EJ Dionne thinks the northeast may be on the way to ending the right's tenacious grip on our politics. He looks at the latest Pew Research survey.
The survey found that while Democrats trail Republicans by three points among all registered voters in the South, they are ahead of the GOP by nine points in the Northeast.
Because of the enthusiasm gap, Republicans do better among those who now seem most likely to vote. Yet the regional variations are even more pronounced in this group: While Republicans are ahead by one point among likely voters in the Northeast, they lead by 15 points in the South. Almost all of the divergence is driven by white voters: Among white likely voters in the Northeast, Republicans have a 10-point lead; in the South, their lead is 35 points.
The emergence of the Northeast as a potential Democratic firewall has been a long time in the making. The steady realignment of the South toward the Republicans, which rendered the party increasingly conservative, called forth a counter-realignment among moderates in the North.
That trend has been accelerating. Since 2006, Democrats have taken 18 Northeastern seats away from the Republicans, and the impact of this change is especially stark in New England. Among the region's 22 House members, not one is Republican. By contrast, nine of the 25 House members elected in that 1966 election were Republican.
Whatever happens, we're a long way from a country in which a (northeastern) Republican like Ed Brooke could ask, "Where are our plans for a New Deal or a Great Society?"
There was nothing unusual about a New England Republican raising a question like this in 1966. Imagine a Republican who'd dare now to ask such a question publicly. One who might was Delaware's Mike Castle and we know what happened to him. But if more Republicans -- a minority party in the US and likely to remain a minority -- were to ask this question publicly, wouldn't they find themselves with some Democratic support? Shouldn't Democrats be asking the same questions?
