{"id":2488,"date":"2010-08-14T08:41:05","date_gmt":"2010-08-14T12:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2488"},"modified":"2010-09-01T13:46:14","modified_gmt":"2010-09-01T17:46:14","slug":"is-the-republican-party-about-to-become-even-more-rural-and-southern-based","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/08\/14\/is-the-republican-party-about-to-become-even-more-rural-and-southern-based\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Republican Party about to become even more rural- and Southern based?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, the Wall Street Journal and NBC released a poll that changed everybody’s understanding of what’s happening in this year’s 2010 midterm.<\/p>\n

The dominant narrative has been that deep anger and unhappiness with the economy and the direction of the nation will fall squarely on the shoulders of Democrats, possibly bouncing them from them the lofty perch of their supermajority.<\/p>\n

But this poll found something peculiar:\u00a0 The GOP’s “surge” in the polls over the last two years has been driven in large measure by a mega-surge in the South.<\/p>\n

Here’s how MSNBC described it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The GOP has a HUGE generic-ballot edge in the South (52%-31%), but it doesn\u2019t lead anywhere else.<\/p>\n

In the Northeast, Dems have a 55%-30% edge; in the Midwest, they lead 49%-38%; and in the West, it\u2019s 44%-43%.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MSNBC fails to note that the Democrats’ margin in the Northeast is EVEN HUGER than the Republican advantage in the South.<\/p>\n

But it is startling to note that the Democrats still maintain an 11% point lead even in the Midwest.<\/p>\n

Now here’s where this gets interesting and complicated.<\/p>\n

Most pundits think the GOP has a really decent shot at picking up at least 30 House seats<\/a>, pushing them close to a narrow majority.<\/p>\n

But only twelve of those races are in the South. (I’m including Florida and Texas in my mental map of the South.)<\/p>\n

The other eighteen are in states where Democrats still enjoy at least some “generic ballot” advantage, though to the GOP’s favor, only three likely or possible pick-ups are in the Northeast.<\/p>\n

What does all this mean?\u00a0 There are a couple of possible interesting outcomes.<\/p>\n

First, Republicans could find their march on Washington stymied by the fact that a lot of the country — especially in the Northeast and Midwest — still doesn’t trust their message.<\/p>\n

Secondly, it’s possible that the GOP will win a very thin House majority by becoming an EVEN MORE Southern- and rural- based movement than ever before.<\/p>\n

(MSNBC notes that even outside the South, Republicans are targeting districts that kind of look like the South.)<\/p>\n

This increasingly stark and bitter regionalism is a challenge for both parties, and for the country as a whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, the Wall Street Journal and NBC released a poll that changed everybody’s understanding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[886],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2490,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488\/revisions\/2490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}