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The GOP doesn't get exurbian voters, Ruy Teixeira argues in the NYT:
His conclusion: these voters are up for grabs....So where were the exurbs when the Republicans really needed them? The answer is simple: far from "getting" exurban voters on a deeply psychological level, Republicans have misinterpreted their past success in these areas as evidence that these voters endorsed and wanted an anti-government, socially conservative agenda. But that was never a warranted assumption, either then or now.
In reality, exurban voters are tax-sensitive and concerned about government waste, but not ideologically anti-government. They tend to be religious and family-oriented, but socially moderate in comparison to rural residents. They are not anti-business, but they do hold populist attitudes toward corporate abuse and people who game the system. And they worry as much or more about public education as they do about moral values.
That's the real exurban voter. No wonder Jerry Kilgore couldn't connect. He ran a campaign on cultural wedge issues like the death penalty and illegal immigration when exurban and most other Virginia voters were looking for solutions on education, transportation and health care.
As Representative Tom Davis, a moderate Republican from northern Virginia, put it last week, the Republican emphasis on cultural issues may be popular with rural voters, but if "you play to your rural base, you pay a price," namely by alienating voters in suburbs and exurbs. If Republicans continue to pursue an ideologically anti-government agenda that compromises government services while taking a hard line on social issues, they can have every expectation of shrinking margins among these voters. ...