The last time a casino in downtown Las Vegas was built from the ground up, Muhammad Ali was stepping into the boxing ring with Larry Holmes at Caesars Palace.

If any single category of voter has come to define the chaotic race for 2020, it is the American suburbanite.

Almost every morning, half a dozen men meet for coffee at Max’s Deli, a diner that shares a wall with an auto supply shop, to talk politics. Some live “up the line” or “down the line” – a reference to the historic Scranton railway – but all have lived in the area their entire lives. And come Nov. 3, all are planning to vote for President Donald Trump.

If the 1,000-seat sports betting auditorium at the Circa Resort & Casino doesn’t get you, maybe the six rooftop swimming pools will.

In 2016, nearly all major metropolitan areas voted for Hillary Clinton, including the counties that generate nearly two-thirds of the U.S. economy. In 2018, voters in the nation’s big blue metros returned Democrats to the majority in the House and drove the party’s senate pick-ups in Arizona and Nevada. They also secured gubernatorial victories in several other states. Suburbs in particular played an outsized role in the blue shift.

A U.S. map peppered with red and blue has become the unofficial logo of the presidential election in recent years. But it hasn’t always been that way, and, like much in politics, it’s a bit more complicated.

For years, the Southwest shimmered like a mirage to Democrats thirsting for a political breakthrough in the desert.

According to an analysis by CNN, Republican losses in the U.S. Southwest have accelerated during the presidency of Donald Trump to the point where the GOP could become the minority party in states that have long been GOP strongholds.