The real lesson from elections in Kentucky and Louisiana

Democrats cannot rely on turnout alone to win them elections

David Wasserman, the House editor for The Cook Political Report, has an article out for NBC News today that argues that Democratic gains in the suburbs don’t necessarily translate to improved electoral college prospects in 2020. College-educated whites, he argues, disproportionately live in safe states and thus aren’t likely to decide the election. He presents this interesting graph as evidence:

There are a few reasons why I think this is misguided. The most glaring issue is in counting raw votes. Although there may not be as many educated whites in Wisconsin as there are in Colorado, there still are some—27% of the state, by his reckoning—and Hillary Clinton’s razor-thin loss there means that if just 2 percent of them switch from voting for Donald Trump in 2016 to a Democrat in 2020 the state will probably flip from red to blue, all else being equal (which of course it won’t be). While swings in the suburbs are indeed bigger in blue states, even small shifts could decide the election.

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