Biden’s not-so-secret path to success in November
From the veterans who surged into new “bedroom communities” after World War II to the growing number of immigrants now diversifying and reviving them, suburbia has served as a symbol of renewal.
President Joe Biden knows this fresh-start narrative poignantly: The suburbs are not only where he built a soaring career but rebuilt a broken family after a traffic accident took his wife and daughter decades ago.
Now, Biden needs the suburbs to save his political life. And despite his low approval ratings and cracks in the Democratic base, it’s likely these politically pivotal places again will step up for him against former President Donald Trump.
Biden’s longtime affinity with suburban voters, especially women, could give him an edge. And recent primary results underscore this strength over his rival.
In the most recent primaries, Trump technically ran unopposed. However, non-candidate and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley still took a significant chunk of the voters in swing states including Wisconsin, taking 13 percent of the vote to Trump’s 79 percent.
Multiple media sources report that well-educated suburban women comprised a large share of non-candidacy support of Haley, reaffirming Trump’s disconnect with the “swingiest” of voters. Their defections were fatal to Trump in 2020 and can only help Biden in November.
The primary in Wisconsin offers insight into Trump’s suburban problem. In Milwaukee County, which includes several suburban communities, Trump received 73 percent, down from his winning percentage statewide.
In neighboring Waukesha County, Trump fell only one percentage point shy of his statewide total but well behind his totals in more rural areas, such as Rusk County, where he rolled up 88 percent.
By contrast, Biden overperformed in several Milwaukee suburbs. Overall, he won 88 percent of
the Wisconsin Democratic vote, with an even stronger showing in suburban Waukesha, capturing 90 percent (compared to Trump’s 78 percent) and Racine, garnering 92 percent to the former president’s 81pc.
In Virginia and North Carolina, among other Super Tuesday contests, Haley’s only centers of strength were suburban and urban counties with significant concentrations of young, collegeeducated voters.
In the swing state of North Carolina, Trump received 74 percent of the vote to Haley’s 23 percent. But in Mecklenberg County, where Charlotte comprises about a third of the population, Trump gathered only 52 percent, Haley 45 percent; in Wake County, where nearly half of the residents live in Raleigh, Trump won 58 percent.
In Virginia, Haley won several suburban counties outright, racking up 71 percent in Arlington, 71 percent in Alexandria and 57 percent in Fairfax, and ran ahead of her statewide totals in suburbs surrounding Richmond.
The former president isn’t the only one with work to do: The results in a number of other primaries weren’t completely positive for Biden, who faced a protest vote amid dissatisfaction from the progressive wing of his party and softening support in polls from voters of color. But when it comes to suburbanites, Biden clearly has a head start.
For decades, with the close exception of 2012, the candidate who won the suburbs went on to win the White House.
Comprising more than 60 percent of the population by some measures, suburbanites also have played an outsized role in determining which party controls Congress.
The challenge for candidates is to build a bridge to the suburbs from their urban or rural bases.
Biden needs “purple” suburbanites to join with the “blue” city voters, at least as much as they did four years ago otherwise, he’ll struggle to cover the potential loss of Muslim and young voters if they abandon Biden over issues like Israel. But from performances in the voting booth to stronger polls, these moderate, open-minded “swingers” are increasingly likely to remain in Biden’s corner.