COVID was a sea change. the lax voting standards and increased voting by mail resulted in millions of voters who didn't vote before 2019. Kudos to Stacey Abrams who was one of the people who broke the code on this.
We have further polarization on cities and rural communities. City participation has been massive as the dems use their considerable ground game to get people out to vote. And, because it is the city and they've been dominated for decades by dems, those votes go dem and influence state and national elections.
Most of those inner city people depend on govt spending for income and/or additional services. Most don't pay much in taxes (and, in many cases, their taxes come from govt spending). As a result, they value income less and services more. End result, the bigger and more intrusive govt is, the better they are.
RvW was huge, HUGE. Women were motivated, especially single women of all ages. GOP needs to fix the abortion problem pronto. We now have an entire generation of anti-GOP women.
For the first time in my life, I've now realized you can run a cardboard cutout but people vote party. I saw it as an anomaly when people voted for Biden over Trump but now see it more and more. Fetterman is simply unqualified. There is a notion that he will get better but now is a critical time as he builds a team. He isn't competent to do that. I am so very thankful I moved out of PA. PA couldn't have screwed up COVID worse but will pay zero price for that. Add in MN, WI, and MI. While OH and FL go red, AZ, MN, WI and MI are all firmly blue, led by their large cities that dominate the state's population (and getting worse). Locally, a GOP judge incumbent LOST to a guy who literally did nothing. He didn't campaign, spend money, or even participate in Dem events. In fact, many people considered he was a "plant" by the GOP as a completely incompetent opponent. He won. He has a law degree, qualifying him to be a judge, but is a commissioner in a very small community and has never set foot in a courtroom. Even the CLE paper, who never endorses republicans, called her a "gift" and highly recommended her (Joan Synenberg). Yet, here we are. In fact, of the 40 judges in Cuyahoga county, there will be only one republican in January, and she ages out in 2024.
I've never seen exit polls show a 72% dissatisfied mark and yet, people voted in the same old party that got them to that point. Amazing. I've got friends that are democrats for life. When you discuss issues, like Biden's incompetence, they yield but simply say "my grandfather was a lifelong democrat, my father was too, and so am I".
I feel like the nation is in for a long bought of hurt. These people, mostly minorities and women (who are not minorities, they are in majority) are going to vote democrat until there is a nuclear bomb (not literally but figuratively, but could be literally too). I don't know where you put your money but we are in for a long fiscal hurt.
