to me, the most interesting thing that happened was in kansas, which now has a democratic governor and a democratic congresswoman. how did that happen?

well, the district is 93% urban. and, the state is apparently rapidly urbanizing.

https://wichitaliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Rural-populations-of-the-states.png

i pointed out a few years ago that the reason that colorado is now a blue state is that it's 87% urban - so denver carries the state. kansas was apparently 75% urban in 2016. if that number continues to increase, it's chances of becoming a blue state increase with it - especially if the population is localized strongly around kansas city. at the time, i was just looking at the map and thinking outloud.

it's the same thing that is happening in virginia, as well as nevada. white people don't and never did vote as a bloc, but the urban/rural split is pretty well-established, with almost no exceptions.

the democrats should be taking this as a signal that kansas is in play for the foreseeable future, so long as the trend towards concentrated urbanization in a single centre continues - because winning the city means winning the state. and, there may be signs that oklahoma is following the same path of development, although i initially pointed to nebraska as more likely. if the democrats can kind of split the map there, and separate the south from the northern plains by this kind of blue road from the west via arizona & new mexico, through colorado and kansas and nebraska and up the mississippi and back to chicago, it could break the jesusland culture. and, then, the northern plains get culturally absorbed by western canada, leaving the southeast as an isolate...

that's where this war is going to be fought: on the west of the mississippi delta, in the space between the river and the rockies.

and, that being said, i'm continually disappointed by missouri, but i understand that the state is undergoing such a process of decay. i keep thinking that it's a matter of time before it reverses itself, and st. louis rises from the dead. kansas city is also in missouri, which i've never understood, but if kansas is swinging, it could help. but, if it doesn't get an intervention of some sort, it's going to get swallowed by arkansas...

i'm not as excited about texas as others, and the reason is that those mexicans are catholics. i understand that they don't like trump, but this is not a particularly rational reaction to that - they didn't like obama, either. and, they don't like abortion. or gays. they're on the wrong side of the culture war, and that's going to eventually assert itself. texas is a melting pot; it's the south, and if it becomes more hispanic, we will end up with more hispanic conservatives, who in the end will stay to the right. i think the same thing is true of georgia. they need more than demographic changes, they need a cultural shift; texas is the counter-example, as it is already largely urbanized. rather than being on the brink of a shift, texas may be the last major state to swing, as these hispanics are slowly converted into republicans, as they are slowly americanized. and, georgia may end up as the epi-centre of a black conservative movement, in the end.

it's what happened in kansas that is more substantive, and the opening of a serious battle that will have longer term implications in shifting the map - so long as these trends of centralization and urbanization continue in the deep mid-west.