In what states does current growth and demographic changes favor Republicans?

[Unelectable Bystander]

The entire Midwest, minus Minnesota and arguably Illinois. I think the next republican PV win will include really shocking performances in places like Erie, Mahoning/Loraine (obviously), Lake IN, Peoria IL, Muskegon, and Kenosha. First, the young and often diverse college educated crowds moving to Dallas or Atlanta have to be coming from somewhere, and often times they are the kids of college educated parents from the suburbs of stagnating midwestern cities. Second, many industrial midwestern cities are bleeding population and getting older/whiter as a result

[Unelectable Bystander]

The entire Midwest, minus Minnesota and arguably Illinois. I think the next republican PV win will include really shocking performances in places like Erie, Mahoning/Loraine (obviously), Lake IN, Peoria IL, Muskegon, and Kenosha. First, the young and often diverse college educated crowds moving to Dallas or Atlanta have to be coming from somewhere, and often times they are the kids of college educated parents from the suburbs of stagnating midwestern cities. Second, many industrial midwestern cities are bleeding population and getting older/whiter as a result

Midwest is tricky because while a lot of these key Dem cities are bleeding, so are rural areas, often by greater amounts.

One midwestern state where shifts I'd say pretty objectively favor Rs is Wisconsin; rural areas have held up ok considering the bleeding we see in a lot of other states and Milwaukee's population loss, especially in the heavily black parts, have been brutal for Dems. While it is true Madison is growing, it's still relatively low population compared to Milwaukee metro.

I'd also put Ohio in this bucket. While it is true Columbus has done well, NE OH has just been bleeding, especially in the hearts of these key cities that used to be key to Dem victories. As for Cincinnati, a lot of it's growth is in suburbs or exurbs that still lean pretty heavily R. And outside of Appalachia, Ohio rural aren't terrible.

Michigan is prolly net even as while Detroit is shrinking, the communities immediately around it along with GR are the fastest growing parts of the state. Rural areas are shrinking, especially in the North. Dems MI strategy going forwards will have to be running up margins in a bunch of these smaller cities than just getting a huge win out of Wayne County.

Indiana is probably also even. The Northwest corner of Gary which used to be the biggest Democratic center of the state has lost population pretty rapidly, while Indianapolis which is now Dems main vote get is growing very well throughout.

Illinois is also prolly a wash as you stated.

Minnesota is defiantly good for Dems as twin cities is growing very fast

I'd say Pennsylvania is mostly good news for Dems as the rural parts of teh state are universally shrinking, and there's quite a clear growth line between rural Appalachia part of the state and SEPA. Main good news for Rs would be Pittsburg losses in teh Eastern half of the metro, especially around the black population, but the Western half is growing and become more divewrse so it kind of cancels itself out.

Iowa is one where growth is underrated good for Dems. Most of the growth is out of Des Moines, with a notable amount out of Iowa City and Cedar Rapids. Basically, all the rurals are shrinking. Iowa's hard R shift in the past decade was mostly because it was disproportionately hit by the Dem collapse of rural WWC rural voters. If hypothetically Democrats could keep rural margins to Biden levels, iowa could theoretically become competitive again at some point, though my suspicion is the rural areas will continue to get redder.

(https://www.redistrictingandyou.org/?districtType=stateleglower&mapData=popchgpct1020&markerL=43.1968%2C-87.3647#map=5.32/42.665/-90.22), a good resource for analyzing population shifts by state LDs level. you can visually see a very clear border between SEPA and appalachia in PA.

While it’s true that midwestern rurals are shrinking as you said, I think there’s a distinction between population loss in rural areas and the population loss in industrial cities. The collapse of places like a Gary are directly cutting into Dem margins because many of the people leaving are minorities and/or union workers. My understanding is that the people leaving rural areas, however, are also more D-friendly than the average voter in these counties. This, combined with the shift in voting preferences of those remaining in the county, has caused R raw margins to remain stable or even increase in many rural counties over the last decade or so (anyone feel free to chime in if you think this premise is untrue).

I believe someone had posted about Missouri’s recent transformation from swing state to solid R state, and pointed out that notably the only 6-7 counties to actually grow during this span are Biden counties or D-trending counties while every solid Trump county was shrinking. Missouri still shifted because the voting trends moved quicker than the demographic trends. I think this applies to Iowa and Pennsylvania too where any additional hard rural shifts can outweigh growth in Dem areas like Des Moines and Philly suburbs. PA rurals might be close to maxed out however given that they’re already so much more red to begin with.

I will note that I should have stated that Indiana is not favorable to R’s but more neutral. R’s still get huge margins out of the Indy collar counties and it’s increasingly clear that won’t be the case forever, so this should offset some of the R gains in places like Vigo and Lake.

[Unelectable Bystander]

This would be my general map

IA as "strong Dem", yet WI is simultaneously a "R-favored" state (even though the far more liberal Madison is "growing" just as fast as Des Moines)? What a weird take. It’s also illogical to assume that the entirety of Des Moines area growth favors Democrats, especially to an extent that it completely offsets the rural/small-town collapse in the rest of the state.

Also, ME being the "strongest Dem" state in the Northeast (with more Democratic-friendly population shifts than Oregon) makes absolutely no sense.

I didn’t even notice Maine being dark blue but I’ll say I also disagree with that one. They are the single oldest state and the 65+ group is not only left leaning but is perhaps the straight up most liberal cohort in the state. Not to mention the similarities with Wisco/Iowa, except their liberal cities only have like 125 people