Geography and the 2020 election

Joel Kotkin writes in NewGeography,

...Unlike the tech oligarchs and the financial giants, people working in the tangible economy had little influence under President Obama and, in the case of energy, seemed slotted for a radical downsizing. In contrast, since Donald Trump’s election, growth in the Heartland and southern region has outstripped that of the Democratic base of big cities and fancy suburbs.

Similarly, Trump’s emphasis on restraining China’s industrial juggernaut may be unpopular with gentry politicians in both parties, including Joe Biden, but it’s resonated in the Heartland, which suffered the bulk of the estimated 3.4 million jobs lost since 2001 from China trade. Perhaps if China took the jobs of media personalities, academics and tech oligarchs, we might expect similar concerns in Manhattan, Boston, LA or the Bay Area.

New York City had one million industrial jobs in 1950. Despite its stunning resurgence in the last decade, it now has less than 100,000. The picture is much the same in California.

Yet in other places the industrial economy has surged, adding nearly 500,000 jobs over the past two years. This growth may now be slowing, in part due to trade tensions, but the geography of industrial growth continues to tilt towards less regulated states such as Nevada, Arizona, Indiana and Texas. If Trump’s bumptious tariff policy brings back American jobs—for example with the return of Black & Decker from China announced recently or the possible shift of iPhone production—the beneficiaries likely will not be in Manhattan, Los Angeles or San Francisco, but in Texas, Indiana, Wisconsin or Michigan.

The remarkable resurgence of American energy has tilted the economic momentum further, to the point where barbers in places like Midland, Texas can earn close to $200,000 annually. In the last years of the Obama administration, California, Washington, Massachusetts and New York all experienced rapid GDP growth. But now the most recent Bureau of Economic Advisors report shows that at the end of 2018 income growth is now strongest in the pro-Trump states, with Texas registering six percent GDP growth while states like North Dakota, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania outpace—often by a wide margin—California, Massachusetts and New York.

Read more here, until at the very end he admits his prejudice against Trump being re-elected.