Yesterday’s Washington Post featured an interesting — though not exactly spell-binding — article by John Harris on whether or not the GOP 2004 victory signals a realignment. There was one eye-popping statistic in there though:
Mark Gersh, a leading elections analyst with the Democratic-supporting National Committee for an Effective Congress, said he does not believe a realignment has occurred, but he does fear that the results highlight serious structural problems for Democrats. In addition to the higher number of Republican-leaning states — a major GOP advantage in the Senate — the Democrats are getting trounced in the outer suburbs of metropolitan regions. While these areas still produce relatively few votes, they are the fastest-growing areas of the country. A Los Angeles Times analysis found that Bush won 97 of the 100 fastest-growing counties. [Emphasis mine]