The blue state, big city lesson for Democrats

Much of the media conversation about Donald Trump’s historic victory over Kamala Harris has focused on his sweep of the battleground states, including the three Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. That President-elect Trump has created new Republican voters among so-called “working-class white men” is a narrative that many others have covered extensively. He also was hugely successful with Hispanics and certainly made marginal improvements with black voters. Politics is about coalitions, especially in a big and diverse nation like the United States, and the Trump coalition is different than what many expected—supporters and opponents, alike.

But what is not getting the attention it deserves in post-election analyses are results in certain blue states where Vice President Harris won. Why focus on New Jersey, Illinois, New York, or Virginia, where Harris won and Trump lost? Well, because New Jersey went for Joe Biden by 16 percentage points in 2020 and for Harris in 2024 by only 6 points. Illinois also went for Biden in 2020 by 17 points but by only 10 points this time for Harris. New York saw a stunning 23-point margin of victory for Biden in 2020, with it down to just 12 points this time. And Virginia saw its margin cut in half, from 10 points down to just 5. These are absolutely devastating numbers for Democrats, even when they can achieve successful Electoral College outcomes. These numbers also point to the single biggest problem facing the Democratic Party, which is at the same time one of the greatest opportunities presented to conservative Christians.

The problem facing Democrats is that progressivism is a failed ideology. Critical theory, radical environmental and social governance policies, college campus radicalism, and especially “soft on crime” and “open border” policies have devastated many American cities. An electorate that is largely center-left, affiliated with the Democratic Party, consciously pro-abortion, and even economically oriented leftward is still pragmatic enough to find the progressive outcomes from crime, homelessness, schools, migrants, and other policy decisions with profound effects on everyday life to be totally unacceptable. Do people care about transgender surgery rights for felons when the parks their kids play in are overrun by the homeless, when mentally ill people threaten their families on the subway, or when criminals in their communities are released without bail to rob and assault again minutes later? Do people care about human resource departments doing sensitivity training for sexual behavior when the college they borrowed money to send their kids to is shut down for a pro-Hamas rally? Do people care about the constant flow of culturally extreme and incoherent hobbies of disconnected progressives when their own lives are experiencing the failed fruits of radical left-wing progressivism every day?

They do not. And coalitions are changing in American politics because of this left-wing tone-deafness. It would be a Herculean task to take deep blue states and see them go red, given the wide array of conditions, history, and circumstances that caused them to be as blue as they are. But school shutdowns, transgender lunacy, and a total disregard for border security are just some examples of what are moving these states away from the political party they have called home for years.

And this brings me to conservative Christians. Stop saying you hate big cities. If you prefer rural or suburban America, no problem. Big-city America should stop treating rural America or suburbia condescendingly, as well. But there is a huge opportunity in the big American cities for a very simple reason. Our Christian worldview offers policy solutions in these vital areas that they care about that will work, improve their quality of life, make their families safer, and open the door to conversation, hospitality, and alignment. To put it differently, it will reshape a coalition even further.

That is how you win elections—by forming broader coalitions (just ask Donald Trump). And a failure to preserve a coalition is how you lose an election (just ask Kamala Harris). I, for one, love big cities where the advancement of business, commerce, trade, technology, innovation, entrepreneurialism, and all sorts of Biblical concepts like those can flourish. We live in a time where many center-left residents of big cities in blue states are voting thumbs down on progressive policies and for good reason. But this will not last if we are not there to offer an alternative. You can’t beat something with nothing. I believe an ideology of meritocracy, law and order, justice, and aspiration is extremely powerful. I also believe that message will sell to voters in blue states.

And once that happens, you may be looking at the largest coalition imaginable.