Democrats Make History In Changing The Southwest

NPR

Published November 30, 2020 at 1:20 PM EST

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Election results from MSNBC are shown during Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly's Election Night event in Tucson, Arizona. Kelly ran against Republican Sen. Martha McSally for Arizona's Senate seat and is hoping to join fellow Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in the historically Republican state. (Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images)

Democrats made history in the Southwest in the 2020 election. As political analyst Ron Brownstein points out, the party will hold all the Senate seats in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico for the first time since the 1940s.

And the Democrats will hold all of those seats and the presidency for the first time since 1936. It’s a sign perhaps that the Sun Belt may be just as important as the Rust Belt in future elections.

Here & Now‘s Peter O’Dowd speaks with Celeste Montoya, associate professor of political science and women and gender studies at the University of Colorado, and Robert Lang, professor of public policy at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.