Maplab
Density Will Affect Who Controls State Legislatures, Too
Even at the state level, suburbs are the battlegrounds in politics this year. Take Minnesota.
Americans’ votes for Congress are heavily dependent on where they live, with suburbs a battleground this year in between Democratic cities and Republican rural areas. But those same demographic trends are also affecting less prominent elections than the battle for Congress: the thousands of races for state legislative seats around the country.
To understand how, CityLab applied its Congressional Density Index to state legislative races in one battleground state, Minnesota, where Republicans are defending an 11-seat majority in the state House of Representatives—a defense being waged primarily in suburban districts.