"new" suburban voters

[dazzleman]

Often, higher income lily white areas vote Democratic.  I live in that type of area, and my town voted narrowly for Gore in the last presidential election.  Many other towns in the region did the same, some by larger margins, while others voted for Bush.  So there is no clear pattern.

Much depends upon the region of the country, and how the social issue plays.  People who aren't particularly worried about where their next meal is coming from are free to focus on non-pocketbook issues.

Also, isolation in a lily white suburb often makes people more tolerant in theory than those who are confronted with racial issues on a daily basis.  People in lily white suburbs can trumpet their "tolerance" by voting Democratic even while the closest non-white person is miles away.  But believe me, if anybody suggested that their schools be regionalized and their kids bussed to school in black neighborhoods, these "tolerant" people would change their tune very quickly.

The suburban vote in certain parts of the country swung solidly toward the Democrats during the 1990s, so I think it's a mistake to consider these areas to automatically be bastions of support for the Republicans.

[dazzleman]

One of the most striking electoral developments in the 1990s was the capture by the Democrats of the upper middle class suburban votes in some sections of the country, such as the northeast, the midwest and the west coast.

These are areas that had voted pretty strongly Republican on a consistent basis going back a long way.

Does anybody want to make any predictions on how these areas will vote in 2004 for president?  The suburban vote could make the difference in states like Connecticut, New Jersey, Illinois and California.

Will national security issues, and the threat of Democratic tax increases (even people just scraping by in these expensive areas would be considered "rich" under the Democratic tax plans) turn these people back to the Republicans, or will they stick with the Democrats for other reasons, perhaps such as social issues?

[dazzleman]

Rich suburbs will be among the few places to go Republican in 2004. The trend towards Republicans in rural counties is history.

What is the basis for your opinion?

[dazzleman]

I don't know too much about the Kentucky race, but I would say that it can be tricky using local races to predict national trends.  Local issues and individual candidates can impact on state elections, and you can be sure that a Democrat running in Kentucky only will not run on the same type of issues as a national Democrat.  So a local candidate can craft his message more to local conditions, while a national candidate has to satisfy a much larger constituency.