Why Republicans Lost Suburbia
A political obituary for the college educated Republican
Once upon a time, 'country club Republicans' were an electoral force both envied and feared by Democrats across the land, once ruling from rural New England down to Virginia's storied shores. With mastery as effortless as assured, they doled out cash and served an irresistible blend of ideological pragmatism coupled with fiscal responsibility. In the most profound blue states, exemplified by the New England states, Republicans would ascend to all manners of offices.
They had a reliable weapon: college-educated voters. These voters typically grasp the profound implications of local governance and regularly exercise their civic duty. At the same time, the Republican base has, indeed, for the last century or so, been comprised of rural voters who are socially conservative, distrustful of big government, and take pride in their small communities. But an incredible alliance of rural and suburban voters presented a daunting challenge for the Democrats to overcome.
The 2004 presidential battle saw incumbent George W. Bush pitted against the Democratic challenger, John Kerry. Democrats were giddy with a sentiment that Mr. Kerry would readily unseat Mr. Bush. However, their hopes and dreams rose in a puff of smoke as election day and reality set in. President Bush secured his reelection triumphantly, surpassing his rival by a substantial margin of 3,012,166 votes in the popular tally and clinching the Electoral College with a decisive 35-vote lead, comfortably exceeding the requisite 270.
Mr. Bush won high school graduates 52-47, college graduates 52-46, and narrowly lost post-grads 55-44. Non-high school graduates were split evenly between him and Mr. Kerry. Mr. Bush won rural areas 57-42 and suburbs 52-47. It was not a repudiation of Mr. Kerry either; more than 2/3rds of the electorate declared their vote was “for their candidate” rather than “against his opponent.” Of those, 59 percent broke for Mr. Bush.
Mr. Bush scored particularly well, with voters earning between $50-75,000 a year and voters earning $200,000 or more—a very inclusive coalition delivering a resounding Republican victory. Despite being an evangelical and a conservative, who composed 23 percent and 34 percent of the election, Mr. Bush could appeal to a majority of the country, and this success was rewarded with a second term. Twenty years later, it remains the last time Republicans won the national popular vote.
The cause? The landscape of political allegiance has shifted over the last thirty years, but most dramatically among the educated. In 1994, on the eve of the famous “Republican Revolution,” college-educated voters were 15 percentage points more inclined to align with or favor the Republicans over the Democrats. Fast forward to 2017, the beginning of the Trump era, and this trend has reversed: the same demographic now exhibits a 15-point preference for the Democrats. The swing among those with postgraduate experience is even more pronounced, shifting from a slim 2-point Democratic-leaning to a 32-point preference. Yikes.
There are changes within the ‘college-educated electorate’ – a 20 percent gap in degree attainment favoring women over men. But that makes this even more concerning for the Republicans. Suburban women were the prime target of the Bush-Cheney ‘04 campaign, with then-Senator Joe Biden calling them security moms. Exit polling and empirical evidence showed that college-educated women, particularly in suburban communities, trusted the Republicans with handling the war on terror, contributing to Mr. Bush's reelection victory. However, in 2020, these same voters significantly shifted away from the GOP, playing a role in Mr. Trump's loss in the 2020 presidential election. Because suburban women, once the backbone of the GOP, are now abandoning it in significant numbers.
In that election, Mr. Biden utterly annihilated Mr. Trump in the popular vote-winning by 7 million. He won a slimmer margin in the electoral college, which, due to the power presented to rural states, has remained the only reason Mr. Trump has remained competitive in his elections. Mr. Biden prevailed among college-educated voters by approximately 54 percent compared to Mr. Trump’s 45 percent. Among voters making $50,000-$90,000 dollars, Mr. Biden prevailed 56 to 42 percent. Voters making over $200,000 were split evenly.
What is the interpretation of these results from the Trump camp? Well, first, they’ll say the election was rigged and stolen and that he won everywhere. His surrogates, who are slightly more grounded in reality, at least in admitting that he lost, will then go on an unhinged and false rant bashing these women as 'abortion-obsessed baby murderers' who are all-in for the 'woke agenda' and insist that winning them over is a lost cause. Similarly, a college education is decried as a scam. There is a reason for such a reverse in support from the college-educated and women voters.
Several months ago, I penned a column addressing “MAGA's Stupid War On Taylor Swift” and the fixation the right-wing sphere seems to have on her. “Swift is going to come out in the presidential election, and she is going to mobilize her fans…all the Swifties want is swift abortion. That's what they want. It's 100%,” Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, warned. Not wanting to be outdone, Vivek Ramaswamy fastened his tin-foil hat and eerily posted, “I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month…I wonder if a major presidential endorsement is coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here; let’s see how it ages over the next eight months.”
It is worth noting that Ms. Swift did endorse Mr. Biden in 2020. Though who didn’t? But, as I noted in my piece, she remains remarkably conservative by the music industry's standards. As I wrote:
As a conservative myself, I understand the common disdain within our ranks for the modern music industry. I see it as a catalyst for societal ills like gratuitous violence, rampant drug use, objectification of women, disdain for authority, and other degenerative behaviors.
But Ms. Swift does not champion any of these vices. She instead offers her audience, mostly comprised of young women, an inspiring American success story. In fact, given MAGA’s penchant for “draining the swamp”, they should find themselves enamored by Ms. Swift’s war against the music industry’s powerful influence.
Ms. Swift, after leaving Big Machine Records and failing to acquire the masters of her five albums recorded with them, re-recorded these albums as "Taylor's Versions." This move, which allowed Ms. Swift to own the re-recordings fully, was a strategic response to Big Machine's refusal to sell the original masters. By promoting "Taylor's Versions" as the preferred choice to her fans, Ms. Swift significantly diminished the value of the original masters in what can be best described as masterful trolling.
Bill Kristol summarized her perfectly: “Taylor Swift is a ‘good, sane Republican.’ Pro-entrepreneurial, pro-meritocratic, pro-American, pro-middlebrow popular culture, pro-football, not too worried about carbon footprints of private jets, etc. Your basic Reagan Republican!” I personally know many people who went to her Era’s Tour, and I can attest that they are ordinary people, far from being some Star Wars-esque clone army of progressivism; you won’t see Swifties proselytizing about Derrick Bell’s critical race theory or hunger striking for D.C. statehood. Coincidentally enough, Taylor Swift’s fanbase seems to be young suburban women.
The reason for the ‘Suburban Swifties’ disdain for Republicans is quite self-explanatory. Contrary to the belief of MAGA, the American suburbs are not the ‘woke’ leftist playgrounds they make them out to be. Suburban voters, including the Swifties, are not exactly populists hoping to transform the country fundamentally, whether by instituting socialism or shattering the “deep state.”
These voters enjoy tranquility and peace of mind, enjoy music and sports, and are too busy making lots of money to obsess and fret too much about politics. Their engagement with politics, rather than being obsessive or fretful, is moderated by different life priorities. They voted Republican and identified as proud conservatives in the past because liberals were, rightfully at the time, perceived as crazy, and many liked the status quo and were unapologetically proud to be American. Conservative Republicanism was the bastion of sanity and stability against a backdrop of tax-and-spend liberalism. If asked, they favor low taxes and de-regulation and support now novel concepts such as buying things with money, a practice that seems to have been done away with in California.
Many Republicans scratch their heads in disbelief that the Democrats keep winning elections with these soft-on-crime policies, their soft embrace of wealth taxes, and their ludicrous ideas of defunding the police. Suburban voters make money like to keep their money and prioritize safety, conservatives insist. So why don’t they vote for us? The answer is that both parties are racing to be crazy, though one is remarkably far ahead.
The left has gone crazy, many insist. A recent uptick in anti-semitism, public outrage at DEI programs that are viewed as discriminatory, the backlash against an open southern border, rampant lawlessness, and a parental backlash at children being taught concepts such as critical race theory and sexually explicit content being found in the school curriculum are prevalent. Yet many Republicans are stuck stroking their chins in deep self-reflection. How is the left ‘so crazy,’ and yet ‘we never seem to win?’
Because, arguably, the Republicans are equally as crazy and have regressed into a pure cult of personality around the least ‘normal’ and most personally detested politician in American history. During my state's gubernatorial race in 2022, voters were treated to a relentless bombardment of ads highlighting Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed gubernatorial candidate, and his policy on abortion: a total ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother. And while everyone in the Republican party swears loyalty to Mr. Trump and allegiance to ‘MAGA’, both of which are unpopular with the electorate and public, Democrats often marginalize and kick away the ‘progressives’ from party leadership.
Mr. Biden won his party’s nomination in 2020, running as the ‘boring old guy with experience.’ Mr. Biden’s age, long tenure in Washington, and moderate reputation were assets, not hindrances, to his campaign. When it seemed like Mr. Sanders, a socialist whose positions were thoroughly out of step with the general public, would emerge as the Democrat nominee—the Democrat establishment intervened with other liberal candidates dropping out and endorsing Mr. Biden for the sake of stopping a Sanders nomination. Mr. Biden insisted during the general election debate that he did not support Medicare for All or abolish private health insurance, as Bernie Sanders had. When confronted by Mr. Trump, he declared:
Mr. Trump: "Your party wants to go socialist medicine."
Mr. Biden: "The party is me. Right now, I am the Democratic Party."
Mr. Trump: "They're going to dominate you, Joe, you know that.
Mr. Biden: "I am the Democratic Party right now. The platform of the Democratic Party is what I, in fact, have approved of."
Compare this to the Republican establishment, who recently were floating the idea of crowning Mr. Trump as the presumptive nominee after the results of only two states. Right-wingers will attack the words of Mr. Sanders, AOC, and often highlight their positions as radical. The problem for the GOP is that both Mr. Sanders and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez are ‘on the fringe’ within the Democrat party and are not in positions of influence. Democrat attacks on Mr. Trump, who is arguably the preeminent GOP leader, and their attacks on Republican abortion policy are much more successful.
During the AFC Championship game on Sunday, watched in my suburban home, the Biden campaign ran an ad featuring Dr. Austin Dennard, a Texas OB-GYN and mother, sharing her harrowing ordeal of being compelled to carry a wanted pregnancy with a fatally flawed fetus due to Donald Trump's overturning of Roe v. Wade, through his judicial picks.
This is the crucial difference- the progressives have little sway outside deep-blue urban centers and states like California. Democrats have not been able, nor willing, to abolish the police department or mandate CRT. In contrast, Republican-dominated legislatures have enacted restrictive anti-abortion laws, the consequences of which were felt by Dr. Dennard, whose life was endangered by such legislation. Many young women, contrary to the musings from the likes of Charlie Kirk, want to be mothers - but at a time of their choosing and without birthing a child destined to die, in a scenario also fraught with mortal danger to themselves.
The universities may be ‘woke,’ but things often considered woke are still unpopular with the general public. Polling repeatedly shows that college graduates overwhelmingly oppose liberal policies such as reparations, affirmative action, defunding the police, and socialism. Many believe sex is assigned at birth, not chosen at will. Democrats do not secure victories championing policies like open borders, critical race theory, or the abolition of the police. Instead, their electoral success is anchored in campaigning against election deniers, Trump sycophants, and politicians who controversially frame the pregnancies from rape as a ‘gift from God.’
Not to mention the influence of Mr. Trump himself, who is widely unpopular with college-educated voters and women in particular. I have to scratch my head and ponder why a man who brags about “grabbing [them] by the pussy”, insists his daughter is a “piece of ass,” suggested he’d date her if she wasn’t his daughter, was held liable for sexual abuse, and had an affair with a pornstar, whom he had to pay off at the same time his wife was pregnant with his child. Hardly the most appealing candidate.
In 2016, Senator Pat Toomey was perceived as “DOA,” dead on arrival, in Pennsylvania. The Republicans had recaptured the senate majority, courtesy of a 9-seat pickup in 2014. Still, the nomination of Donald Trump, at the top of the ticket, seemed to spell doom for Republicans everywhere. 6 years prior, Mr. Toomey won the seat after a successful primary challenge to ‘RINO’ Senator Arlen Specter that forced Mr. Specter to switch parties.
In 2010, in the days when Mr. Trump sold false university courses and hosted a television show, and was still a Democrat, RINO had a far different meaning. Republicans in name only referred to insufficiently conservative candidates, supporting gun control, increased government spending, and regulation. Mr. Toomey, contrary to popular belief, was no ‘moderate Republican.’ A Harvard-educated former investment banker, Mr. Toomey had been president of the Club for Growth, a Congressman, and was a foe of the Republican establishment.
Many worried that Mr. Toomey was too conservative for Pennsylvania, with Utah Senator Orrin Hatch warning: “I don't think there is anybody in the world who believes he can get elected senator there.” Mr. Toomey’s campaign was particularly aided by a remarkable fundraising network, with a significant Union League fundraiser in Philadelphia headlined by Maine Senator Susan Collins, also lending his image credit as a ‘practical’ politician.
Though Mr. Toomey held staunchly conservative views on same-sex marriage and abortion, he did not raise them as issues, as they were not what Pennsylvania was focused on at the time. Instead, Mr. Toomey highlighted his opponent, Democrat Joe Sestak's support for unpopular healthcare reform, cap and trade, and Obama's stimulus and tied him to the unpopular President Obama. He emerged victorious, with crucial victories in the Philadelphia suburban counties of Chester, Bucks, and Lehigh.
As Senator, Mr. Toomey proved to be a consistent conservative and affable bipartisan. He worked with Democratic Senator Joe Manchin on a sensible gun safety bill in opposition to the NRA and party leadership. He was a leader in the fight against Mr. Obama's disastrous Iran nuclear deal, worked on legislation that increased penalties for sexual predators, and bucked his party during his time on a Deficit Reduction committee when he broke from party leadership again and authored his own plan that increased revenue.
Pennsylvania's voters, particularly the Philly suburban voters in Chester, Bucks, Montgomery, and Delaware counties, noticed that rather than being a 'right-wing hack,' Mr. Toomey was instead "thoughtful, serious, and constructive," as his pollster, John Lerner, described him. Donors, high-information college-educated voters, the media, and even former Democratic Governor Ed Rendell praised him. Democrats were furious that one of the Senate’s most conservative members had made such a “moderate” reputation for himself.
Katie McGinty, his Democratic opponent in 2016, was widely expected to oust Mr. Toomey. Mr. Trump was expected to lose Pennsylvania to Mrs. Clinton, and it was believed that Mr. Trump would be such a drag on the Republican ticket that the Democrats would receive a ‘trifecta' of the White House, House of Representatives, and United States Senate. The race was the most expensive in the country's history at the time, with a total spending of around 118 million dollars. Mr. Toomey received a late boost from Michael Bloomberg, who endorsed and bought ads for him in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Rather than pledge fealty to Mr. Trump, as many Republicans had done, Mr. Toomey tried to remain “his own man.” He never endorsed Mr. Trump, having supported Marco Rubio in the primaries, and stating, “I have said I find his candidacy very problematic. I had hoped I would have been convinced to be an enthusiastic supporter by now, but I remain unpersuaded.” He decried the “grab-them-by-the-pussy remarks” as “outrageous and unacceptable.” Mrs. McGinty attempted to tie Mr. Toomey to Mr. Trump and the new ‘MAGA’ movement, but ultimately her gamble failed.
A narrow plurality reelected Mr. Toomey by a margin of under two percent, while a smaller plurality also concurrently elected Mr. Trump. Mr. Toomey did not ‘moderate’ or ‘flip-flop’ on any positions; he merely ran as the pragmatist he was. He ran strongly in the now reliably Democratic Philadelphia suburbs, winning big while many voters split tickets in favor of Hillary Clinton, repulsed by Mr. Trump. The average Philadelphia suburban voter does not excessively fixate on politics and holds a severe disdain for Mr. Trump, seeing that most of the party had become dominated by 'crazies'’ while also viewing Mr. Toomey as a sensible pragmatist who acted usually. Many of these voters assumed Mrs. Clinton would win and that giving her responsible divided government by rewarding Mr. Toomey with reelection would be the best outcome for the country.
The conservative movement's embrace of a culture rife with conspiracy theories and politicization of everything, including sports, has inadvertently made their leftist counterparts appear more rational in comparison, which is hysterical to me, given that the left is notoriously famous for over-politicization. For crying out loud, they renamed the Washington Redskins! And yet, somehow, the Republicans are losing to these people?
As long as Republicans offer nothing but out-of-touch abortion politics, fierce loyalty to an unpopular Donald Trump, and a penchant for conspiracy theories about every facet of daily life—they will lose in the suburbs. The grievance and conspiratorial politics of the right do nothing but highlight a tendency to alienate the rational, who are generally indifferent to politics. My solution? Regarding these policies and strategies, in the words of Taylor Swift, “Shake it off, shake it off!”