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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump's GOP Braces for Midwest Massacre
A razor-thin margin in the Rust Belt gave the president his victory in 2016. But Democrats are rebuilding their vaunted Blue Wall in 2018.
By TIM ALBERTA November 06, 2018
re we rewriting Americas Electoral College map tonight?
In the predawn hours of Nov. 9, 2016, CNNs chief national correspondent John King posed the question that would come to define the mechanics of Donald Trumps victory. It had been 28 years since a Republican had won Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvaniastates belonging to a much-hyped blue wall that narrowed the GOPs path to 270 electoral votes. As it became clear, however, that Trump would carry all three states, and secure blowouts in the traditional battleground of Ohio and Iowa, a new reality took hold. Whereas Republicans once believed they could only win the presidency using the George W. Bush playbookappealing to affluent, suburban populations in diverse states such as Virginia, Colorado and New MexicoTrump proved the truer route to the White House went through working-class whites in the industrial Midwest.
The narrative of a sweeping realignment was irresistible. Analysts branded the Rust Belt as Trump Country. Streaming into greasy spoons, shot-and-a-beer bars and Wal-marts across the Midwest, reporters pumped out anecdotal insights into the forgotten masses in middle America. And Republican officials, almost instantaneously, shifted their outlook. It didnt matter that Trump had won Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania by fewer than 78,000 votes combinednot enough people to fill a popular Big Ten football stadiumor that his path through those states was necessitated by his defeat in once-purple areas of the country. Trump had redrawn the Electoral College map, they insisted, and Midwestern Democrats were becoming an endangered species.
Now, on the eve of the 2018 midterm elections, Republicans are bracing for a massacre in the Midwest.
When we woke up after the 2016 election, there was a real possibility that we were seeing a realignment among white-working class voters in the Midwestand that they could go the way that white-working class voters have gone in the south over the past generation, said Matt Grossman, a political scientist at Michigan State University. But two years later, theres no sign that those gains are holding or being extended. Instead, there are a lot of campaigns in that region where Republicans are struggling to be competitive.
Trump bears much of the responsibility. His approval rating has plunged, by double digits, in most Midwestern states. His presidency has energized the Democratic base in ways Hillary Clinton never could. His partys rewrite of the tax code was disproportionately beneficial to wealthy people and corporations; to the extent the law is popular with voters, he barely tries to promote it. And his trade warring has been particularly burdensome to farmers, manufacturers and blue-collar workers in the Rust Belt, with numerous Republicans from affected states, including Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Steve Stivers of Ohio, pleading privately with Trump and his aides to find resolution.
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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/06/2018-election-trump-gop-midwest-222219
Luciferous
(6,078 posts)Guppy
(444 posts)comes to mind
Response to Guppy (Reply #2)
YessirAtsaFact This message was self-deleted by its author.
Mr. Quackers
(443 posts)Do things other than landscaping.
Not funny to promote racial stereotypes.
Guppy
(444 posts)Custer getting massacred.
Mr. Quackers
(443 posts)The deleted post said some shit about armies of brown people with lawn mowers and leaf blowers. My chastisement wasn't in reference to your post, but I understand what you meant in your Custer reference.
GoCubsGo
(32,080 posts)Along with IL Governor Bruce Ruiner...I mean Rauner.
ProfessorGAC
(65,010 posts)You meant Ruiner. It's more accurate that way, as well!
peekaloo
(22,977 posts)BumRushDaShow
(128,906 posts)THIS.
The fucking punditry completely ignored the slim margins that were were exceeded by Jill Stein votes, and immediately labeled these as "red states" and "Trump Country" and other nonsense.
Even more bizarre is that an east coast state like PA, the eastern border of which is a mere 60 miles across Jersey (or 1 hour) from the Atlantic ocean, suddenly got shoved into "the midwest". OH is just barely considered in the "midwest".
(no insult intended to the midwest as I have in-laws and direct relatives living there)
Here in PA, the margin was ~40,000 votes. Yet they considered it a "mandate" and we have had to hear it 24/7/365 for the next 2 years.