Be Like Jeb!

THE stories of Tim Pawlenty and Mark Green are, up to a point, similar. Both are Midwestern Republican ex-legislators, and both ran for governor. But Pawlenty succeeded-first in a hard-fought three-way contest for governor of Minnesota in 2002, and again in a narrow three-way contest in 2006-while Green fell short in his 2006 bid to unseat Democratic governor Jim Doyle in Wisconsin. A respectable case can be made that suburban voters accounted for the difference between their fates. Pawlenty won suburban majorities in both of his gubernatorial runs, with particularly large margins in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Green, a four-term congressman, managed no better than a tie with Doyle in the overall Wisconsin suburban vote, and flat-out lost most of the suburban neighborhoods except those around Milwaukee. If Pawlenty had only matched Green’s statewide performance in the suburbs, he would have been a gubernatorial also-ran, rather than a two-term governor on John McCain’s shortlist for VP.

The notion that the Republican ascendancy of the 1990s was propelled by a growing and favorable suburban electorate is commonplace and oversimplified. But it’s also true. While in a few southern and western states GOP candidates were able to win primarily by racking up huge majorities in rural areas and small towns to offset huge deficits in urban votes, the electoral math worked differently in most competitive states. Republican-leaning independents in burgeoning suburban and exurban communities were a pivotal element of winning coalitions in states from Washington to Florida. The suburbs contained large numbers of the kinds of voters who had been gravitating to the GOPduring the past two decades, such as entrepreneurs and married couples with children. High rates of homeownership made suburban voters especially allergic to tax increases, a core Republican issue.

About the Author

John Hood

John Hood is president of the John William Pope Foundation, a North Carolina-based grantmaker, and co-founder of Freedom Conservatism.

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THE stories of Tim Pawlenty and Mark Green are, up to a point, similar. Both are Midwestern Republican ex-legislators, and both ran for governor. But Pawlenty succeeded-first in a hard-fought three-way contest for governor of Minnesota in 2002, and again in a narrow three-way contest in 2006-while Green fell short in his 2006 bid to unseat Democratic governor Jim Doyle in Wisconsin. A respectable case can be made that suburban voters accounted for the difference between their fates. Pawlenty won suburban majorities in both of his gubernatorial runs, with particularly large margins in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Green, a four-term congressman, managed no better than a tie with Doyle in the overall Wisconsin suburban vote, and flat-out lost most of the suburban neighborhoods except those around Milwaukee. If Pawlenty had only matched Green’s statewide performance in the suburbs, he would have been a gubernatorial also-ran, rather than a two-term governor on John McCain’s shortlist for VP.

The notion that the Republican ascendancy of the 1990s was propelled by a growing and favorable suburban electorate is commonplace and oversimplified. But it’s also true. While in a few southern and western states GOP candidates were able to win primarily by racking up huge majorities in rural areas and small towns to offset huge deficits in urban votes, the electoral math worked differently in most competitive states. Republican-leaning independents in burgeoning suburban and exurban communities were a pivotal element of winning coalitions in states from Washington to Florida. The suburbs contained large numbers of the kinds of voters who had been gravitating to the GOPduring the past two decades, such as entrepreneurs and married couples with children. High rates of homeownership made suburban voters especially allergic to tax increases, a core Republican issue.