Why did suburban non-whites shift much more aggressively than 2016-->2020?

[ProgressiveModerate]

This seems to be a massive reason why Harris underperformed in many suburbs, especially int he sunbelt, but was also true in parts of NJ.

From 2016-->2020, Democrats largely held their ground in suburban non-white areas - infact a lot of Asian suburbs in places like Metro Atlanta and Dallas lurched hard left. What's interesting too is in 2020 we still saw non-white swings of similar magnitude in the more urban and heavily non-white parts of major metros (Houston is a great example of this).

One theory is that they did shift right in 2020 as well, but turnout differential sort of masked it - in 2020 turnout was massively up amongst suburban non-whites in many suburbs, so perhaps any rightwards swing would be diluted by the fact they're still mostly more left-leaning than their suburban white counterparts. However, in 2024, it was non-white turnout that was disproportionately down and it made the rightwards shift feel even more aggressive. While perhaps this is true around the margins, I still don't find it a convincing explanation for most of the swing.

[有爭議嘅領土 of The Figgis Agency]

One theory is that they did shift right in 2020 as well, but turnout differential sort of masked it - in 2020 turnout was massively up amongst suburban non-whites in many suburbs, so perhaps any rightwards swing would be diluted by the fact they're still mostly more left-leaning than their suburban white counterparts. However, in 2024, it was non-white turnout that was disproportionately down and it made the rightwards shift feel even more aggressive. While perhaps this is true around the margins, I still don't find it a convincing explanation for most of the swing.

Whatever nonwhite suburban shift there was was by no means limited to Asian voters. I’m not saying this as cope, there really are more Black and Latino people in majority NHW suburbs than many on here seem to think.

Anyways the simplest explanation would be the Right dominating relevant and emerging information spaces, because it explains a universal R shift across all possible demographic crosstabs.

What's "emerging" is an ironclad right-wing dominance of the information sphere.  The right has essentially bought out local radio stations, local news stations and websites, Twitter, and many other outlets.  They have by far the most popular cable news network.  They absolutely dominate on podcasts and YouTube, the two vectors most used by young Americans (in particular, men).  There are huge disinformation and propaganda rings on Facebook and Instagram dedicated to supporting Republicans.  The only space that's not right-wing dominated is TikTok and it's a Chinese-controlled hellhole of absurd left-wing nonsense that induces mental illness in anyone who watches it.

Liberalism still holds sway in legacy print media, real hard journalism outlets, CNN/MSNBC, late night talk shows, NPR, PBS, that's really about it.  And all of those are places that are dying.  We're looking at a future where 90+% of Americans get their information from a source that's controlled by either the Republican Party or some hostile foreign government that wants America to fail (by electing Republicans).

 
The (partisan) turnout differential theory makes the most sense to me, because it’s fairly obvious there was a significant dropoff in D turnout in most of the country outside of the Big 7 battleground states. I don’t buy the theory that there were a lot of HRC-Biden-Trump voters, but I do buy that there were a bunch of one-time Trump 2024 voters who either weren’t eligible to vote in previous years or simply didn’t bothered to vote in Trump’s previous elections.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Race dep signs were there in 2020. Harris TX started so stagnate a bit, Passaic NJ swung 6 pts to Trump, Trump improved in LA and Clark counties etc. The ground work was showing cracks four years ago.

[ottermax]

I do think non-white suburbanites are more sensitive to cost of living than white suburbanites overall - at least in terms of voting impact.

Culturally I know that my Asian side of the family and most of my friends' families are very sensitive to things like grocery prices even if they are financially secure. Some of this comes from trauma as immigrants or just a general cultural value towards frugality. So there is more sensitivity towards prices. Even if they are liberal this might depress turnout, and for others it gives permission to vote for Trump.

The education issues definitely have broken through in Asian communities especially around affirmative action.

And kids who would've voted from home during the pandemic might have moved.

Last - Gaza definitely played an impact especially any area with significant Muslim communities like Dallas / Collin County, Loudoun County, Dearborn, Bay Area, we saw pretty significant numbers for Stein and steep drops for Democrats where they were getting massive margins in the past.

[It's Time.]

Immigration and the economy

[Samof94]

I do think non-white suburbanites are more sensitive to cost of living than white suburbanites overall - at least in terms of voting impact.

Culturally I know that my Asian side of the family and most of my friends' families are very sensitive to things like grocery prices even if they are financially secure. Some of this comes from trauma as immigrants or just a general cultural value towards frugality. So there is more sensitivity towards prices. Even if they are liberal this might depress turnout, and for others it gives permission to vote for Trump.

The education issues definitely have broken through in Asian communities especially around affirmative action.

And kids who would've voted from home during the pandemic might have moved.

Last - Gaza definitely played an impact especially any area with significant Muslim communities like Dallas / Collin County, Loudoun County, Dearborn, Bay Area, we saw pretty significant numbers for Stein and steep drops for Democrats where they were getting massive margins in the past.

The "Covid shift" where people relocated was an obvious one.