Which states have clear R trends? Clear D trends? Countervailing trends?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Part 1. Sunbelt

I am a generally of the opinion that the sunbelt is trending Democratic because of two main factors:

1. Diverse Populations with overwhelmingly Democratic Minority Populations
2. Inflated Generational GOP support among white voters ebbing as Silents and Early Baby Boomers are replaced by Millennials as the dominant voting block.

I have compared this to rising sea level combined with beach erosion/sinking ground. At some point the lines on the graph cross and the GOP is just screwed unless something else is in play.

Minimal Republican gains with working class Hispanics and some rural African Americans is like trying to bail out the Titanic with a spoon in this context, especially in states where the white vote is declining as a percentage of the electorate (not just declining in GOP support) as well. So even if you eventually gain some ground with minorities, at some point it is just dumping sand in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

So who do I see as trending Democratic in this scenario (in Order of Likely Manifestation):
Virginia (though might be able to stabilize since most of this process is done there)
Georgia - ongoing
Texas - a bit behind Georgia
Mississippi - We will see in about ten years.

Separate but related category (will explain below)
Arizona - seems to be happening their
North Carolina - could happen immediately or down the road will explain later
Florida
South Carolina

The thing about these states in the second category is that they are retirement mechas, they thus have "countervailing forces" that keep them from being in the first category. Texas does do, but its tech sector, gigantic urban population and high urban Hispanic population mean that "rich out of state old people" are being outnumber by young people and minorities moving in just like with Georgia.

On the flip side NC has those same pro-Democratic forces and could just as easily make a break in the same direction at some point in the near future. For the past decade though, NC has stagnated in place largely because Democrats had massive rural support still that imploded.

Arizona has a weird mesh of problems for the GOP, but they also still have opportunities for the GOP to recover, but four things stand in the way.

Trumpism and the Big Lie
the Bitter resentment of McCain Republicans
Trump spooking older people by mishandling the pandemic
Softening of Mormon support for the GOP in the Trump era.

Thus AZ is one of the few sunbelt states where the GOP can literally choose whether or not the state becomes a Democratic stronghold, or remains a swing and maybe even becomes Republican leaning again.

Florida has gone the complete opposite direction though and this is because of multiple factors, including but not limited to the competence of the state GOP, the influx of wealthy Republicans dominating the inflow of people rather than it being mixed like other states, trend of ex-Democratic areas towards the Republican and finally the pro-Republican trend in Miami in 2020.

South Carolina would be vulnerable to the forces in the first category of D trending Southern states, but its out of state influx also seems to be heavily Republican at present, so unless that changes, I don't see much happening there.

Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma will remain Solidly Republican, though some areas internally might get more Democratic, it won't be enough to do much statewide. I tend to think Louisiana is also in this category, though I have heard some arguments otherwise and am open to them being feasible.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Part 2: The Northern Strategy

Since Republicans face so many problems in the sunbelt, that they more than likely will not address (or be willing to address enough to solve their problems there) and will not even acknowledge or realize until they are too far gone (case in point, blaming GA and AZ on theft rather than incompetence of "certain people" and trends), the GOP has to look else where to make up the lost ground.

Republican numbers with white voters are more reasonable in the rust belt states and the minority and urban populations in several of these states are shrinking as well or at the very lest such numbers are stable. These states are older, less college educated, depopulation tends to leave a much more Republican electorate behind (youth flight/brain drain - a big factor in Iowa and the Dakotas for instance), and Republicans are far closer to appealing to enough voters to win here than to overcome the structural problems elsewhere.

That said, if the education divide continues to worsen, this path will be blocked. So while I expect the generational and racial divides to remain, I do expect at some point the GOP will need, at least regionally speaking in the Midwest, to address the loss of college educated whites. Money follows power and power follows the path of least resistance and it is easier relatively speaking to get back "just enough college educated white voters to win", than to do the heavy lifting required elsewhere.

Also in terms of gains with minorities, since many of these states are so close and demographically stable, minimal gains with black voters yields the most results in the rust belt as opposed to elsewhere.

I do see even as things stand now, the Midwest trending Republican (by default obviously), though absent some effort to address some of the problems, it is going to stagnate now or in the near future leaving the GOP locked out of power until it does. A good example of this is the declining GOP strength in Kent, MI; WOW in WI and the Pittsburgh area of PA. These "countervailing trends" will need to be addressed, otherwise the continued shift of WWC and/or NCWs will not be enough for Republicans to win these states (possibly with the exception of MI once Detroit empties out enough).