Republicans Can’t Reopen Without Democrats

Ron Brownstein: “From President Trump through Republican governors and state legislatures, the GOP is coalescing around a position of reopening the economy as quickly as possible despite concerns about seeding a wider spread of the coronavirus.”

“But the party’s efforts face a paradoxical hurdle: The economy can’t regain much momentum without the participation of big Democratic-leaning metropolitan areas, where both local officials and average residents remain more skeptical about quickly unwinding social distancing measures.”

“In almost all of the swing states likely to decide the winner in the 2020 presidential race, the largest metropolitan areas account for at least two-thirds, and in several cases more than four-fifths, of the state’s employment and economic output.”