On a really good day, maybe Mitt Romney could do that. But, republicans can win without them.
They really can't. Not without some suburbs, anyway.
Republicans can’t completely ignore the suburban vote. There just aren’t enough people left living in rural areas anymore to build a coalition like that. Suburbs are strange political entities because they vary a lot from city to city in their voting tendencies. They tend to include more voters who are willing to pull the level for a member of either party depending on who they think would be a more qualified leader. The GOP needs to realize that by holding positions that are becoming less and less popular, we have to hold our party to a higher academic standard when it comes to the things our leaders say. The era of swaths of rural land where people are disconnected from news and information is over. We need to find people who hold conservative positions who, if some landed from Mars having no knowledge of US politics, would appear smarter and more qualified than their opponents.
Almost every swing state in the nation is decided by suburbanites. Heck, with how often liberals complain that suburbs are terrible places it should in theory be rather easy!
If they win 100% of the rural and 100% of the urban vote, that's approximately what you need in the suburbs.
