04-28-2021, 11:52 AM
Ted King wrote:
[quote=Lemon Drop]
The game is to hold what we've got and win more southern suburbs.
Yeah, I think that retaining control of the House will depend on how Democrats do in the suburbs if they hold onto the weight of votes they got out of the cities the last couple of elections. And probably the southern suburbs will play a big role. From what I've read of the demographics revealed in the last census, it appears that there has been a positive net migration into several southern states from northern states and California. That is, from more liberal states. My hunch is that the large chunk of that migration is of college educated individuals (or at least disproportionately more) - more liberal leaning in general. And I also have a hunch that like a lot of college educated people with families, they are moving to suburbs around southern cities.
One of the major tactics that Republicans have used to dilute the inner city vote is to draw Congressional boundaries where the city vote is paired up with big suburbs that tended to have at least economically conservative leanings. But if the suburbs are getting somewhat more liberal, then it becomes more difficult for Republicans to use that tactic as effectively.
But now there are things like A.I. programs that can ferret out the optimum Congressional districts for Republicans if they have the power to draw them, so, I think in a lot of states - especially some southern states - where Republicans control the Congressional district boundaries, they could very well have enough leverage to gain a smattering of seats. Unfortunately, a smattering is all they need to take back the House.
Dave Wasserman at Cook political report is one of the top experts in redistricting, he just released an analysis of these census results that predicts a 3 to 4 seat net gain for the GOP, on redistricting alone.
That does put up a big challenge for Dems but as Georgia showed, changing demographics are hard for even the most entrenched conservative machines to overcome.