Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:33 pm
Affluent suburban neighborhoods that used to be solidly Republicans have now flipped to voting for and electing Democrats.
Politico wrote about Oakland County, Michigan, and other suburbs:
Between Barack Obama’s campaign in 2012 and Joe Biden’s in 2020, the margin of victory for Democratic presidential candidates in Oakland grew by roughly 55,000 votes. Few have noticed it, but Oakland’s share of the statewide Democratic vote now exceeds that of the city of Detroit. Oakland now accounts for roughly 1 in every 7 votes statewide. And those votes are being cast for Democrats at much higher rates than they used to be.
…..
And there are Oakland Counties all around the nation—affluent, longtime Republican suburbs that have been trending Democratic for a long time, but where the Trump years marked a tipping point. “Look at why the Republicans are so obsessed with reversing Maricopa [County, Arizona]—but also Gwinnett [County, Georgia]—both key to Biden and Democrats winning the states and Senate,” says Greenberg.
These suburbs are described as white, but increasingly diversifying. They have shifted over the last decade from solidly Republican to increasingly Democratic. The Republican response to this potentially political landscape-altering change has been threefold.
Republicans have doubled down on Trump, denied that there is a problem, and tried to take away voting rights from as many people as possible.
The Republican Party’s response has been wrong in every area. Instead of changing their positions to appeal to the suburbs, the GOP has gone more extreme. There have been warnings from within the GOP that the voter suppression laws that are being passed may make it more difficult for Republicans to vote.
Republicans are pushing the suburbs away potentially for years to come.
Trump lost the affluent suburbs for the Republican Party, and they may never come back as long as Trumpism remains the dominant ideology.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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