Suburban voters are politically engaged.
Inyung Choi 9-20-2020, Inyoung Choi was an editorial fellow for the weekend news team at Insider. “The suburbs are becoming more diverse, more politically active, and represent more than half the electorate. They could swing this election to Biden.” [Business Insider] https://www.businessinsider.com/american-voters-suburbs-are-changing-election-expectations-2020-9 /MDC
Politics weren't "really on the radar" for Kimberly Fasking's suburban community.
It was rare you saw yard signs while driving in the neighborhood, and political commentary on the local Facebook page was scarce, Fasking, a 48-year-old resident of the Birmingham suburb, Mountainbrook, Alabama, told Business Insider.
"Ever since the 2016 election," Fasking said, politics in her community has "become very public, out in the open, and very antagonistic."
On her own lawn are signs for Black Lives Matter, Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, and support for wearing face masks during the coronavirus pandemic. Fasking said she's still waiting on a sign for Democratic nominees Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to arrive.
"Before 2016, I just hadn't been political," said Fasking who first moved to Mountainbrook 15 years ago from a suburb in Chicago. Vocalizing her political views — by either posting on Facebook, knocking on doors, phone banking for campaigns, or delivering signs for others to put in their yards — has "made me and my children a target," she said.
In one instance, Fasking, who lives in a state that has voted Republican for the past four decades, said she was asked: "Why do you want your neighbors to hate you?"
Suburban voters are increasingly leaning into politics
Since 2016, voters like Fasking who are based in the suburbs have displayed a newly motivated interest in politics, leaning increasingly to support Democrats, as nationwide trends attest.
Suburban voters make up half of the US electorate and represent a key middle ground between more easily predicted votes out of cities and rural areas. Michael Li, a senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice who focuses on voting rights and elections, told Business Insider that the massive population of suburban voters will be a crucial election battleground for the next presidency and seats in Congress.
"The suburbs are where the play is at," Li said.
Amid demographic changes in the suburbs and increasingly active voters, the massive voting bloc is one of the most volatile grounds for 2020. That's because it represents "a microcosm of America," Brookings Institute senior fellow William H. Frey told Business Insider.
"It's one that's changing over time," Frey said. "It increasingly looks more like America."