different stages and levels in various parts of the United States....
It was masked in many ways by a simultaneous drop in Democratic support in other communities in various States, as well as a continued receptivity in many places to continue to vote Republican for US-SEN and US-House races....
We first started to observe this phenomenon in the US-PRES election of '88 in a few larger Metro Areas of the West Coast / Mountain West (Seattle, Portland, Bay Area, & Denver), and possibly a few parts of the Central Atlantic / Northeast / New England (Although I haven't really looked into that too much).
By the time the 1990s started to hit full force, this becomes a bit more evident in the Presidential Election of 1996, where we start to observe the larger Metro areas of SoCal join in the Party to a significant degree (Just to use one example).
The Presidential Election of 2000 is where we really started to see "Knowledge Sector Workers" emerge as a key element of the "New American Economy"....
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/10/06/1-changes-in-the-american-workplace/Suddenly places like NoVA , "Collar Counties" of Chicago, Charlotte NC, "Research Triangle" NC, start to look a bit more competitive than used to be the case....
Fast forward to '08 and Obama suddenly landslides in San Diego County, NoVA becomes dark red, Mecklenburg Co NC (Metro Charlotte), Research Triangle NC, Franklin County, OH becomes a Democratic stronghold, "Collar Counties" of IL fairly Dem, Oakland County MI +17% D (!!!), etc....
Hit 2016 and suddenly the snowball is rolling down the icy mountain passes....
OC flips, SE PA moves hard Dem, +20% swings in upper-middle-class educated 'Burbs from Tennessee to Texas to Kansas....
Ok--- most us on Atlas that follow regularly and post on these topics already get the broader trajectory at
a Presidential Level.What about other Federal Races?
1.) The shifts we saw in "Wave 1" of the suburban rejection of 'Pub PRES candidates actually took at Decade or so to manifest for US-House and US-SEN races....
2.) "Wave 2" was slightly more compressed in time and space, but even in the Obama '08 campaign, we didn't really see these gains in suburban voters directly translate into dramatic "down ballot" gains among this population.
3.) "Wave 3", even in these types of areas that did not dramatically swing towards HRC in '16 we suddenly started to observe massive swings in Special Elections from AZ CD-08, PA CD-17, OH CD-12.
These are many of the same areas where we are now seeing Republicans facing their biggest threat for US-House Races.
4.) Where I am going with this, is that it used to take awhile (A decade +) to see realignment in these suburban communities, now appears that it is happening overnight.
This is most unusual by any standard, and although ultimately the areas where we are seeing the biggest swings against the Republican Party, might well be the areas that swing back the hardest (Much like some of the Labor Movement Democratic Strongholds of the MidWest), but still want and are willing to pay for government services (Education, Roads, Health Care), go to work with folks from a wide variety of backgrounds, have a neighborhood BBQ without "haters" preaching their religion, talking about mass deportations based upon country of origin, or overall violating any standard Business Code of Conduct type "Red Lines" that we are all expected to understand and comply with in terms of how we treat our fellow workers, customers, and basically just common sense human decency.
If it's good enough for the Business Leaders of Corporate America, why are these same codes of conduct different for the President of the United States of America???
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