As a Philadelphian and real estate investor, I’m wondering if these effects are due to recent age-associated migrations and population sorting since covid. With Harris more successful with younger voters than Biden, and gaining steam with them, I wonder if this could maybe explain it
Here in Philly, and also in Pittsburgh, we are growing steadily, mostly because we are keeping students and benefiting from relatively low cost housing. New York, San Fran, Chicago etc — the top tier most desirable cities are mostly pricing out young people without trust funds.
Meanwhile, the sunbelt is getting all sorts of older transplants, particularly people living San Fran, Cali and urban centers fed up with liberal governance on drugs, homelessness and high tax rates.
I think this is a really good point. In North Carolina there are all of these rural counties which were experiencing declining population for years or decades, and then suddenly Covid halted and in some cases slightly reversed the trend. The demographic impact of Covid - deaths and people moving - is probably going to affect this election in unexpected ways.
"But the fact that multiple surveys have now shown strange results makes me more inclined to think that we’re seeing something unexpected going on. The Midwest really does seem to be leaning more strongly towards Harris than we would expect. Strong results there along with weaker results in place like New York "
Well, this is exactly what happened in 2022 and also in UK in 2024. Starmer won in a landslide just scoring two points higher than Corbyn while getting back the "red wall" and doing worse than expected in London. I think it's due by the fact Dems are laser focused on keeping their "blue wall states" without paying much attention to coastal ones.
Right. I think it's also to some extent growing urban-rural polarization within coastal states. The Dems don't necessarily have that much higher to go in NYC but their problems with rural voters mean they're losing more and more people upstate. Plus in New York you don't have suburban voters being turned off by whatever crazy MAGA figures are in charge of their state and/or running for senator to polarize against.
Interesting piece!
As a Philadelphian and real estate investor, I’m wondering if these effects are due to recent age-associated migrations and population sorting since covid. With Harris more successful with younger voters than Biden, and gaining steam with them, I wonder if this could maybe explain it
Here in Philly, and also in Pittsburgh, we are growing steadily, mostly because we are keeping students and benefiting from relatively low cost housing. New York, San Fran, Chicago etc — the top tier most desirable cities are mostly pricing out young people without trust funds.
Meanwhile, the sunbelt is getting all sorts of older transplants, particularly people living San Fran, Cali and urban centers fed up with liberal governance on drugs, homelessness and high tax rates.
I think this is a really good point. In North Carolina there are all of these rural counties which were experiencing declining population for years or decades, and then suddenly Covid halted and in some cases slightly reversed the trend. The demographic impact of Covid - deaths and people moving - is probably going to affect this election in unexpected ways.
"But the fact that multiple surveys have now shown strange results makes me more inclined to think that we’re seeing something unexpected going on. The Midwest really does seem to be leaning more strongly towards Harris than we would expect. Strong results there along with weaker results in place like New York "
Well, this is exactly what happened in 2022 and also in UK in 2024. Starmer won in a landslide just scoring two points higher than Corbyn while getting back the "red wall" and doing worse than expected in London. I think it's due by the fact Dems are laser focused on keeping their "blue wall states" without paying much attention to coastal ones.
Right. I think it's also to some extent growing urban-rural polarization within coastal states. The Dems don't necessarily have that much higher to go in NYC but their problems with rural voters mean they're losing more and more people upstate. Plus in New York you don't have suburban voters being turned off by whatever crazy MAGA figures are in charge of their state and/or running for senator to polarize against.
Also, the abortion issue is probably more salient in Wisconsin, where ppl have lived under Republicans recently, than in NY or CA
Yep, good point!