How concerned should Dems be about shrinking black populations in the rust belt states?

[ProgressiveModerate]

In Michigan, you have Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, ect which are all heavily black and all have been shrinking like crazy. Dems physically just can't net as much as they used to out of Wayne County despite higher turnout and population shifts because of this. Just imagine if Detroit still had 1.6 million people today; MI would be a likely if not safe D state.

In Wisconsin, you have Milwaukee which is one of 2 main vote nets that Dems need to squeeze insane margins out of to win the state (the other being Madison).

In Ohio, heavily black parts of Cleveland, Akron, and Youngstown have all been shrinking, which is part of the reasons Dems just can't get Obama numbers out of northeast Ohio anymore even if they do well with whites.

It seems like black migration tends to favor the southern states right now, specifically urban centers in southern states like Atlanta, Charlotte, and Houston. But those black people have to come from somewhere.

[Roll Roons]

At least when it comes to Michigan, who's to say that black people leaving Detroit are going to other states? They could just as easily be going to the nice suburbs in Oakland County.

[ProgressiveModerate]

At least when it comes to Michigan, who's to say that black people leaving Detroit are going to other states? They could just as easily be going to the nice suburbs in Oakland County.

Looking at the census numbers, the black population overall has been a declining share of the states total population. There def is some spillover of blacks into Macomb and Oakland counties though; the divide between Wayne and Oakland used to be insane.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Milwaukee isn't actually too much of a problem, the black population is pretty stable, it's higher in percentage than in the 2000 Census and though it decreased 2010-2020, that's mostly due to other non-white groups (non-white Hispanics and Asians) increasing, the white population still kept declining. Milwaukee's population decline is basically just white flight. The county's total and black population percentage are also pretty stable.

Frankly I bet there and in Michigan any such decline is more than canceled out by the emptying out of white rural areas.

[JGibson]

East St. Louis and Cairo in Illinois have seen continual drops of their mostly-Black populations in that it has hurt the Democrats in those areas.

In the ESTL case, a state representative seat (IL-HD114) representing most of the city that has been in Democratic hands for eternity flipped Republican, along with more rural/small town places such as Freeburg, Millstadt, Smithton, and Mascoutah trending Red.

In the Cairo case, the Cairo exodus, closure of Tamms prison, and realignment to the GOP among a sizable part of remaining ConservaDem White voters (GOP federally and/or statewide, Democratic locally) combined helped to flip the once-Blue Alexander County red.

[ProgressiveModerate]

East St. Louis and Cairo in Illinois have seen continual drops of their mostly-Black populations in that it has hurt the Democrats in those areas.

In the ESTL case, a state representative seat (IL-HD114) representing most of the city that has been in Democratic hands for eternity flipped Republican, along with more rural/small town places such as Freeburg, Millstadt, Smithton, and Mascoutah trending Red.

In the Cairo case, the Cairo exodus, closure of Tamms prison, and realignment to the GOP among a sizable part of remaining ConservaDem White voters (GOP federally and/or statewide, Democratic locally) combined helped to flip the once-Blue Alexander County red.

It's really funny to think how badly Dems gerrymander downstate last decade failed for these reasons. IL-12 was intended as a D seat, but flipped in 2014 and never looked back. This cycle when Dems got to re-gerrymander pretty aggressively, they just gave up on IL-12 instead just trying to make 1 D leaning seat in southern IL.