Is the GOP developing a Geography problem in the House and Dems in the Senate?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Dems problem in the Senate is p obvious especially as the party becomes more urban centric.

The House is more interesting. Even if the median seat is like 2 seats to the right of the nation, the gap has significantly closed over recent elections thanks to the distribution of voters.

I ran an analysis on 2020 CDs a while back and there was a clear correlation between how close districts were and how they shifted from 2016-2020 (on old lines). Also consider Biden won significantly more districts than Obama despite doing similarly nationally.

Looking at swing districts are the country; they mostly fall into 4 categories:

1: Rapidly diversifying suburban/mid-sized city seats where demographic and political shifts are very good for Dems
2: WWC districts in the Midwest that have swung hard right. There are becoming fewer of these though
3: Rural seats with heavy Hispanic populations in the Southwest + Florida. There aren't too many of these but they seem to generally be shifting right.

Most swings seats fall into the 1rst category and these types of places have been a disaster for the GOP in the past 2 decades, and that seems unlikely to completely reverse since a lot of it is just population shift.

Also while it is true that a lot of heavily minority urban VRA districts vote Dem by extremely lopsided margins, these aren't as wasteful as many think because turnout in these districts is generally poor. The most wasteful districts tend to be white liberal districts like CO-01 or CA-12 for Dems since these seats are both lopsided and have high turnout, and the GOP is getting quite a few R + 40+ rural districts at this point.

And a lot of folks here talk about how the GOP's future is winning rural areas by insane margins + cracking down Dem margins in the cities. In many ways though this doesn't help them a ton electorally on the district level.

A good example of where we see a massive Dem geogrpahy advantage like this would be Texas. Yes cities have very lopsided Dem communities but they're low so the seat to voter ratio is actually better for Dems, and you have a lot of narrowly D suburbs compared to deep R rurals.

Could we get to a place where geography naturally favours Dems nationally? What types of competative communities can the GOP pull into its column?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I recently postulated that bad geography could really cost the Rs in 2022.
In general, moving forward, and I've felt this for years, losing suburbs is not the recipe for success on House level. Ds are sliding back in rurals, but this has actually made their vote more efficient on House level, while on Senate level, the reverse is true. On presidential level, it's a wash.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I recently postulated that bad geography could really cost the Rs in 2022.
In general, moving forward, and I've felt this for years, losing suburbs is not the recipe for success on House level. Ds are sliding back in rurals, but this has actually made their vote more efficient on House level, while on Senate level, the reverse is true. On presidential level, it's a wash.

Ye that's why I'm not too worry if the current maps have like an R + 2 bias or smtg.

Another thing too is 2022 brings a lot of seats that would normally not be competative into play which also messes with people's perspective a bit. Dems floor is higher than the GOP in the House overall though.

[SnowLabrador]

No. It's all about redistricting and the national environment in the House.

[Farmlands]

No. It's all about redistricting and the national environment in the House.

Huh, for once, I fully agree with you. Democrats may have gained ground in the suburbs, but that really doesn't matter if they just revert back to previous levels this year, based on dissatisfaction with Biden, as we saw in Virginia.

[Nyvin]

Kind of hard to tell with how much has been going on,  there seems to be a rural resurgence lately and people are leaving big metros, but this could possibly be to the benefit of Democrats if it means their voters spread out more.  If it means Democratic voters are moving to ruby red rural areas it's probably a waste though.



I always thought Democratic voters are more mobile for the most part, when you see fast growth areas it's usually areas that are trending D in the next election.   This is probably the Millennial generation (to a lesser extent GenZ) moving out and getting homes of their own. 

The overall suburb gains seen in the last couple cycles is probably permanent more or less, it's just the national environment can go up and down for Democrats but the trends will persist.  The growth in those suburbs is mostly younger people moving to those areas and voting more leftwing.

The biggest overall problem for Republicans is probably that they don't really have anyway to replenish the voters they're gradually losing from the Baby Boomer generation.   I think this will eventually force them to concede on some issues that aren't tenable with younger generations like Marijuana, Climate Change, and LGBT issues.   Kinda like how gay marriage gradually became untenable. 

I might be bias I guess but I don't really see a similar situation for Democrats on much, their positions are almost "over" focused on the younger generations to a fault. 

[ProgressiveModerate]

Kind of hard to tell with how much has been going on,  there seems to be a rural resurgence lately and people are leaving big metros, but this could possibly be to the benefit of Democrats if it means their voters spread out more.  If it means Democratic voters are moving to ruby red rural areas it's probably a waste though.



I always thought Democratic voters are more mobile for the most part, when you see fast growth areas it's usually areas that are trending D in the next election.   This is probably the Millennial generation (to a lesser extent GenZ) moving out and getting homes of their own. 

The overall suburb gains seen in the last couple cycles is probably permanent more or less, it's just the national environment can go up and down for Democrats but the trends will persist.  The growth in those suburbs is mostly younger people moving to those areas and voting more leftwing.

The biggest overall problem for Republicans is probably that they don't really have anyway to replenish the voters they're gradually losing from the Baby Boomer generation.   I think this will eventually force them to concede on some issues that aren't tenable with younger generations like Marijuana, Climate Change, and LGBT issues.   Kinda like how gay marriage gradually became untenable. 

I might be bias I guess but I don't really see a similar situation for Democrats on much, their positions are almost "over" focused on the younger generations to a fault. 

I agree with this analysis in large part. Every fast growing region has had Dems gaining ground with the exception of retirement communities and specific religious enclaves (think Lakewood NJ).

By this definition, it’s not only unlikely, but more or less impossible for some suburbs to go back to how they were voting pre-2012 solely because of demographic changes of the suburbs. A good example is today it’s pretty much impossible for an R to win Travis county TX no matter how moderate or appealing they may seem even if Bush won it in 2000. Even if Rs won every Bush voter and then some it wouldn’t be close to enough.

Every generation is def more liberal than the last socially and once someone has a certain social value in the progressive direction that’s hard to reverse (I.e. it’s much easier to Convince someone who opposes gay marriage to support it than the other way around). I suspect the gop will move left on social issues and basically be a decade or two behind Dems on a lot of matters.

Another factor to consider too is conservatives may not start voting until they are older, especially if liberals tend to be more focused on taking a path of education and involvement early in life. There’s already evidence to support this is the case.

My guess as to what will happen is the gop will get some big wake up call that actually makes them electorally inviable and it’ll be interesting to see what they do. It’ll probably come in the form of TX going for Georgia or this house lockout situation. I don’t think we’ll have an extended period of time where they’re just locked out though unless they actually do go full MTG.

I do wonder how much of the “rural resurgence” is a fact of COVID and also flawed estimates of the census which largely overestimated rural areas this past census. If young people are moving to rural Missouri then we screwed.

[Skill and Chance]

Reasonably, yes, but both are taking longer expected to change on a strict data/trends basis.

IDK though Dems might prefer being out of power for a shorter period and having something concrete to run against vs. controlling the House and nothing else for an extended period of time?  Also, the GOP advantage at the state legislative level shows little sign of fading like it did at the US House level.

I don't agree on the generational analysis at all.  One of the big underrated trends in 2020 was that age became much less important as a predictor of left vs. right voting.  It's been gradually declining in importance since 2008 really, but 2020 was a big jump.  Current polling shows further Dem youth erosion while they are holding up surprisingly well with the very oldest.  As generation sizes shrink, some college towns being hit by the Rust Belt populist right trend is totally plausible IMO.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Reasonably, yes, but both are taking longer expected to change on a strict data/trends basis.

IDK though Dems might prefer being out of power for a shorter period and having something concrete to run against vs. controlling the House and nothing else for an extended period of time?  Also, the GOP advantage at the state legislative level shows little sign of fading like it did at the US House level.

I don't agree on the generational analysis at all.  One of the big underrated trends in 2020 was that age became much less important as a predictor of left vs. right voting.  It's been gradually declining in importance since 2008 really, but 2020 was a big jump.  Current polling shows further Dem youth erosion while they are holding up surprisingly well with the very oldest.  As generation sizes shrink, some college towns being hit by the Rust Belt populist right trend is totally plausible IMO.

What's weird though is that since 2008 and including in 2020 most college towns have swung pretty hard left. Most have very little population at the end of the day though and aren't significant electorally.

Most of the young voters Rs are gaining are probably not in college, and very unlikely a college town. They def could've contributed to rightwards shifts we saw in a lot of cities though given young people's tendency to rebel, but this time reversed.

[Skill and Chance]

Reasonably, yes, but both are taking longer expected to change on a strict data/trends basis.

IDK though Dems might prefer being out of power for a shorter period and having something concrete to run against vs. controlling the House and nothing else for an extended period of time?  Also, the GOP advantage at the state legislative level shows little sign of fading like it did at the US House level.

I don't agree on the generational analysis at all.  One of the big underrated trends in 2020 was that age became much less important as a predictor of left vs. right voting.  It's been gradually declining in importance since 2008 really, but 2020 was a big jump.  Current polling shows further Dem youth erosion while they are holding up surprisingly well with the very oldest.  As generation sizes shrink, some college towns being hit by the Rust Belt populist right trend is totally plausible IMO.

What's weird though is that since 2008 and including in 2020 most college towns have swung pretty hard left. Most have very little population at the end of the day though and aren't significant electorally.

Most of the young voters Rs are gaining are probably not in college, and very unlikely a college town. They def could've contributed to rightwards shifts we saw in a lot of cities though given young people's tendency to rebel, but this time reversed.

Yes, definitely a possibility as Democrats more and more become the establishment party.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Reasonably, yes, but both are taking longer expected to change on a strict data/trends basis.

IDK though Dems might prefer being out of power for a shorter period and having something concrete to run against vs. controlling the House and nothing else for an extended period of time?  Also, the GOP advantage at the state legislative level shows little sign of fading like it did at the US House level.

I don't agree on the generational analysis at all.  One of the big underrated trends in 2020 was that age became much less important as a predictor of left vs. right voting.  It's been gradually declining in importance since 2008 really, but 2020 was a big jump.  Current polling shows further Dem youth erosion while they are holding up surprisingly well with the very oldest.  As generation sizes shrink, some college towns being hit by the Rust Belt populist right trend is totally plausible IMO.

What's weird though is that since 2008 and including in 2020 most college towns have swung pretty hard left. Most have very little population at the end of the day though and aren't significant electorally.

Most of the young voters Rs are gaining are probably not in college, and very unlikely a college town. They def could've contributed to rightwards shifts we saw in a lot of cities though given young people's tendency to rebel, but this time reversed.

Yes, definitely a possibility as Democrats more and more become the establishment party.

That's why the GOP really should adjust more on social issues, just by matter of opposing a lot of the LGBTQ stuff they turn off a lot of potentially anti-establishment young voters who just can't vote for them for that reason even if they agree with much of their other rhetoric. I cannot tell you for instance how disproportionate the amount of young people who are not wearing masks on the NYC subway is especially earlier in the pandemic when there was greater emphasis to wear a mask.

One issue is that the GOP making gains in the city doesn't really have much an effect beyond statewide races as they aren't going to outright be winning many cities themselves anytime soon, but ironically those staying in the cities might have disproportionately more potential for the GOP going forwards.