David Brooks has an excellent column in today’s New York Times about why the Midwest is the battleground of American politics.
“The Midwest has lost a manufacturing empire but hasn’t yet found a role,” Brooks writes. “Working-class people in this region overwhelmingly backed George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 but then lost faith in the Republican Party’s ability to solve their problems. By 2008, they were willing to take a flier on Barack Obama. He carried Ohio, Indiana and Iowa.”
This year, Democrats lost the governorships of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa. Republicans now control the state legislatures in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Indiana and Minnesota. The Rust Belt has problems deeper than any politician can solve, so it keeps firing politicians who can’t solve its problems.
So why didn’t this happen in Illinois, where Democrats still control the legislature and the governor’s mansion? Because Chicago, which was never entirely dependent on industry, ian't itself a part of the Rust Belt. Moreover, our city is a refuge for Midwesterners fleeing economic decline in their hometowns.
The Democrats were abandoned by non-college educated white voters in this election. That’s a population that’s growing in the other Midwestern states. In the last decade, Michigan’s rank for college education dropped from 30th to 35th. One reason: so many college-educated Michiganders are migrating here. My alma mater, Michigan State University, now reports that more of its recent graduates live in Chicago than in any other city. Not long ago, I asked a University of Michigan graduate whether he’d have an easier time finding his classmates here or in his hometown of Detroit.
“Oh, here,” he said, without hesitation. “No question.”
The influx of socially liberal college-educated Midwesterners has made Illinois more Democratic, while making the rest of the region less so. The downward spiral of less industry and less education has made it harder and harder for the other Midwestern states to compete economically. As a result, voters take out their frustrations on whichever party is in power. That’s why the Republican wave that swept over the Midwest bypassed Illinois.
