Colorado, Suburban Reversion, And 2022

On How A 5-3 Map Is Being Twisted

What do the Ohio 13th and Wisconsin 3rd have in common with the Australian seats of Herbert and Longman? All four are seats centered on regional towns, with historic economic reliance on manufacturing and resource extraction, full of working class voters who voted for left wing parties despite holding culturally conservative views. All four were won by the left wing party at that party's late 2000s election victory, many times handily, and since then, all four have sprinted right.

In Longman, a 53.5/46.5 Labor win in 2007 becomes an inversion 12 years later - 53.3/46.7 for the LNP. In Braddon, 2007 only brought a slight victory - 51.4/48.6 - which ended up as a much bigger margin in 2010 when the popular Liberal incumbent didn't re-contest the seat, but now the seat is 53/47 Liberal. Wisconsin 3rd has gone from an Obama +20 district in 2008 to a Trump +4.7 seat now, and Ohio 13th has gone from Obama +27 to Biden +3.4 in 12 years. Guess what happened to Longman and Braddon when the Australian right selected a moderate, pro-gay marriage, pro-action on climate leader for the 2016 election? A 7.7% drop in the Coalition two-party vote in Longman and a 4.8% drop in their two-party vote in Braddon, and they lost both seats.

Now, the Coalition did well (or, at least, comparatively so) in the suburbs that night, but the act of electing a leader who could get them some suburban reversion also ended up reverting rural and regional Australia back left. What happened in 2019 when they ditched socially liberal Malcolm Turnbull for a leader whose private comments when Australia voted for gay marriage were allegedly "I don’t feel this is the country I grew up in any more"? Oh, those seats snapped back right. Quelle surprise.

…

Democrats got a 5-3 map from the Independent Commission in Colorado. No, it is not a 4-4, because the swing district is a Biden +9, and the other close district is a Trump +7, and somehow everyone is freaking out about the Biden +9 because the world is trolling me. To be clear, no, I don't think Lauren Boebert is in serious trouble in her Trump +7 district. I don't. But I don't see how on earth she's in less trouble than whoever Democrats run in the Biden +9 7th, because, plainly, that's crap.

Ah, but, the suburbs could revert, and therefore by the magical powers imbued to the world by fairy dust or some shit, a Biden +9 reverts. Ah, but the district voted for a Republican in 2018 for Attorney General, therefore it's a swing seat, except by that logic Democrats could win all 8 Minnesota seats because Amy Klobuchar did it last time - an argument that is risible nonsense, obviously. Also, if you want to use state-level results to talk about federal partisanship, I want receipts on your Kansas 2nd is a tossup take from 2020, because a Laura Kelly-supporting district has to be a tossup, right? Oh, wait, no, that didn't happen, because this is just selective evidence.

So, could Democrats lose the 7th? I mean, maybe, I guess, but the conditions for them losing the 7th aren't going to happen. They could lose the 7th in a complete national obliteration, or they could lose it because the GOP does singularly better in educated, white, suburban areas. The first isn't worth discussing, because if it happens, the Democrats will be out of power in the House for a decade and lucky to have 170 seats, but the second is worth interrogating. How could the GOP pull off such a trick?

They'd start by nominating pro-Roe, pro-Obergefell candidates in all of these types of districts, the party as a whole would start to vote for Biden's judicial appointees who support both those rulings, and they'd have their leadership - McConnell, McCarthy, and Trump - publicly talk about their support for those rulings. That leadership would talk about environmental action and trumpet what they've done to fix the climate crisis, and show in their actions a comfort with the multi-racial and non-solely heterosexual world that these communities exist in. While we don't have all the details around demographics of the proposed Colorado 7th, similar Biden districts tend to be the homes of many upper class gay couples, especially in places like Orange County, the DFW quad, and suburban Atlanta. You want to win these areas, you're going to have to have an answer to these voters' cultural comfort.

Last month in Southlake there was a charity poker game that my buddy helped run for the local food bank, it raised a ton of money for a good cause. In another time, and by that I mean next year, I'd probably have attended, and in that kind of event - despite being in a Trump +25 city - I'd feel absolutely fine bringing a partner, and being open with my sexuality. Those voters have run left in the last decade, more than halving Romney's nearly 60% win in two cycles, and if you're looking at winning Colorado 7, you're going to be winning here too.

How are the GOP supposed to win back socially liberal whites who make a lot of money when they are explicitly not trying to do so? Why does so much of the commentariat accrue the GOP the benefits of moderation on these issues when the GOP steadfastly refuses to moderate? How is coddling MTG and Boebert a winning strategy to win back voters who pine for Mitt Romney again? Oh, wait, it's not, and anyone with a brain understands this fact, and yet, we continue to pretend that the trend might reverse - without, you know, acknowledging that if the suburbs trend right the GOP will have a problem with the Youngstown and Driftless parts of their coalition, which we know from Australia.

You know what a "trends will continue with our ascendant coalition and they'll revert with our descendant coalition" argument sounds like? The argument for how Democrats win Ohio and Iowa and Montana Senate in 2020. We'll do better than Hillary in the rurals, turbocharge 2018 in the suburbs, and ride that to a landslide. How'd that work out, again? Oh, Democrats barely won Wisconsin and Ohio moved 0.1% right, yeah. This argument should have been seen for what it was - risible nonsense - but my head was so far up my own ass for the back half of 2020 that I missed that fact. And now, people who should have learned from this fact are refusing to, because now they can claim Democrats are in Disarray. The problem is, they're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

The suburbs could revert because the suburbs could revert is a nice tautology, but the GOP's only real and substantive lasting accomplishment of the Trump era is Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett. Those three names are not the names that will revert the suburbs, and they are the reasons that Democrats will continue to make inroads amongst socially liberal, well off whites. Hard to sell the GOP as a new, moderate party when they're voting for a SCOTUS nominee who calls homosexuality a "sexual preference", as if it's the sexual equivalent of picking steak or chicken at a taco restaurant. You want the GOP to do better in these socially liberal bastions, it's possible, if you adopt socially liberal policies and pivot - the Australian right did it. The problem with that? Say goodbye to all those sweet gains in Mahoning.

Colorado's a 5-3 map, the suburbs aren't swinging back, and anyone who pretends either of those sentences aren't true is either mendacious or intellectually risible.