Election 2018 and what happens next

"Young Corn" by Grant Wood (1892-1942). Source: socks-studio.com. Used without permission.

The "rural-urban divide" is a widely-touted way to describe the current trend in American politics, but as appealingly simple as it is, it lacks substance. There's nothing about nearness to corn that makes someone Republican, nor does seeing pavement or high-rise apartment buildings make a person a Democrat.

Democrats made substantial gains in U.S. House elections in 2018, gaining about 40 seats and capturing majority control for the first time since the 2010 elections (and only the third time since the 1994 elections). Their gains actually masked a historically high 8 percentage point in the national popular vote; the national district map still favors Republicans. Democrats had a net loss of two Senate seats, but that could have been a lot worse given where most of the Senate elections were.

2018 U.S. House results (swiped from cnn.com)

Exit polling provided by CNN mostly show continuity in the partisan coalitions that have obtained since the 1980s, with some interesting variations for the Trump era. Nonwhites, especially blacks, remain solidly Democratic, with Asian-Americans voting somewhat more Democratic than Latinx. A number of other demographic trends are seen among whites but not nonwhites: age (younger more Democratic), education (college graduates more Democratic), and religion (less attachment means more Democratic). This probably is also true of other demographic categories that CNN does not break out by race.

Major partisan differences:

white born again or evangelical/not 44 points

gun owners/not 36

white/nonwhite 32

monthly religious attendance/less  21 points

veteran/nonveteran 15

male/female 12

age over/under 44 12

college graduate/not 11

Urban residents voted 69 percent Democratic, suburban 49 percent, rural 42 percent. So the urban/nonurban divide ranks among the larger differences.

As I said, this is pretty similar to the Reagan-era partisan alignment, with college graduates, suburbanites and Asian-Americans shifting Democratic and white non-graduates and rural residents shifting Republican. At the same time, cultural comfort seems to be a factor in where people choose to live (see Bill Bishop, The Big Sort); and economic activity and young professionals have moved "back to the city." America's economic gains in the 2010s have been concentrated in certain places, which are overwhelmingly metropolitan, but far from all cities have seen these benefits.

The resulting divide is not strictly urban vs. rural, but between economically successful and unsuccessful places, overlaid, as American politics inevitably is, by race. As Richard Florida noted in The Rise of the Creative Class, the economic success of a place correlates not only with economic assets but with cultural comfort with diversity (what he called the "Gay-Bohemian Index"). Democrats are drawing votes from nonwhites and from whites who are educated for the 21st century and culturally tolerant. The Republican base is in urban and rural areas which are not economically competitive, where educated young people are leaving. This might explain the strong element of nostalgia in Republican political appeals from Reagan (or even Nixon) on through to Trump. They likely draw from professional groups that are based in resource extraction rather than the knowledge economy. Oil made the Koch Brothers rich; President Trump made whatever money he's made in real estate.

The partisan alignment of government is the mirror image of the situation from 2011-2015, when Democrats held the Presidency and the Senate while Republicans controlled the House. That was a notably unproductive period in U.S. government--featuring as it did the infamous government shutdown--so my best hope for this round is that both parties produce some policy proposals they can argue about in 2020.

(Source: Wikimedia commons)

Whatever the strengths of this analysis nationally, it works pretty well to explain the results in Iowa (for which, alas, we have no exit polls handy). Republican Governor Kim Reynolds was returned to office despite national political winds that were blowing in a Democratic direction. Although Democrats flipped two Republican U.S. House seats, Republicans maintained strong control of both houses of the state legislature, retaining a 54-46 edge in the House despite losing five seats, and actually increasing their Senate edge by three to 32-18. Factors ideosyncratic to individual races aside, this remains a red state for the time being.

But not as red as this map of 2018 results makes it look: an ocean of Republican red with a few islands of Democratic blue! More than half of Iowa's population lives in ten of those 99 counties, which account for 74.5 percent of job growth in this decade, and whose net in-migration balances loss of population in the rest of Iowa.

Nor have the 2010s have not been equally kind to Iowa's ten largest counties:

COUNTY	%DEM VOTE	%GRAD/PROF DEGREES	%WHITE	%COLL GRAD	10-16 JOB GROWTH	NET MIGRATION
JOHNSON (Iowa City)	71.6	24	84	28	12810	in
STORY (Ames)	58.8	19	87	22	4793	in
POLK (D. Moines)	58.2	10	86	29	31048	in
LINN (C. Rapids)	55.6	10	90	26	8131	in
BLKHAWK (Waterloo)	55.0	8	86	24	2635	out
SCOTT (Davenprt)	50.8	11	86	26	6632	in
DUBUQUE (Dubuque)	49.4	9	93	24	5495	in
DALLAS (Waukee)	47.5	12	92	30	17499	in
POTTAW. (C. Bluffs)	41.3	5	95	24	1291	out
WOODBR (Sioux City)	41.1	7	88	25	2310	out

(Source for most of these data: U.S. Bureau of the Census)

Correlations are not perfect, but support for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Fred Hubbell is associated with cities where there are more knowledge workers, more nonwhites, and improved economic conditions. Cities that are hurting and whitest supported Reynolds.

What can be done for those areas of the country that face being left behind? Clara Hendrickson and colleagues from the Brookings Institution suggest improving digital skills in lagging area, helping small businesses gain access to capital, extending broadband access to rural areas, and targeting national development assistance to ten potential growth "poles." They also suggest helping those stuck in underperforming areas to relocate (Hendrickson, Muro and Galston 2018). Bloomberg columnist Noah Smith commends the advice of James and Deborah Fallows' book Our Towns to support universities, welcome immigration, and develop public-private partnerships (Smith 2018). For more ideas, see my July piece, cited below.

Even in a Democratic year, voters in Iowa's lagging areas outnumber those in growing areas, and Iowa will have unified Republican control of government for the forseeable future. Statehouse Republicans owe their supporters answers to the problems of our "struggling regions" (Noah Smith's term). These may yet emerge in the next legislative session, after years of playing to the crowd by defunding Planned Parenthood, banning abortion after six weeks, and banning sanctuary cities, while cutting taxes and state services. I'm not hopeful--Reynolds made her final campaign push in the company of over-the-edge U.S. Representative Steve King, who also served as her campaign co-chair--but I will be watching the next legislative session with particular interest.

SEE ALSO:
Paul Krugman, "The New Economy and the Trump Rump," New York Times, 20 November 2018, A23
Erin Murphy, "Is Iowa Not a Presidential Tossup State?" Cedar Rapids Gazette, 19 November 2018
"What is the Future of Iowa's Small Towns?" Holy Mountain, 3 July 2018