From Reagan to Trump: regional development traps and the remaking of American electoral politics

Andrés Rodríguez-Pose and Ali Glisson

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This paper examines the territorial reconfiguration of American electoral politics since the 1980s, tracing the remaking of Republican support from Reagan’s 1984 landslide to Trump’s three presidential campaigns (2016, 2020, 2024). Drawing on panel data for every presidential election from 1984 to 2024 across 722 commuting zones, we test whether regional development traps, defined as enduring economic underperformance, explain both the shift from Democrats to Republicans and the Republicans’ internal realignment. Mundlak/Correlated Random Effects estimates show backlash is overwhelmingly driven by structural, not cyclical, decline. Short-term economic fluctuations do not predict Republican swing, while long-run territorial position does so decisively. Voters are not responding to recessions. They are registering alienation from an economic order that has failed their communities for a generation. Trump’s gains concentrated in places persistently left behind, whose peripheral position has become entrenched.

Keywords: regional development traps; electoral geography; Republican Party; Trump; Reagan coalition; voting; territorial inequality; political realignment; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 O18 P16 R11 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-10-26
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Territory, Politics, Governance, 26, October, 2026. ISSN: 2162-2671

Downloads: (external link)
https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/141220/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: From Reagan to Trump: Regional Development Traps and the Remaking of American Electoral Politics (2026)
Working Paper: From Reagan to Trump: Regional development traps and the remaking of American electoral politics (2026)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:141220

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().