Guns Are Killing Us

But I suggest that we look at the idea of swing districts (and swing states) differently. Looking at 41 seats we gained in 2018, a few may have been because of individual vulnerability.

But overall, it shows a clear pattern – the denser (urban) a suburb, the more likely it was to swing. After 2018, you can see the variation among the districts:

The battle for control of the House (and indeed, swing states) is largely a battle for the suburbs. Of the 41 seats gained in 2018, 39 were suburban.

It is often noted that the GOP controls rural districts, while Democrats control the urban ones. That is mostly true, but they are only 104 (combined) of the 435 House seats. America is a suburban nation.

GOP Reps Trump Voters Rural-suburban 77% 56% Sparse Suburban 41% 47% Dense suburban 19% 39% Urban/Suburban 2% 26%

After the impeachment vote, the GOP is targeting mostly those 39 House suburban freshman. But those districts voted Democratic because of sexist & racist tRuMp & the GOP. I suspect that it is the remaining 16 GOP dense-suburban districts Reps that are in trouble, not the Demos.

Our degree of success depended on the density of those suburbs. In part due to the concentration of minorities and college-educated women, the more urban, the more likely we were to win.

Though the rural suburbs are more likely to have a higher percentage of whites, and the dense suburbs a higher percentage of college-educated, those are only averages.