What happens to upstate NY long term?

[Person Man]

It generally swung hard right in 2012-2016 but then Biden had a pretty good swing in his favor. He still underperformed Obama in much of rural upstate but matched or even exceeded Obama in a lot of high education urban/suburban communities. Some argue that Obama's upstate performance in 2012 was in part because of Hurricane Sandy and hence unnatural.

Also worth noting upstate's population growth has been generally poor for the past few censuses, especially in rural areas.

Upstate also seems prone to a lot of strong overperformances on both sides despite polarization. In 2020 for instance, both Brindisi and Katko overperformed the top of the ticket by 10 points despite being in neighboring dis
tricts and both districts being seriously contested.

Its the same situation that is happening everywhere else in the country. Communities that reward more Performance IQ-based tasks will trend Republican and communities that reward more Verbal IQ-based skills will trend Democratic.

[Person Man]

The Rural Northeast/New England will be the next region of the country to undergo Trumpinization, so I'd expect a pretty consistent GOP trend.

I used to believe strongly in this, however I am less confident now that abortion appears to be taking center stage again.  Generally more optimistic for R's in the Southwest and more optimistic for D's in the Northeast than I was pre-COVID.

The GOP is being taking over by Southern Evangelicals with the abortion issue raging. Trump was secular by Republican standards, so he did much better in the Northeast and Upper Midwest. Going back to their angry anti abortion roots is going to hurt in the region.

A working class voter in Upstate New York or Michigan is different, from one in Alabama on social issues.

If true, there's 2 sides to this coin.  Dems may hold on in the NE and Upper Midwest longer than expected, but do GA and NC go right back to R+5 and Texas back to R+10?  Is VA too close to call again?

It probably wouldn't do that much in Virginia, Nevada, Arizona, or Florida but maybe it would put  North Carolina and Georgia out of reach. It would probably make Pennsylvania and Michigan lean D. Not sure if it will change anything in Iowa, Ohio or Wisconsin, though. Maybe Wisconsin. This analysis probably only works if the abortion issue moves beyond simply where the local state only wants to close their abortion clinics but then tries to long arm as many people as they can.

If abortion stays a local thing, I can see trends continuing. Maybe Republicans "make peace" with abortion in New Hampshire and New York and eventually win most of the state-level races. Same with Democrats in Missouri, Arkansas, or Georgia.

[Person Man]

So far, the national impact of the abortion news has been underwhelming.  IMO it's very likely to go like your 2nd scenario where each state has settled into their preferred abortion regime and 10 years in the future, its mostly a boring local issue like whether to build a particular road.  It only becomes a national issue if Republicans make it one, for example if signing a pledge to vote for a federal ban becomes a litmus test in US House/Senate Republican primaries. 

This seems extremely unlikely to me. Abortion legality is an issue that, unusually, has a very obvious and direct affect on everyday people's lives, in a way that's very obvious to even extremely politically disengaged people. You don't think people will notice when they aren't able to get an abortion?

Interstate travel is easy enough now that I don't foresee this being a huge issue unless they are like 1000 miles from where it's legal (South Texas to Colorado or Illinois in the long run?).  Right now, this is the state of play, with dark red being a near total ban, yellow being likely legal with more restrictions than today, dark green legal with fewer restrictions than today.  Note how DeSantis interesting moved to the center a bit on this issue vs. almost all other R trifecta states  (Sununu is explicitly pro-choice).  Note Michigan will instantly have a total ban if Roe  falls, but it can also be repealed by referendum.



 

What did he say this? I did see somewhere that other NH Republicans are interested in doing something open minded about this issue.

Didn't Michigan just have its ban stayed?