What do these two potential winning pathways yield for Democrats in 2028?

[Adam Griffin]

My goal was to imagine two possible scenarios in the near future, with two approximately-equal EC outcomes that weren't complete blow-outs. As such, people might want to debate some states in each scenario here, but given my previous goals, I had to make the cut-off somewhere.

My first map is based partially off of this ol' beauty (save for a few obvious exceptions) and my second map is based mostly on the Obama Coalition + some consideration for demographic shifts that would be unavoidable regardless of campaign strategy.

Anyway, discuss with maps and share your versions of these two scenarios.


A continuation of the 2016 campaign: appeals to wealthier whites & non-whites
303-233

Imagine the next decade is in effect a continuation of the Clinton campaign's playbook. Democrats double-down on socially progressive, economically centrist messaging in an attempt to hold or expand non-white support, while chasing more moderate suburban voters as part of a greater effort to reclaim the House. This opens up pathways for Democrats to win in wealthier areas but completely shuts them out in states where white household income is sub-par.

A pursuit of the disenfranchised: appeals to poor & working-class
301-237

Imagine the next decade re-frames the argument surrounding politics and takes a more class-reliant approach. Democrats realize that expanding support in communities of color (i.e. a return to the Obama-era levels) relies on a progressive economic message front and center, coupled with their pre-existing focus on social issues. This at the same time paves the way for Democrats to recover among poorer and more rural whites, but shuts out expansion in most of the Sun Belt.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Oregon is more likely to stay dem in scenario one cause if they go with scenario two they will do much worse in suburbs in the future . I believe scenario one appeals to suburbs better then scenario two .


The Portland suburbs saved Kerry in 04 if you want to throw that away you will lose the state . Yes obama did much better in suburbs cause he went with scenario one and not scenario two .

[Virginiá]

2028 is around the time I would consider Democrats to be peaking, or even slightly past their peak of political power due to the changing of the guard between boomers/silents -> millennials/gen z

I'm not convinced the path we are on right now can be substantially changed, and perhaps the best that can be done is limit how far the party goes in any one direction. Therefor, I think major inroads in suburbia and white college graduates is a given right now, and perhaps stopping the bleeding with WCWs. Minority growth and expanding educational attainment will help Democrats offset losses among losing demos in some areas. Democrats would be wise not to push too hard for wealthy voters at the expense of the working class, as liberal policies are not naturally compatible with the goals of wealthy people. Eventually, there will be a split, and it is better the party not rely too heavily on them by the time that comes to fruition.

A few state-by-states:

Virginia: The growth of NOVA, Millennial political power and minority vote share will continue this state's shift into the D column, and in the semi-short-term I think this path is set no matter what (unless Democrats become rabidly anti-government and more socially conservative, maybe)
Georgia: Is it really possible for Democrats to push this state off its current course at this point? Their support among the rising generation(s) of GA is almost as deep as the hyper-polarized older Southern whites. I don't see how this can be stopped before the state starts leaning more towards Democrats.
North Carolina: This state has been on a slow drift towards Democrats for a long time, and while I'm not convinced it'll ever become "Virginia-ized," I do think it will eventually lean our way, even if only for a short while.
Texas: Lots of conservatives love to argue that TX won't go blue for decades, but I think that ignores readily apparent political trends. I could easily see it being in a 2008/2012 NC-type position in 2028, where it still leans towards the GOP but can be won under the right circumstances. Eventually it will flip entirely.


This is something I can envision, but I'm not entirely sold on it. My thoughts are incomplete in the rust belt and while I usually believe Florida will probably be leans Democratic by 2028, I'm not ready to commit to it just yet for a couple reasons:

* I didn't edit all parts of the map, so it isn't my complete view of the future US electoral landscape


Obviously this map is very Democrat-friendly, and not really because I'm being hackish but because I believe we are transitioning between political systems, and the electorate has been realigning in that direction for years now. The 2020s and early 2030s would be a time of strong Democratic power.

After that, I'm not sure what the landscape will look like. It's hard to see that far ahead.

[Skill and Chance]

I think it will be a variant of your Scenario 1, but with the North to South shift for Democrats and South to North shift for Republicans being even more pronounced.  As of now, I expect Trump to be reelected, and if he is, Roe will almost surely be overturned in the early 2020's.  With abortion bans being upheld in socially conservative states, the Religious Right would lose a lot of steam as political movement, just like the early 20th century Religious Left movement rapidly declined after the New Deal SCOTUS finally upheld a child labor ban in the 1930's.  I think Democrats would quickly go from 15% to 35% of the Evangelical vote in a post-Roe world.  That would flip NC, GA, and even TX pretty much overnight and make places like KS, MS, and LA swing states.  Meanwhile, most Northern states that aren't dominated by a city would become much more Republican.  Even NorCal and the Pacific NW would swing right a bit.  This would also make Mormons a lot more comfortable voting 3rd party or even Dem.  A modest Dem win would look something like this:

[libertpaulian]

Obviously Democrats would be stupid not to go the Scenario 1 route, and I think this is all happening pretty fast. I don't think this 2028 Electoral map can be ruled out at this point:

NH is more likely to go GOP than ME.  NH voted more GOP than the national average in 2016, while ME voted more Dem.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Obviously Democrats would be stupid not to go the Scenario 1 route, and I think this is all happening pretty fast. I don't think this 2028 Electoral map can be ruled out at this point:

NH is more likely to go GOP than ME.  NH voted more GOP than the national average in 2016, while ME voted more Dem.

Shh, NH is safer D than DC here.

[Tekken_Guy]

The first scenario is far more likely to happen than the second. It's clear what coalition Democrats want going forward -- one with millennials, minorities, and well-educated voters. And the South and the Sun Belt are the key to winning. They already got VA thanks to the rapid growth of NOVA. There are many booming capital regions with thriving universities that are waiting to flip their state into the Democratic column -- Raleigh/Durham, Atlanta, Austin, and Phoenix. Growing black populations in NC & GA and hispanic pops in TX & AZ are bound to push them all to the left.

[Del Tachi]

Obviously Democrats would be stupid not to go the Scenario 1 route, and I think this is all happening pretty fast. I don't think this 2028 Electoral map can be ruled out at this point:

You're right, it can't be ruled out because the election is 11 years in the future.

[RINO Tom]

Obviously Democrats would be stupid not to go the Scenario 1 route, and I think this is all happening pretty fast. I don't think this 2028 Electoral map can be ruled out at this point:

Riiiiiiight, LOL.

[MT Treasurer]

Riiiiiiight, LOL.

It's working quite well for them in places like GA-06 right now, actually.

[RINO Tom]

Riiiiiiight, LOL.

It's working quite well for them in places like GA-06 right now, actually.

Worked even better last election!  Even in this last election - again, a total failure for Democrats - Republican voters were more affluent on average, and this was the floor for the GOP.  I sincerely apologize for all of the Trumpists out there, but the Democratic Party will never not represent the interests of the poor.

[Kingpoleon]

1.

330: Vice President Gavin Newsom/Senator Beth Bernstein*(D-SC)
208: Mayor Jared Kushner/Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti*(R-IL)
*Elected in 2022

[MT Treasurer]

Riiiiiiight, LOL.

It's working quite well for them in places like GA-06 right now, actually.

Worked even better last election!  Even in this last election - again, a total failure for Democrats - Republican voters were more affluent on average, and this was the floor for the GOP.  I sincerely apologize for all of the Trumpists out there, but the Democratic Party will never not represent the interests of the poor.

It was only a total failure because of Trump's unprecendented margins in rural areas. Also, I'd be very careful when assuming that 2016 was the "floor" for the GOP among these voters. Again, the election hasn't been held yet, but if Ossoff wins in GA-06 (a... you know... EDUCATED, WEALTHY and AFFLUENT district), it will be very telling.

Why are you equating White Working Class voters and states like AR with "the poor", btw?

[OSR stands with Israel]

This is how I believe the map will be in 2028(whether its for the GOP or Dem):

[Technocracy Timmy]

Riiiiiiight, LOL.

It's working quite well for them in places like GA-06 right now, actually.

Worked even better last election!  Even in this last election - again, a total failure for Democrats - Republican voters were more affluent on average, and this was the floor for the GOP.  I sincerely apologize for all of the Trumpists out there, but the Democratic Party will never not represent the interests of the poor.

Again, the election hasn't been held yet, but if Ossoff wins in GA-06 (a... you know... EDUCATED, WEALTHY and AFFLUENT district), it will be very telling.

I'd be very hesitant to make any conclusions on the results of GA-06; Ossoff win or not. We'll need to see how Romney-Clinton districts do in 2018 across the board before we can actually see a Democratic trend with these kind of voters.

Like RINO Tom, my circumstantial evidence having lived almost my whole life in a very similar district to GA-06 points to these voters being an Anti-Trump but pro-GOP cohort. It's definitely worth a try to flip them in 2018 just to see if Democrats can make inroads in these kind of areas, but I still have my doubts. The more and more influence Sanders and millennials exert on the Party's future means that the affluent vote will likely become harder and harder for the Democrats to reach these kind of voters.

Even the voters in this district knew Hillary wouldn't be able to govern as a progressive given the the House would be Republican. Let's say the Dems win the House in 2018 due to a recession but the economy is growing in 2020. Would these same voters feel comfortable voting for a progressive Democrat when there's no GOP congress to keep them in check the way there would've been in 2016? Again, I have my doubts.

We'll see in 2018. And even that might not quite be the full picture.

[MT Treasurer]

We'll see in 2018. And even that might not quite be the full picture.

Yes, we will. And I'm pretty sure that 2018 will see a continuation of 2016 trends, with one or two exceptions like ND-SEN (Heitkamp is incredibly popular, charismatic and talented and has a lot of crossover appeal) and WI-SEN (Baldwin is a good fit for the more rural areas, I think). But it will be very clear in the House races.

[Virginiá]

I don't see how it is so hard to see the Democratic Party making even temporary inroads with affluent white voters. The Republican Party is increasingly narrowing its appeal to these voters along economic lines, while Democrats appeal via social policy. It's perfectly reasonable for me to see the GOP continuing to erode among this group, at which point Democrats will do well until they actually start enacting policy that begins substantially impacting the finances of these voters. At that point, a slow erosion back to the GOP seems likely. Right now, there doesn't seem to be a penalty for these voters to vote for Democrats - at least in their eyes, while supporting Republicans is like a mine field.

Also worth noting that a lot of these suburban districts are diversifying, which is helping Democrats make up for whatever they continue to lack with upscale white voters. Further, I'd remind the RINO Tom's of Atlas that white Millennials who are increasingly well-educated compared to older generations will continue to skew that demographic towards Democrats. Even among Millennials there is a divide among educational attainment in terms of Democratic support, and last I recall it's pretty steep. These young voters are already spreading outas migratory trends swing away from cities, as they seem to have for a number of years now.

[Technocracy Timmy]

I don't see how it is so hard to see the Democratic Party making even temporary inroads with affluent white voters. The Republican Party is increasingly narrowing its appeal to these voters along economic lines, while Democrats appeal via social policy. It's perfectly reasonable for me to see the GOP continuing to erode among this group, at which point Democrats will do well until they actually start enacting policy that begins substantially impacting the finances of these voters. At that point, a slow erosion back to the GOP seems likely. Right now, there doesn't seem to be a penalty for these voters to vote for Democrats - at least in their eyes, while supporting Republicans is like a mine field.

That's the key though. It's likely to be only a temporary alliance insofar as Trump is the leader of the Party. Let's say we have a scenario where Pence is the nominee come 2020 and the Democrats put a progressive forward (both of these events are quite possible given that Booker and Cuomo will be the "moderates" in the Democratic race and Trump has a lot of reasons to resign and/or not run in 2020).

I don't see the traditional sunbelt D, rustbelt R trends holding steady in that kind of election. And if they do, it'll be much, much smaller than the ones we saw in 2016. These kind of voters could very well form a short term alliance with the Democrats, but keep in mind that Clinton-GOP representative districts still voted for their GOP representative. And in many cases, the results had very high disparities.

CA-48 had Hillary winning 48-46% while our GOP rep won by nearly 17 points. It is quite common in a lot of these districts as well to see these kind of disparities. That shows that while there's strong animosity towards Trump, these voters may not be keen on breaking their Party alliance in a hyper partisan environment. And if they do, there's a very strong chance that they'll come back home when Trump is out.

[Virginiá]

I don't see the traditional sunbelt D, rustbelt R trends holding steady in that kind of election. And if they do, it'll be much, much smaller than the ones we saw in 2016. These kind of voters could very well form a short term alliance with the Democrats, but keep in mind that Clinton-GOP representative districts still voted for their GOP representative. And in many cases, the results had very high disparities.

I guess that depends on how you'd define 'short term.' To me, I can see the leftwards drift continuing for even a decade more, at which point it may slowly start shifting back to the GOP if Democrats start raising taxes a lot and enacting a lot of new regulations, which would weaken the alliance enough for the GOP to win them back. How effectively the GOP can perform then I think would also depend on whether or not they have addressed their party's own issues that caused the defection in the first place.

I really do think that any shifts back and forth will be gradual, though. After all, it's not like affluent voters just randomly swung towards Democrats. This has been an ongoing trend over the past generation.

CA-48 had Hillary winning 48-46% while our GOP rep won by nearly 17 points. It is quite common in a lot of these districts as well to see these kind of disparities. That shows that while there's strong animosity towards Trump, these voters may not be keen on breaking their Party alliance in a hyper partisan environment. And if they do, there's a very strong chance that they'll come back home when Trump is out.

I think it's like you said somewhere else (iirc), everyone thought Clinton would win and felt more comfortable voting for Republicans as a check. However, I'm a bit skeptical of the "check and balances" idea - not that it doesn't exist, but to what degree. The Democratic brand was weak after 8 years of Obama, and Clinton wasn't helping, so I think incumbency + weak challengers (even just 'Some Dudes') + "check" argument + a weak brand made voters' downballot choices stick with their regular habits, this is on top of the fact that presidential results tends to take a while to trickle downballot. I think it's safe to say that there is a correlation though - 538 even did some stuff on this. I don't recall their figures, but there was a correlation to how a district would vote downballot compared to recent presidential results.

[Technocracy Timmy]

I guess that depends on how you'd define 'short term.' To me, I can see the leftwards drift continuing for even a decade more, at which point it may slowly start shifting back to the GOP if Democrats start raising taxes a lot and enacting a lot of new regulations, which would weaken the alliance enough for the GOP to win them back. How effectively the GOP can perform then I think would also depend on whether or not they have addressed their party's own issues that caused the defection in the first place.

I really do think that any shifts back and forth will be gradual, though. After all, it's not like affluent voters just randomly swung towards Democrats. This has been an ongoing trend over the past generation.

This was a result of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama adapting to the Reagan alignment we're still living in though. Clinton moved the Party strongly towards the center in the 90's and was able to form a coalition on the old Democratic bubba South combined with the emerging middle and upper class socially liberal but fiscally centrist wine class liberals in the northeast and west coast. Obama didn't hold onto the bubba South but did hold on strongly to those same wine class liberals while bringing into the fold more minorities, millennials, and a solid chunk of working class Midwestern whites.

By and large Obama governed as a President friendly to the wine class liberals along with white collar workers and we saw these trends manifest themselves most strongly in the sunbelt. Obama's most signature and left wing accomplishments was a healthcare bill that was a carryover in many respects from past GOP plans (Nixon, Gingrich, Grassley, Heritage Foundation, etc.) and kept the private healthcare system completely in tact. The other piece of liberal legislation, Dodd-Frank, really only affected a certain industry and subset of workers. Otherwise, he extended the bush tax cuts the first two years, raised taxes only to Clinton era levels, agreed on sequestration to pursue fiscal discipline in regards to the budget, tried ramming a free trade agreement through, etc. Most of which these voters were perfectly content with these policies and the trends in the sunbelt and among the more affluent white collar workers became more and more apparent.

This is not the direction the Democratic base wants the Party to continue moving toward. We're seeing a 1977 style situation but win the Parties switched. The Democratic Party has decided to veer further leftwards particularly on economic issues (as evidenced by their crop of likely candidates in 2020, Perez at the DNC, Sanders, etc.) in response to being shut out of all levels of government. Similarity the GOP post 1976 did just that by rallying around Reagan during a Democrstic trifecta. This entire re-nationalization of political parties we're seeing in the western industrialized world has been a backlash mostly to the macroeconomic trends dating all the way back to the late 70's/early 80's. This is something Trump picked up on (and how he won by siphoning off lower income Dem votes but losing upper income GOP votes) and I think the Democratic Party will follow in response to the same discontent Trump tapped into.

The wine class liberals will stay with them for at least two more decades as breaking to the GOP will be quite difficult to do until they actually moderate their messaging. But I suspect that this reconfiguration on the Democratic Party will cause those white collar workers and Clinton-GOP rep voters to take pause on switching sides. This is a big reason why I'm on board with TD's idea that the Democratic Party is unlikely to come back until the crisis hits. They need a reason to actually implement their revolutionary agenda (the kind in which not seen since Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt). And that crisis will be the catalyst for them to swoop in and realign the country.

CA-48 had Hillary winning 48-46% while our GOP rep won by nearly 17 points. It is quite common in a lot of these districts as well to see these kind of disparities. That shows that while there's strong animosity towards Trump, these voters may not be keen on breaking their Party alliance in a hyper partisan environment. And if they do, there's a very strong chance that they'll come back home when Trump is out.

I think it's like you said somewhere else (iirc), everyone thought Clinton would win and felt more comfortable voting for Republicans as a check. However, I'm a bit skeptical of the "check and balances" idea - not that it doesn't exist, but to what degree. The Democratic brand was weak after 8 hours of Obama, and Clinton wasn't helping, so I think incumbency + weak challengers (even just 'Some Dudes') + "check" argument + a weak brand made voters' downballot choices stick with their regular habits, this is on top of the fact that presidential results tends to take a while to trickle downballot. I think it's safe to say that there is a correlation though - 538 even did some stuff on this. I don't recall their figures, but there was a correlation to how a district would vote downballot compared to recent presidential results.

You very well could be right that presidential trends affect down ballot races down the line. Although I haven't heard of this before until now so I'd be very interested in seeing the data.

Sorry my formatting sucks. I'm still using my phone to post

[RINO Tom]

... Further, I'd remind the RINO Tom's of Atlas that white Millennials who are increasingly well-educated compared to older generations will continue to skew that demographic towards Democrats. Even among Millennials there is a divide among educational attainment in terms of Democratic support, and last I recall it's pretty steep...

1) Source on the second claim?  I'd be very surprised if White Millennials within the same basic age group differ politically along educational grounds.  There might be a slight skew from older Millennials (who are more likely to have college degrees, I'd think) being more Democratic than younger Millennials, but that doesn't speak to education being the CAUSE of their Democratic voting, which is the conclusion a few  self-obsessed Dem hacks here sometimes throw out there - that the Democratic Party is naturally more appealing to someone who is educated.

2) As for your first point, I have never denied it and often cite it, in fact.  According to the Census, this is the percent of adults who hold a bachelor's degree or higher by age:

65 and Older: 26.70%
45 to 64: 32.00%
35 to 44: 36.30%
25 to 34: 36.10%

This is how different age groups voted in 2016 House races, according to CNN exit polls:

18-29: 56%-42% DEM
30-44: 52%-46% DEM
45-64: 54%-44% GOP
65 and Older: 53%-45% GOP

Somewhat significant, too, is that women (32.70%) are slightly more likely than men (32.30%) to hold a degree, and they make up more of the population.  This was the gender gap from the exit polls:

Women: 54%-44% DEM
Men: 55%-43% GOP

Additionally, the pool of folks who have a college degree is rapidly becoming more diverse, especially compared to back in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, when degree holders were MUCH more likely to be both very affluent and White (and, by no coincidence, this was when Republicans were cleaning up among this group).

What's the point of all this?  Democrats might continue to improve among "college graduates," but they won't be the same college graduates we were measuring in 2012 or 2016, and yet people will still use this "development" to push a narrative that the GOP is "scaring off educated people," or that Democrats are somehow a more "sensible" party, when in fact this is just a coincidental outcome of other, more important trends.  If Generation Z becomes a Republican-leaning generation, then the GOP will "rebound" among "college graduates," and it will have nothing to do with the direction of the party or how scary the Democrats are to "sensible, educated" people.

(According to exit poll crosstabs math):

Right now, Whites make up 74% of college grads, and Republicans won 54% of this group.  Minorities make up 26% of college grads, and Republicans won 27% of this group.  Democrats are pretty clearly winning "college graduates" because they're winning minorities of all education levels so handily.  Are Whites without a degree marginally more Republican than Whites with one?  Yes.  But minorities who have a degree are marginally more Republican than minorities without one, and something tells me this will not lead to discussion about how educated minorities are ripe for the picking for the GOP.

[Virginiá]

Source (the article I linked)

Anywho, I think I've stated my thoughts on this so I don't have much more to add, other to summarize: Current trends do show a shift of affluent and white college grads towards Democrats (relative to past levels of support), but that over the long run those trends will likely reverse to some degree whenever the Democrats are able to actually implement their economic ideas, which almost definitely will involve substantial tax increases on higher-income citizens. At that point, I expect partisan allegiances to begin re-sorting themselves to the way common sense might dictate. My main point was to say that this will take a long time to unfold, as such macro-scale trends usually do.

For now, though, there is simply more pressure on these voters to shift away from Republicans, as the economic disincentives these voters might have against voting for Democrats is basically just theory, as Democrats have not had real power to implement their ideas for a long time, and the brief window they did have it in, the party composition was simply not such that would actively want to jack up taxes significantly on those voters.

[Person Man]

Source (the article I linked)

Anywho, I think I've stated my thoughts on this so I don't have much more to add, other to summarize: Current trends do show a shift of affluent and white college grads towards Democrats (relative to past levels of support), but that over the long run those trends will likely reverse to some degree whenever the Democrats are able to actually implement their economic ideas, which almost definitely will involve substantial tax increases on higher-income citizens. At that point, I expect partisan allegiances to begin re-sorting themselves to the way common sense might dictate. My main point was to say that this will take a long time to unfold, as such macro-scale trends usually do.

For now, though, there is simply more pressure on these voters to shift away from Republicans, as the economic disincentives these voters might have against voting for Democrats is basically just theory, as Democrats have not had real power to implement their ideas for a long time, and the brief window they did have it in, the party composition was simply not such that would actively want to jack up taxes significantly on those voters.

Basically, the wealth inversion that builds up the next Democratic Party will collapse as soon as it implements its policies, but the policies might win back old voters, especially if Republicans suceed in pushing the SCOTUS so far to the right, that a lot of one party voters will get lazy and complacent as they get personhood lays passed in the frontier and bible belt, even if nowhere else.

[Kingpoleon]

This is how I believe the map will be in 2028(whether its for the GOP or Dem):

Yes, a net of three-five states that are different. Sounds likely.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

This is how I believe the map will be in 2028(whether its for the GOP or Dem):


Yes, a net of three-five states that are different. Sounds likely.

2004 looked an awful lot like 2016.