Are the recent trends in Harrisburg and Grand Rapids underrated?
mianfei:
Quote from: Devils30 on December 29, 2022, 02:49:33 PM
Much of the media has (rightly) focused on Democratic gains in the Phoenix and Atlanta suburbs and GOP gains in the Mahoning Valley, parts of Florida (and Miami-Dade).
However, you see nearly no coverage of the recent Democratic trends in Grand Rapids and Harrisburg. These are not sexy cities but the GOP's recent slippage might completely screw them statewide. Kent County went from Trump +3 to Biden +6 to Dems by double digits in all of the statewide races. Ottawa also had a considerable swing to the left. In PA, Cumberland used to be one of the reddest counties in the state. It went from Trump +18 to Trump +10.5 to Oz +5 and Shapiro carried it by 8.
The GOP cannot slip in these places and win the state even with gigantic margins out of places like Fayette, Cambria, Greene.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin does not have anything like these two medium sized cities. Green Bay is much smaller than these two and not as educated. Dems' 2020 path is probably MI PA and one of GA/AZ instead of WI.
I think so. It is why Pennsylvania has not shifted to the right like Ohio has, despite being one of the most “Appalachian” states and its western two-thirds being deeply tied culturally to Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. It is true that Pennsylvania has never voted more Republican than Ohio since 1948, but the difference has usually been much smaller than in 2020.
Michigan is probably an easier hold for the Democrats than Pennsylvania. The obvious analogue to Appalachian coal country — the Upper Peninsula — has not become nearly so Republican because it has distinct resort town influences (Precinct maps of recent elections, which in the Midwest are often predictable and not particularly revealing, are more interesting in the Upper Peninsula, but I may be overstating its importance on a statewide scale). The trend in Kent County is certainly significant, as is the trend in Grand Traverse County in the northwest, a county which Obama never won.
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