Quote:
Originally Posted by badrunner
How they did it is more interesting. It's really the suburbs around big cities that shifted the map from 2016 to 2020. Inner city voting patterns haven't really changed (in fact, democrats lost ground among some minority demographics). I think this is a long term trend that democrats can build on, and republicans should be very concerned about.
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Right, the 2016 shift was an interesting thing to watch in a "battleground" state like Pennsylvania. Trump's win wasn't because he flipped smaller metro counties (Erie, Northampton, Luzerne) that got so much media attention in 2016... it was due to the heavily-populated suburbs around Philadelphia going more red, even though they stayed blue overall.
And it's not just the suburbs around big cities -- it's the suburbs around medium and small cities too.
The same scenario is generally at a play... solid blue city, solid red rural.
And the winner is chosen by the purple suburbs... not because they went blue or red, but because of the
margin by which suburban voting precincts went blue or red.
That's why coloring a county blue or red is so often non-informative, and often deceptive.
It's not about colors, it's about
numbers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox
Biden was the first presidential Democrat to win Tarrant County, Texas (Fort Worth) since LBJ in 1964.
Meanwhile Trump this year was the first Republican to win Mahoning County, Ohio (Youngstown) since Nixon in 1972, and the first Republican majority since Eisenhower in 1956.
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Wow, that's pretty amazing for both counties.
I figured it was only a matter of time before Tarrant turned blue, given the rapid growth and full merging with Dallas.
But Mahoning is surprising given its solid Democrat history. Though similar former steel/coal/heavy manufacturing counties around Pittsburgh (Washington, Beaver, Westmoreland, Fayette), which were among the most reliable Dem strongholds for what seemed to be forever, have all gone red since 2008 (2008... who was the Dem candidate again? hmmm... what does that tell you?)
Also, Trump spent a lot of time over the past 4 years in the Youngstown area, playing to his base with his whole "bring back your auto and steel industry" and "China cheats" schtick.