A conservative revival in the States

Election night two years ago was not a good night for the GOP. Not only had it lost the White House but also all those predictions about how social trends and demographics were making America more Democrat appeared to be coming true. In the south, Virginia and North Carolina shifted to the Democratic column. In the mid-West, Indiana went for the Democratic candidates for the first time since 1964.

I was watching the results come in that night with an informal adviser to the McCain campaign and that evening it was hard to see how the Republicans could get to 270 in future with the upper south moving into swing state territory. But just two years on, the Democrats are about to get hit by a Republican wave. As Ross Douthat argues in the New York Times today, ‘an opportunity has opened for the Right that would have been unimaginable just two years ago — a chance to pre-empt a seemingly inevitable liberal epoch with an unexpected conservative revival.’