Is Trump hurting Republicans' long time prospect?

[Person Man]

Of course not. After he wins again the Democrats will be ruthlessly gerrymandered, and it will be even easier and more glorious than 2011 since the Democrats have shrunk themselves into a pathetic 400 county rump party.

400 counties that 70% of the country lives in? It's Republicans in places like rural Texas that will have a serious self-packing problem in the long-run if current trends hold.

Mathematically that doesn't even work. There are only 23 districts where Trump got 70% of the vote, and a large portion of those are easily unpacked in the next redistricting. Antiquated VRA preclearance nonsense is gone. There are at least 61, and probably 63, such Hillary districts.

The Rump party has close to 23 such packs in NYC and the Bay Area alone.

You're missing my point. Those 400 counties are growing and the rural counties are shrinking and have been for some time. That in and of itself is a sign of concern.

-Trump appealed to the forgotten men and women of this country. Whaddaya expect? It's not a "sign of concern"; it's a sign of Trump doing what he said he would do.

That sure sounds like a brilliant long-term strategy: run up the score in Appalachia and in the Plains and see how far that gets you.

-Trump ran up the score in Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Ohio, instead. Worked very well for him.

by 1% in four states isn't running up the score. Sorry. 8% in Ohio and Iowa is impressive. I'll give you that. 3% in Arizona and even 5% in Georgia? Not so much. Maybe Trump will consolidate, but these states are leaving at the first sign of trouble, even if Ohio and Iowa aren't going anywhere. It's actually a pretty even trade.

[Person Man]

Of course not. After he wins again the Democrats will be ruthlessly gerrymandered, and it will be even easier and more glorious than 2011 since the Democrats have shrunk themselves into a pathetic 400 county rump party.

400 counties that 70% of the country lives in? It's Republicans in places like rural Texas that will have a serious self-packing problem in the long-run if current trends hold.

Mathematically that doesn't even work. There are only 23 districts where Trump got 70% of the vote, and a large portion of those are easily unpacked in the next redistricting. Antiquated VRA preclearance nonsense is gone. There are at least 61, and probably 63, such Hillary districts.

The Rump party has close to 23 such packs in NYC and the Bay Area alone.

You're missing my point. Those 400 counties are growing and the rural counties are shrinking and have been for some time. That in and of itself is a sign of concern.

-Trump appealed to the forgotten men and women of this country. Whaddaya expect? It's not a "sign of concern"; it's a sign of Trump doing what he said he would do.

That sure sounds like a brilliant long-term strategy: run up the score in Appalachia and in the Plains and see how far that gets you.

-Trump ran up the score in Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Ohio, instead. Worked very well for him.

Well you can only win on the backs of 70 point margins in shrinking counties for so long.

-Very few of those margins were 70 point.

Actually, quite a few were.
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2016&fips=42&f=0&off=0&elect=0
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2016&fips=12&f=0&off=0&elect=0
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2016&fips=55&f=0&off=0&elect=0

That's a LOT of dark blue...

even here...
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2016&fips=8&f=0&off=0&elect=0
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2016&fips=41&f=0&off=0&elect=0

[Person Man]

Hopefully, this is one of the last times we see a GOP dominance for a generation. If 2018, which will rebuild the state legislatures for the Dems and Gov mansions for Dems in preparation for 2020 reapportionment, and Tulsi Gabbard is the Democratic nominee and Dems prevail in winning the House and the Senate, then we will be able to stack the Crt with Kennedy's replacement and Ginnsberg as well. Despite the fact, Hilary bungled the Scalia vacancy.

A Trump midterm election and not a Hilary midterm set the Dems up for 2020.

Hillary probably didn't win "because of SCOTUS" not because a lot of conservatives wanted "a pro-lifer" but that Democrats were so unpopular downballot, she would have been totally ineffective and SCOTUS might not of happen (what if Collins wouldn't budge, but Casey and Donneley did?). She would of had a 1 seat majority and would of suffered a massive wave against her in 2018. The GOP could of have a 61 senate seats, the Presidency, 250 House seats, and 37 Governorships by 2020.

[Person Man]

Trump actually did better than expected with the youth vote in certain key states according to CNN exit polls.

Wisconsin: he won 18-24 year olds 45-43 points.

Minnesota: he won 18-24 year olds 48-43 (the only other age group that voted for Trump was the 50-64 demographic).

Pennsylvania: he lost 18-24 year olds 50-45, but this was noticeably better than how he performed among 25-29 year olds (lost 53-40) and 30-39 year olds (lost 54-40).

Given that people generally become more conservative and not less as they grow up I'd say he's in a pretty good spot in the rust belt.

All he has to do in 2020 is hold Florida and flip Minnesota and he can afford to lose NC, Arizona, and Georgia.

The problem is that Michigan would be one of the first to flip back to Dems if they can juice up black turnout. And your statement about people becoming more conservative with age is questionable at best, which was talked about earlier. Also, while the 18-24 year old vote in WI, MN and OH aren't good for D's long-term, that's not where their coalition will likely even be. The youth vote in Texas, FL, GA, NC and AZ is absurdly D-heavy, and that's much more Democratic than any of the Midwestern youth vote is Republican in any of those states.

It's not really questionable. Conservative candidates have pretty much always done better with the elderly and vice versa with the youth and liberals.

The trends are not there YET for democrats to take Texas in 2020 barring a 1980 landslide.

But ultimately it will come down to Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida in 2020.

Not in the 80s. That's why Reagan also was a disaster in the midterms.

[Person Man]

No, I actually don't think so. Both parties in the US shift so there is an equilibrium between them and they both always represent ~50% of the electorate.

I think that is relative to the time period. Maybe now it's somewhat more split (even if Democrats hold a persistent party ID advantage by small amounts), but in terms of political support it's often not balanced at all and at times wildly out of balance as the 20th century showed. However, even small imbalances can produce a lasting advantage for one party. For instance, if the vote is a tie right now, or even if Republicans lose the PV somewhat, they will still get a House majority. Evidently this now applies bigly to the electoral college, and the Senate is in some ways becoming a natural gerrymander for them.

But I would say that the nature of American politics is a constant push-pull and eventually things balance out for a little bit, but there are sometimes long periods of time where one party has enough support to guarantee reliable wins - such as Democrats in 1932 - 1994 and Republicans now in 1994 - now (at least besides the presidency)

-The Democrats lost the House in 1994 and 2010 because of their support for the individual mandate. If they were smart, they would have learned the art of 40-year dominance from Sam Rayburn.

That's an awfully simplistic view for a complex situation, imo. Healthcare policy could have "shocked" their majorities but it certainly wasn't the cause of their demise. Those trends were in motion long before 1994. I don't think their majorities in 2009 were at all sustainable, either. Democrats were fresh off of 2 waves in a row. It wasn't a realignment - the GOP still had the support to claim a reliable majority, its just enough voters were temporarily pissed off at them to put Democrats in charge. I'm pretty sure that regardless of what Obama/Democrats did, they were going to lose Congress again soon after 2009. The only part they could have mitigated was the size of those losses, which ideally should not have been as bad as it was had they played their right cards. Obama was a good fit for the GOP in this particular situation as he didn't give his party's election prospects nearly enough thought in regards to policy if you ask me, which is strategically foolish.

Pretty much two things
- Getting nothing done in order to win elections and then not doing anything is pointless.
- When people are ready to listen to Democrats, they do well, their hang time is then determined by how bad of shape we are in.

Beyond that, it will be interesting to see what an actual alignment looks like though it has made younger people in sunbelt and reliably liberal states liberal though it seems there were always relatively conservative younger people in the rest belt. That is probably because all the more liberal people move away while conservative ones stay at home where there are jobs in industries that rely on the gifts of the Republican Party to enhance profits. Trump was able to seal the deal by offering even larger gifts to them.