The GOP's suburbia problem

[Adam Griffin]

All of the hot-takes we hear about how Trump's demeanor and personality are off-putting to the "well-educated lean-GOP suburban types" really don't apply to all of suburbia in terms of how people generally define it. I suppose you have to look at things in the context of "inner suburbia versus outer suburbia". My position is that the former is no longer suburban, but alas:

Inner suburbia has been drifting away from the GOP for quite some time. Its interests - more or less - are not substantially different than that of full urban areas. The GOP is no longer addressing these residents' concerns (and is in fact downright hostile toward them) because as the suburbs grew, so did these areas - particularly in their meaningful transition from suburban to urban (at least by most non-technical standards). Even without Trump as the nominee, many of these communities would have swung Democratic in 2016 due to the same factors that have made urban areas more Democratic.

Outer suburbia is where the well-educated pearl-clutchers live en masse who weren't already voting Democratic in large numbers prior to the previous election. In contrast with the inner suburbs - where pretty much everybody with decent incomes and advanced degrees who would ever vote Democratic was already doing so - the outer suburbanites are in fact being alienated by Trump / the very modern GOP.

However, I'd be willing to bet that the GOP's issues in outer suburbia are more or less already baked in at this point: there aren't going to be very many more people who will be turned off from voting GOP than who were in 2016. It's a one-time hit that very well may hold, but don't expect these areas to take the same trajectory as the inner suburbs have over the past couple of decades unless demography and/or the same fate that the current inner suburbs have faced occur there, too.

[Adam Griffin]

Here is some data that I just posted regarding the collapse of Republican support within the South Pittsburgh suburbs, that have generally been resistant towards the same types of massive swings towards the Democratic Party that we have seen elsewhere over the past 10+ years...

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=281457.msg6114284#msg6114284

There are obviously plenty of other Upper Middle Class Anglo suburban districts elsewhere within the Rust Belt, where this phenomenon might well accelerate in 2018 and 2020....

Obvious places to look out for it will be in the suburbs in Missouri, which were noticeably fluky in that they were some of the only big metro areas that didn't swing left. My guess is because of Ferguson, but we'll see!

I'm almost complete with a project (which I'll probably publish either here or on the demographics board) that basically breaks each state into two parts: "rural" and..."metro/not rural".

Anyway, of the 50 metro divisions, "MO-Metro" was the only one to vote Obama-Trump (along with WI-Rural, ME-Rural & CT-Rural).

[Adam Griffin]

Here is some data that I just posted regarding the collapse of Republican support within the South Pittsburgh suburbs, that have generally been resistant towards the same types of massive swings towards the Democratic Party that we have seen elsewhere over the past 10+ years...

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=281457.msg6114284#msg6114284

There are obviously plenty of other Upper Middle Class Anglo suburban districts elsewhere within the Rust Belt, where this phenomenon might well accelerate in 2018 and 2020....

Obvious places to look out for it will be in the suburbs in Missouri, which were noticeably fluky in that they were some of the only big metro areas that didn't swing left. My guess is because of Ferguson, but we'll see!

I'm almost complete with a project (which I'll probably publish either here or on the demographics board) that basically breaks each state into two parts: "rural" and..."metro/not rural".

Anyway, of the 50 metro divisions, "MO-Metro" was the only one to vote Obama-Trump (along with WI-Rural, ME-Rural & CT-Rural).

Oooh.... looking forward to seeing this very much Fmr President, since I know how much work you put into your projects!!!!....   

Thanks! I've posted it here.