Can Republicans take back suburbia in 2020?

4 big issues that could sway the suburban vote in the next election cycle

Houses.
(Image credit: Illustrated | ser_igor/iStock, malija/iStock, artishokcs/iStock)

The suburbs turned out to be the decisive battlegrounds in 2018's midterm elections. All signs suggest 2020's elections will be fought on the same turf.

Republicans lost voters in the midterms not just in the "dense suburban" districts closest to the urban cores, where Democrats already led, but also in "sparse suburban" districts where President Trump had built considerable support, as FiveThirtyEight's Geoffrey Skellen explained at the time. While it isn't unusual for the administration's party to lose seats in the midterms, the losses were larger than Republicans had expected. After seeing their electoral footprint shrink to the cities and the coasts over several cycles, Democrats came out of the midterms believing they had found a way to a Senate majority — and potentially a clear Electoral College win for the White House.

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Edward Morrissey

Edward Morrissey has been writing about politics since 2003 in his blog, Captain's Quarters, and now writes for HotAir.com. His columns have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Post, The New York Sun, the Washington Times, and other newspapers. Morrissey has a daily Internet talk show on politics and culture at Hot Air. Since 2004, Morrissey has had a weekend talk radio show in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and often fills in as a guest on Salem Radio Network's nationally-syndicated shows. He lives in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota with his wife, son and daughter-in-law, and his two granddaughters. Morrissey's new book, GOING RED, will be published by Crown Forum on April 5, 2016.