Good job by Jonathon Singer, for knocking the wind out of the run-of-the-mill analysis we get every time lazy journalists and pundits write or speak about the populations shifts in the red states:Writing in the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal ... Michael Barone opines that, in effect, Democrats are in serious trouble because of the population shifts in this country away from liberal coastal metropolises and states to interior ones that are more conservative and Republican today....Singer points out the factors that the dino-media has repeatedly missed: that the reason why the "red states" are getting such a population influx are good for the Democratic party -- people that lean left are flowing into these red states, namely new Hispanic citizens and Democrats from blue states. Plus, he points out that overlaying the voting tendencies of 2000 and 2004 ignores the anti-GOP trends of 2006 beyond.Back in January, when census figures were released that helped the statisticians make predictions about the next congressional reapportionment, a reapportionment that presumably would benefit those states currently viewed as red to the bane of those currently viewed as blue, a number of the inside-the-Beltway rags decided to read the tea leaves and conclude that the Democrats could be in real trouble. As I noted then and I'll note now, this theory, however, neglects to take into account a number of very important factors.
We can see this playing out in Virginia now. The Commonwealth has certainly gained in population since 2000. And it's been a "red state" in presidential politics for decades. But, can anyone really argue that the population increases (which have occurred mostly in Northern Virginia) have been good for the GOP? Indeed, this very shift is the exact reason many have called Virginia a potential swing state in the near future. So, Virginia stands as a perfect example for Singer's argument: that population shifts to "red state" are not automatically good news for the GOP. Indeed, as Jim Webb so recently proved, it's often the opposite case, isn't it?