Flyover country voters will be the decisive bloc because of America’s Electoral College. Presidents are not elected by getting more votes than their opponents; they win by getting more votes in the Electoral College than their opponents. Each state is allocated a number of these votes equal to the sum of its Senators and Representatives. By custom, with two tiny exceptions, all of the state’s Electoral College votes are given to the candidate who wins the most votes within that state.[...]
The recent Democratic sweep of the House of Representatives does not alter this equation. Democrats won the House vote by 8.6% in November. But most of the Democrats’ gains were in placed that won’t shift electoral college votes, places safely blue like California, New Jersey, or Illinois or safely red like Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, or Georgia. In other words, under the Electoral College system, the votes they gained from Republicans are simply wasted. [...]
They are also patriotic; their dissatisfaction stems from the idea that America is failing to live up to its values by ignoring them. They are not racist or sexist; indeed they regularly vote for women or racial minorities in non-presidential elections. Just this year many Trump flyover voters supported a gay woman, Tammy Baldwin, for senate in Wisconsin. In Michigan, a majority of flyover voters backed a black Republican, John James, for senate; while significant minorities backed two Democratic women, Gretchen Whitmer and Debbie Stabenow, for governor and senator. Unsurprisingly, these voters keenly resent being labelled by urban and media progressives. [...]
Democrats do not need to win flyover country, they just need to avoid getting wiped out there. Just a few percentage points improvement over Clinton’s horrendous showing, combined with the gains in the suburbs Democrats have made under Trump, will be enough to tip the Electoral College in their favour. If the Democrats nominate someone who can treat flyover voters with understanding and respect, they will almost surely regain the White House in 2020.
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