This Tuesdays midterm election results in two states seem to confirm the above shift in support AWAY from Republicans who helped him out fox Hillary Clinton and helped Republicans lawmakers in several states…
An apparent Democratic win Tuesday in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race, as well as the Democratic takeover of the Virginia state legislature, left Republicans stumbling and increasingly uncertain about their own political fates.
“It was a rough night,” said Scott Reed, the chief political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “There is a lot of positive news around President Trump’s governing on the economy, on regulations and judges, and it seems to be overwhelmed by the drama.”
Sky-blue campaign signs in Delaware County, Pa., a historically Republican Philadelphia suburb where Democrats swept the ballot box, told the story of how even local council contests had been nationalized.
“Had enough Trump? Flip Delco Nov. 5th,” said the signs, which were stuck on roadsides and outside polling places.
“The state is flipping its political identity,” said Larry Ceisler, a Democratic media consultant in Philadelphia. “The suburbs that used to be moderate Republican suburbs, controlled by the GOP, are almost totally blue, going all the way down to seats on the school boards. Individuals did not matter.”
Many Republican candidates across the country, meanwhile, fell back on the polarizing campaign style that Trump has embraced, denouncing Democratic rivals as “socialist” and warning of illegal immigrant invasions, a strategy that, while spurned in the suburbs, helped them succeed in more rural places such as southwestern Pennsylvania, where Republicans made gains in local elected offices.
Trump’s rural strength helped him flip Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, traditionally Democratic states, to gain his electoral college victory. But since then, the losses in suburban areas have had far greater electoral impact, driving the nation’s political shift since the 2016 election. As president, Trump has seen a 47-seat Republican advantage in the U.S. House become a 36-seat deficit, largely because of suburban defections. The number of Republican-held governorships has fallen from 33 to 26, and the percentage of state legislative seats controlled by the party has fallen from 57 to 52…..