Trump’s urban myth: No, Detroit, Milwaukee, Atlanta and Philadephia didn’t produce suspiciously high Joe Biden returns
By MICHAEL TRACEY NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
DEC 05, 2020 AT 5:30 PM
Biden significantly outperformed Clinton in Dallas-Fort Worth.
But when viewed in totality, the results completely undermine the idea that Biden’s alleged “over-performance” was centralized in those four swing-state hotspots.
Again by any conceivable metric, Biden over-performed Clinton in the following metropolitan areas: Jacksonville, Houston, Austin, Boston, Buffalo, Washington, D.C.., Phoenix, Omaha, Indianapolis, Denver, Nashville, Raleigh, Seattle and Anchorage. And there are more. But you won’t hear much about them, because it wouldn’t be conducive to any frantic, retweetable talking points.
Ironically, the vigor with which it has been promoted diminishes and obfuscates what was really an impressive achievement by Trump: He is the one who generally “overperformed” in the inner-city areas that have been the primary target of his miasma of fraud claims.
Even New York City backs this up. After finally getting around to releasing their full results last week a full month after the election, we’ve learned that Trump’s raw vote total increased by 79% in the Bronx, of all places. Indeed, Trump over-performed relative to 2016 more in the Bronx than any other borough, while his margin decreased only in Staten Island. That should be liable to make some pundit heads spin.
Where Trump did get swamped, pretty much everywhere in the country, was the affluent suburbs, especially in fast-growing metropolitan areas.
There’s no doubt that leverage in the Democratic Party coalition has increasingly transitioned into these well-to-do suburbs, which has all sorts of implications going forward in terms of governance and political strategy. Ted Cruz might be a tad premature in declaring the GOP “the party of the working class,” but there’s something to if you look at the overall trendlines: In each of the 10 wealthiest counties in the U.S. by median household income, there was a hefty shift to Biden from 2016.
Glance at the counties along the southern border, and you’ll find extraordinary Hispanic-fueled shifts to Trump almost everywhere.
Slight problem with that theory, given that well-to-do people are a pretty small group, overall. Look at the average incomes for Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin (or any State, for that matter). The working class vastly outnumber the upper middle class and beyond.
I saw it though in our soon to be former neighborhood. Very much upper middle class professionals to wealthy. In 2016 there were 4 Hillary signs and about a dozen Trump signs in the neighborhood. Well this time around I counted 26 Biden signs to 8 Trump signs. There had been a lot of Churn in this neighborhood. The older generation have moved out and its been replaced by millennials who actually got jobs, but the shocker to me came a week before the election when it became clear that outside of one other neighbor the entire street was voting Biden. Why? Basically it boiled down to the wine mom's thinking Trump is a meanie. My big problem with Biden comes down to policy, hell even the people who voted for him would disagree with Biden & Harris on policies, but they didn't talk policies. It was probably Trump greatest failing was not making things about policies. It was all emotion.
That's one of the major reasons we just up and bought a new house last week. That and the County Exec keeps extending restaurant close down orders. So it's time to leave the county too and move where things are much more open.