We kind of already knew this, but it’s always nice to have your presumptions shored up with maths.
It’s not red states and blue states, folks — it’s red suburbs and blue cities. See The Washington Post’s map of county returns, which shows that Obama carried urban areas all around the country:
The Washington PostClick to embiggen.
The Atlantic Cities offers this:
Republicans can never again concede all of the urban vote to the Democrats … The math of assuming cities will go to Democrats and thus not bothering to craft a message aimed at the people who live there is just a losing game going forward for Republicans. And it’s only going to get worse as urban populations increase and become more concentrated.
Yeah, it’s going to get “worse” for Republicans, but it’s not that they haven’t “bothered to craft a message.” It’s that Republican values just don’t really line up with the values of economically and racially diverse urban populations.
The highest concentration of college-educated, high-wage earners live in cities. Are progressives drawn to cities? The sustainable and smart density, the no driving, the diversity? Or do cities create progressives? Maybe it’s both. But this was no Republican “concession.” This was a victory for cities. And unless the right changes its policies on transit, infrastructure, and renewable energy — not to mention reproductive rights, gay rights, civil rights … — they’re just going to keep on losing.
