I admire your expertise Michael. You also make it interesting. Florida, Texas and other red states had influxes of refugees from blue states who then try to bring their madness with them. Closer to home, a couple moved from Seattle to Eastern Washington and we became good friends. The wife said she wanted to get on the school board to "fix things". My wife reminded her you moved here because it is different and you want to make it the same as where you left?
This is an issue here in Delaware, too. Consider my home county of Sussex County, which is the southernmost of the three counties and has the extent of our beach.
As recently as 2020, there was only one Democrat representing the entire county on a state legislative level, and he was the Speaker of the House so I'm sure that helped his pull. (Prior to that there were others, but over the 2010s the old-line conservative Democrats were retired, either on their own or by the voters.)
But the county has grown a LOT since 2010 - when I used to work for a local homebuilder I figured out 70% of our houses (mostly in our developments near the beach) went to out-of-state clients. They would sell their 700k house in NJ, NY, PA, or MD and move to the beach in Delaware. Of course, they brought their voting habits with them, and once redistricting occurred for the 2022 election (they needed to shift a district from New Castle County to here) they packed all the Republicans in one district and made a couple others just enough Democrat to flip them. Now we have one Democrat on County Council (out of 5) and three Democrats in our state legislative delegation.
The rest of the state stayed static except for one district that was heavy Democrat but somehow elected a moderate R prior to his unsuccessful run for governor last year - besides that, all the Democrat gains in the last few years have come from our county, by the beach.
Very impressive research and analysis here. Another state where rural areas are underrepresented by politicians who don’t share their values or concerns.
I admire your expertise Michael. You also make it interesting. Florida, Texas and other red states had influxes of refugees from blue states who then try to bring their madness with them. Closer to home, a couple moved from Seattle to Eastern Washington and we became good friends. The wife said she wanted to get on the school board to "fix things". My wife reminded her you moved here because it is different and you want to make it the same as where you left?
This is an issue here in Delaware, too. Consider my home county of Sussex County, which is the southernmost of the three counties and has the extent of our beach.
As recently as 2020, there was only one Democrat representing the entire county on a state legislative level, and he was the Speaker of the House so I'm sure that helped his pull. (Prior to that there were others, but over the 2010s the old-line conservative Democrats were retired, either on their own or by the voters.)
But the county has grown a LOT since 2010 - when I used to work for a local homebuilder I figured out 70% of our houses (mostly in our developments near the beach) went to out-of-state clients. They would sell their 700k house in NJ, NY, PA, or MD and move to the beach in Delaware. Of course, they brought their voting habits with them, and once redistricting occurred for the 2022 election (they needed to shift a district from New Castle County to here) they packed all the Republicans in one district and made a couple others just enough Democrat to flip them. Now we have one Democrat on County Council (out of 5) and three Democrats in our state legislative delegation.
The rest of the state stayed static except for one district that was heavy Democrat but somehow elected a moderate R prior to his unsuccessful run for governor last year - besides that, all the Democrat gains in the last few years have come from our county, by the beach.
Very impressive research and analysis here. Another state where rural areas are underrepresented by politicians who don’t share their values or concerns.
Multiply that by several other states with one or two dominant metro areas.