Well, the suburbs had been going GOP for a long time before that, for that matter. Astonishingly, a lot of those GOP-heavy suburbs, especially in the northeast, midwest and west coast, have all had a particularly nasty swing to the left. A lot of those “spoiled rotten” kids raised in relative privilege now vote as if they were raised in the barrio or ‘hood.
Alas, the section of Nashville my parents moved to when we fled NYC was a fairly decent semi-rural area that over 35 years became middle class suburban and more lower end today and Whites have fled, displaced by Blacks and illegals (with Blacks even leaving and being replaced more by the latter). Now our section of town is synonomous with crime and illegals. What’s really funny is that our section of town voted in the last Mayoral election for the more Conservative of two candidates (who had multi-racial support) while the rich (and ostensibly “Republican” areas) voted for the moonbat liberal (who won).
The down trend in the suburbs is largely due to perceived incompetence of Bush regarding Katrina and Iraqi. For now, People don’t trust the Republicans to deal with serious problems. Its going to take a major screw up by the Messiah for things to start swinging our way again. We’ll know the answer that in the next 6 months. Despite the gloom and doom the Messiah is preaching, many Dem supporters think the economy will rebound in the fall. That is why the Messiah wants the stimulus to be passed quickly. So he can take credit for the economic rebound. OTOH, if the economy worsens, then the Messiah lose credibility.