Judis: In purely numerical terms, the Americans who live in the great metro centers like Chicago or Boston, and their suburbs, make up a sizable percentage of the electorate — somewhere between a third and a half, depending on the census categories. That’s why Democrats, with their hold in the metro centers, have been able to win the national vote in seven of the last nine presidential elections. But presidential elections and the composition of the Senate are decided on federal grounds, which give states with smaller populations a disproportionate role in choosing presidents and senators. Most of those states are rural, with small towns and cities.
As I noted in that article you mentioned, 20 of the 25 states with the highest percentage of rural voters are dominated by Republicans. In addition, states like Ohio that don’t have single huge metro centers have also gone Republican. Voters in rural areas and small towns and cities tend to be on one side of the raging culture war over immigration, gender, guns, flag and church. Some still blame the Democrats for the loss of jobs from NAFTA or China. Voters in states that rely on the oil and gas industry worry about Democrats’ reducing the use of fossil fuels. North Dakota had two Democratic senators until the early 2010s, when oil and gas boomed. Republicans benefited from their support of the extractive industry.
There is no easy way to overcome this, but the first step should be what my friend Robert Wright calls “cognitive empathy” with those who voted for Trump and with those who are uncomfortable with the more extreme Democratic stands on fossil fuels, illegal immigration, abortion and transgender rights.
Guida: In “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?” you and Teixeira wrote that Democrats were under the sway of a “shadow party” — “the activist groups, think tanks, foundations, publications and websites, and big donors and prestigious intellectuals who are not part of official party organizations, but who influence and are identified with one or the other of the parties.”
Judis: Candidates pay little heed to party platforms or national committees. Because of our broken campaign laws, big individual donors and PACs, rather than party organizations, play a large role in funding candidates. As a result, many of the attempts to influence candidates and voters are done by media outlets, think tanks, foundations, policy groups, activist organizations and celebrated intellectuals and influencers. They constitute the “shadow party” of both major parties.
