Democrats are learning to love the suburbs -- again. If the story of losing three straight elections since 2000 was partly about falling out of touch with their inner suburbanite, the
Democrats' success in 2006 was, in good part, the story of reconnecting with America's biggest voting bloc, the burgeoning 'burbs.
This is territory where Democrats thrived during the
Clinton 1990s, but then ceded mostly to Republicans in
this decade. Remember the devastating revelation after the
2004 election that George W. Bush won 97 of the 100
fastest-growing counties in America? That told the tale.
Now comes the good news. According to the Metropolitan
Institute at Virginia Tech, Democrats in 2006 won all 50 of
the nation's biggest metropolitan areas. They did it not just by
relying on their usual strength in the urban areas and older
inner suburbs, but by making big gains in the newer outer
suburbs. Importantly, that includes the so-called "emerging
suburbs" in the fastest-growing counties in the country.
Typical are the booming areas around St. Louis and
Kansas City, Mo., where a Democratic surge may have
made the difference in Claire McCaskill's successful Senate
race. It also includes three suburban counties around
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia that contributed to three
Democratic House victories.
Embracing a suburban strategy was a paradigm shift the
party badly needed. In the previous three elections, it had
fallen behind the demographic and geographic curve. After
all, 90 percent of metropolitan population growth in the
past half-century has been in the suburbs, not the cities.
You've got to compete in the suburbs, to paraphrase Willy
Sutton, because that's where the voters are.
A classic example of shifting population and voting
trends is the Minneapolis area. Writer Joel Kotkin noted
that the old Democratic stronghold -- home of Hubert
Humphrey, Walter Mondale, and the Farmer-Labor
Party -- is now ringed by Republican-leaning suburbs that
are three times as populous as the city (BLUEPRINT, March
2005). And they are growing much faster. For success in
these areas, Republicans will gladly cede the non-growing
cities to the Democrats.
Part of the Democrats' problem has been cultural. Still
notionally tied to the 20th century glory days of strong urban
working class and ethnic voting blocs, some Democratic
activists have trouble imagining themselves as the car-pool and
mega-mall party. Educated elites in the core cities, university
towns, and inner suburbs often reject
the exurban lifestyle -- big yards, big
cars, big churches, big families -- and
thus refuse to embrace a politics based
on their concerns. "I wouldn't be
caught dead in the suburbs," one 20-
something urban liberal told me
recently in Washington's leading
political bookstore.
Focusing heavily on the city vote
had, for Democrats, become an
exercise in diminishing returns. In 2004, for example, even
John Kerry's intense get-out-the-vote efforts in the Ohio
cities of Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus could not
match the surge of voters in the outer suburbs who were targets
of the Bush campaign's GOTV push. That's why Bush
won Ohio -- and the White House.
Seeing things through the old urban lens, many Democrats
didn't notice that such "natural" Democratic constituencies as
new immigrants were beginning to settle in the suburbs, not
the cities. To these new voters, the party that seemed to speak
to their aspirational concerns -- safe neighborhoods, good
schools, affordable housing -- was not called Democratic.
Analyst Mark Gersh estimated the Republican advantage at 2-
to-1 in fringe city communities like Mesa, Ariz., and the outer
reaches of the Atlanta region (BLUEPRINT, May 2004). In
Georgia's 2002 vote, he noted, suburban growth was the single
biggest factor in the Republican victory.
The good news is that this analysis has sunk in with
Democrats. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine made news in 2005 by
running, and winning, on a suburban strategy. Kaine concentrated
on suburbanites' concerns with issues like education
and traffic congestion and targeted Virginia's high-growth
areas. "We focused on eight suburban counties that routinely
go Republican," Kaine told me and my colleague Ed Kilgore.
"Our goal was not to win these suburbs, but to cut in half the
GOP's usual margin of victory. But we actually won six of the
eight. That's the secret of our victory."
In 2006, Democrats mainly have Rep. Rahm Emanuel of
Illinois and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York -- quarterbacks
of the midterm election campaigns -- to thank for
heeding the suburban call. These are guys who want to rob
a bank the right way -- by going where the money is. They
consciously targeted the voter-rich suburbs in more than
half of their winning races. What makes this so encouraging
is that it represents a break with recent Democratic thinking.
You can love the 'burbs or hate 'em, but you can't win
elections without 'em.
