For a quarter of a century, the US political system has been divided between Red States (pro-Republican) and Blue States (pro-Democrat). It will remain divided because the country is divided. However, the fault lines that separate one bloc of voters from another are changing. The voters went to the polls two days ago with 90% of them (according to polls) concerned with corruption in government. There is no left or right on that matter. There are other issues that similarly can unite red and blue. Others will divide them. The Republicans do not have a viable ideology, and the Democrats cannot agree on what theirs is because their tent is so broad. The 2028 campaign (which began yesterday) will help sort that all out.
The biggest example of this is ruby red Texas, which went sapphire blue with the Democrats taking every statewide office. Indeed, Ted Cruz is the only Republican holding statewide office, and he was not up for re-election. Texas has 40 votes in the electoral college. After the state went for the Democrats, it is hard to see how the GOP can mount an adequate challenge. They lost the state largely because their immigration policies chased Hispanic voters to the Democrats. Two years will not heal those wounds, and the infrastructure a party has because it has a congressperson in a district is greatly reduced — they lost seats in Texas.
In 2024, the GOP won 312 electoral votes, and the Democrats took 226. If Texas moves into the Democratic column, the Republicans have just 272. It takes 270 to win. States that the Democrats could pick up to put them over the top include Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The structure of the electoral map will give Democrats a solid boost.
The realignment will be influenced by populism and economics. The Republicans under Mr. Trump have toyed with economic nationalism in a turn away from free-market, laissez-faire neo-liberalism. White working class has been an unreliable partner for the Democrats, as evidenced by the term “Reagan Democrats.” Mr. Trump engaged with them rhetorically, although his policies have been cruel to them. They cheered his tariffs as “job savers” and failed to note that the jobs saved will not pay enough to cover the added expenses. And when the promised factory never opens, their sense of alienation increases.
As usual, there are right-of-center Democrats (the old Blue Dog crowd) who want to chase these voters, voters who have gone for the GOP in substantial numbers in 7 of the last 12 presidential elections. They will drive economic policy away from the clean conservative approach of “the market is always right,” but the Trump GOP may well do the same. The question is whom will those voters trust more?
Economics will also play a huge part beyond the working class worries about jobs. The tech bros have proved they cannot be trusted with pointed sticks let alone AI that they claim could render mankind extinct in 10 years. Wall Street needs another bailout if the AI bubble pops. There is a $40 trillion debt that is keeping borrowing costs high. Who will demand higher taxes? Will anyone adopt a Sovereign Wealth Fund to help America reduce that debt?
Foreign policy is never important to how Americans vote, unless the country is in the middle of losing a war (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran). A committed isolationist could win the White House, or a committed internationalist might. The idea of the Republicans as hawks and Democrats as doves no longer makes sense (if it ever did) when the GOP base wants out of foreign ties. The divisions on Israel alone show that the foreign policy community has a wide open field for new ideas. Some of them might even be good ideas.
The next two years will be messy, and the presidential nominations will help define which way each party goes. No one knows what that looks like, except it will not look like the last 25 years. Two days after the election, Mississippi has yet to declare a winner in its senate race. Mississippi under the old regime is solidly GOP, but this morning the black Democrats leads by 1138 votes. That is the realignment. If Mississippi is not bright red, the red-blue divide is dying.