(i remember the berlin wall falling, fwiw. i was eight. but i remember it.)
back in 2016, i keyed in a lot on missouri as an important swing state, and i did this for the very specific reason that the democrats had to find more urban areas to win over, and i knew the midwest was urbanizing very quickly.
the thing about missouri that i didn't realize then was that it's actually deurbanizing. and, in fact, so is wisconsin. and ohio. and iowa. and michigan....
the states that are urbanizing quickly are just a little to the west of the mississippi river: oklahoma, kansas, nebraska. and, if you look at the 2018 midterms, the democrats made some seriously surprising upset gains in that area - which was something i predicted, once i corrected my understanding of how the area was urbanizing, and how it was deurbanizing.
does that mean kansas is in play? not yet. but, it might not be very long before kansas is more competitive than iowa.
several decades ago, now, missouri used to be what was called a "bellweather" state, and the reason it was seen as that was that it had demographics that were roughly a microcosm of the country. due to the onset of deurbanization, that is not true, anymore.
i look at missouri on a map, and i see a lot of potential in it. but, i'm not surprised by the results. i've learned to be disappointed by them.
back in 2016, i keyed in a lot on missouri as an important swing state, and i did this for the very specific reason that the democrats had to find more urban areas to win over, and i knew the midwest was urbanizing very quickly.
the thing about missouri that i didn't realize then was that it's actually deurbanizing. and, in fact, so is wisconsin. and ohio. and iowa. and michigan....
the states that are urbanizing quickly are just a little to the west of the mississippi river: oklahoma, kansas, nebraska. and, if you look at the 2018 midterms, the democrats made some seriously surprising upset gains in that area - which was something i predicted, once i corrected my understanding of how the area was urbanizing, and how it was deurbanizing.
does that mean kansas is in play? not yet. but, it might not be very long before kansas is more competitive than iowa.
several decades ago, now, missouri used to be what was called a "bellweather" state, and the reason it was seen as that was that it had demographics that were roughly a microcosm of the country. due to the onset of deurbanization, that is not true, anymore.
i look at missouri on a map, and i see a lot of potential in it. but, i'm not surprised by the results. i've learned to be disappointed by them.