The 2010 election began to be discussed on Wednesday 5 November 2008. The media, politicians, everyone, it seemed, was looking ahead two years. Now it is a very hot topic.Some details of this story are quite fascinating, beginning with the degree to which the US is a suburban country.
Suburban districts now determine who holds the House, and usually the presidency as well. About half the country's population is now considered suburban, up from roughly a third in 1980. Two hundred and twenty of the 435 congressional districts are predominantly suburban, according to a 2005 study by Congressional Quarterly.
220 of 435 is 50.6%, or more than half. That shapes politics: a particular constituency is the majority of the electorate.
"If you can't win in the suburbs, you can't get to the majority. It's as simple as that," said Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican now in charge of recruiting challengers as part of his party's bid to retake the House. Currently, the Democrats have 254 House seats and a 37-seat majority.
But, what does that mean? Who are suburbanites?
The recent shift to Democrats has been fueled by a boom in suburban-dwelling immigrants and minorities, who tend to favor Democrats, and also by an influx of more liberal college-educated whites. Fairfax County is now home to six Fortune 500 companies, including General Dynamics and Gannett Corp. Nearly a third of its 1.2 million residents were born abroad.
Not the old stereotype of white Republican suburbanites; different demographics.
At bottom, the main issue for suburban voters tends to be one of competence and trustworthiness. "If you can make the case that the government is being incompetently managed, suburbanites put responsibility squarely on those in charge," said Robert Lang, who studies political demographics and suburban America at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. "And if the verdict goes against you, it can be damaging."
Democrats are suffering a loss of confidence, and the health care debacle is a large part of that: for a year they did not get it done, there was a smell about the process, and they lost the initiative. Yet the Republicans are the party of no. Whether that is enough to make electoral inroads remains to be seen.
Rep. Gerry Connolly, a liberal Democrat who won the seat by a wide margin in 2008, agrees—up to a point. "Seeing it go Republican again would be big," he said, before adding, "I don't expect that to happen."
Mr. Connolly remains deeply enmeshed in the minutiae of his district. During a recent drive, he made sure to note every playground, park, intersection, library and shopping mall he helped create while on the board of supervisors.
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