i think another way of saying this is "we had a thimble of swings tip our way and it was almost enough to outweigh a bucket of swings their way," which is worse precarious to be in than "they had a lot of swings toward them and we had a lot of swings our way and we won narrowly"
yeah - it turns out they still had a little more room to max out the rurals. But if they are truly maxed now and 24 was a blip in the leftward suburban trend (my theory, at least in the latter)... its ominous af as you said
its genuinely impressive how much blood they've drawn from the stone in the rurals
i do think they eventually might run into an issue where they can juice the *margins* a bit more but the *raw votes* start tappering off
ding ding ding i agree
Especially since the Midwest rurals are bleeding pop fast
they really need those black and Hispanic trends to stick. if they dont, boy oh boy.
Part of 2024 was chronic sexism/racism, and part of it was the same woes that dragged on every incumbent government that had to deal with 4% post-covid inflation. Trump promised he'd eliminate inflation. That hasn't happened. In fact, it's worse now.
Sexism is what gave Trump a few Black & Latino guys. ICE attacks, & Trump focus on pulling Fed jobs from DC (which he sees as majority Black though it hasn't been in decades) & putting them in what they think are white areas, is what's driving them away from Trump/GOP: www.npr.org/2025/08/13/n...