Editor’s Note: Lawrence C. Levy is executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University and a former columnist and editorial writer at Newsday who has covered eight presidential elections. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.
It’s not President Donald Trump’s suburbs anymore. And that could be fatal not only to Trump’s own prospects but to a party as entwined with his as a front lawn can be with crabgrass.
That’s because, in national politics, the suburbs matter. Year after year, suburbanites deliver the decisive vote for presidents, Congress and even statehouses. And now, after seeing his poll numbers plummet among these politically mild-mannered “swing” voters, including many moderate, college-educated women who supported him in 2016, candidate Trump has finally turned his attention to the suburbs.
When he criticized Joe Biden last week for a Barack Obama-era policy designed to encourage affordable housing in all communities, Trump exclaimed: “Suburbia will be no longer as we know it!” He later tweeted a warning to “Suburban Housewives of America” that Biden will “destroy” their neighborhoods.
Thus, the President has embarked on a suburban carnage strategy. Call it a retro strategy reminiscent of political days gone by, one that weaponizes images of Black Lives Matters protesters and low-income urbanites to scare more conservative suburbanites into backing him again.
Is there a market for this message? Maybe, as the occasional suburban counter-protest suggests. Same for some suburban antipathy to taking down statues of founding fathers and to the backlash against police, according to a Fox News poll. And hardly every suburban voter is a moderate. But overall Trump is deeply underwater with suburban voters, deeper in every category from his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the economy to his compassion, intelligence and even mental soundness to handle the job of president.
Trump is especially in trouble with suburban women. Where the nation as a whole gives Biden a 17-point edge over Trump in their ability to deal with the pandemic, suburban women widen that to 26 points. The gap on ability to handle race relations grows an additional 12 points, up from an already yawning 21 points. Even in Trump’s relatively strongest area, the economy, where the nation is split between the candidates, suburban women have more confidence in Biden by 11 points, according to the poll.
The biggest problem for Trump’s new suburban strategy is that it’s premised on an antiquated notion of what’s been happening in suburbs for years. More than likely, the President’s law and order tirades may turn off suburban votes while not shaking their flirtation with voting for Biden.
If anything, recent polling shows strong support for Black Lives Matters protesters.
According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll last month, 64% of Americans support Black Lives Matter protests against police violence. A Quinnipiac poll reflected a similar reality, with 67% of registered voters saying they supported protests in response to the death of George Floyd. These are national numbers, but because suburbanites make up such a large percentage of national polls and tend to reflect an average of urban and rural voter opinions, they are very likely to represent suburban thinking. If anything, based on the Fox News poll, the support for Black Lives Matters in the suburbs is likely higher.
What’s clear is that something has changed – and that’s evident when White and middle class homeowners join Black protesters on Long Island’s leafy lanes.
A majority of people polled see systemic racism in policing as a major issue facing the country. And while Trump might see some daylight in these numbers, which reflect a notable chasm between Democrats and Republicans, they look very dark for a law and order campaign strategy.
So much about the suburbs has changed, from an influx of minorities who brought their Democratic Party preferences with them, to the relative rarity of women who only stay at home with their kids instead of also holding down a job outside the home and volunteering for quality of life causes.
The days of the suburbs as diversity deserts are long gone.
Long Island, known as America’s “first suburb,” is predicted to become majority minority – and thus likely majority Democratic – well before mid-century. Many other suburbs, such as Fairfax, Virginia, are already there. Nearby Loudon, a key bellwether in a swing state, is about a third non-White.
Add moderate suburban ideology to the influence of demographics, and the strident conservative rhetoric of Trump has only added to Republican woes with many White former supporters.
Yes, systemic and personal racism still plague suburbs around the country, especially in the residential real estate industry as revealed in a recent Newsday investigation. But the demographic and social trends that have helped transform many suburban counties from reliably “red” to “purple” and even “blue” have drained much of bigotry’s political power.
With the suburbs casting half the nation’s votes and siding with the winner of at least the last nine presidential contests, being out of step with the new suburbia is asking to stumble. That’s certainly what happened in the 2018 and 2019 elections, where voters picked Democrats in scores of federal, state and local races.
But Trump doesn’t seem to see a need to appeal to moderates. He appears instead to be taking pages from a 1950s (and later) suburban playbook which relied on racial “dog whistles” that you didn’t need to be a dog to hear. And, often, they worked.
Now, not so much. Not when, even in a still stubbornly segregated landscape, more and more of voters’ political leaders, doctors, clients, customers and employees are people of color.
And not when in many suburbs it’s unclear what Trump means when he says the Obama administration’s housing policy “destroyed the suburbs.” Before the health and economic trauma of Covid-19, for which Trump is taking a lot of blame, most White suburbs were enjoying record employment and business investment.
Get our free weekly newsletter
What else they see, and increasingly want, are affordable urban-style apartments in vibrant suburban downtowns where their grown kids can live – instead of in their basement. What many suburbanites want is a blend of the 50s and 20s – the 2020s, that is – as a way of having the best of suburban and urban living.
But Trump seems to be going all “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father knows best.” And that’s a hard sell with people whose tastes, including political, have changed for the foreseeable future.
