MATTHEW CONTINETTI: What’s the Matter With Wisconsin?

If Republicans dominate in rural precincts and Democrats in urban enclaves, then the suburbs are majority makers. Yet the suburbs have been receding from the GOP since the dawn of the Trump era.
Consider: In 2014, the last election before Trump descended on his escalator, Republicans won the suburban vote 55 percent to 45 percent. They won both the white non-college vote and the white college vote by double digits. They won voters making between $50,000 per year and $100,000 per year by 10 points.

By the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, majorities among suburban white voters near the middle of the income distribution fueled the GOP’s greatest electoral strength in close to a century. Unease over Trump shrank this coalition in 2016: Republicans won the suburbs by 5 points, white non-college voters by 39 points, white college voters by 4 points, and middle-income voters by 4 points. That gave Trump the Electoral College, but not a popular vote majority.

Then Trump entered office. He retained his support among white voters without college degrees in 2018. But the remaining pillars of Republican rule crumbled beneath him. White voters with college degrees voted for Democrats by 4 points. Middle-income voters went for Democrats by 2 points. And the suburbs turned against Republicans, voting Democratic by 11 points.

Trump’s trick in 2024 — or whoever the GOP nominee turns out to be — will be winning back the burbs without alienating the rural voters who put him in office in 2016.