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Democrats have been banking on demographic change to be the ultimate long term solution to gaining power. But the 'White non Hispanic' population is at by far it's lowest point since the first European settlements took root in the 1600s and yet Democrats are at their lowest level of control in over 100 years.
Looking at the way seats have switched since the mid 1990s you would think it was Democrats facing a declining voter base, not the GOP.
What do you think are the causes and will this change? Will the demographics eventually shift enough to overcome the GOP?
Keep an eye on Texas.
Demographics are shifting here and the old hope of "turning Texas blue" is beginning to be whispered. Again. And, like it always has before, it's still a pipe dream.
But the day may come when TX turns purple.
When that happens, the GOP is toast.
Because TX is the only big state that has been reliably red for the past generation. When the shift occurs, Pubs won't have an electoral strong box to rely on any more.
A lot of the Democrats issues at the polls can be attributed to geography. They tend to live in the same areas. This makes gerrymandering easier in redistricting as well as plays against them in the electoral college. Republicans tend to live in more rural areas and are more evenly distributed.
I think most of the biggies have been checked of the list but one quirk has gone unnoticed. The minority voting districts that have helped guarantee a greater presence in the US House have had the result of depressing minority voting in many instances. Since the race winner is a foregone conclusion you have a lot less outreach to ramp up the vote in those districts year in, year out. They have also made adjacent districts much whiter. Combine that with frequent gerrymandering to try to pack literally every minority possible into one district and split urban areas between districts and you achieve greater minority representation and more white, conservative strongholds simultaneously.
As mentioned before- minorities also vote with less frequency than whites. Young people vote less than older people.
Democrats won the national vote by 2% in 2016 with a candidate who was not even well liked among a significant portion of Democrats. By 2020 and 2024, we'll see more shifts of voting patterns and voter distribution. Democrats could lose their hold on rustbelt states that become whiter and older while gaining traction in states like Ga, NC and Arizona that trend younger and more diverse.
The disconcerting thing for Republicans about the type of demographic change we have in the United States is that the core group supporting the GOP is diminishing in every state. What that means is the law of diminishing returns. If the GOP does not increase its share of the groups that are growing (white college grads and minorities), they will have to continually achieve larger turnout and win a larger percentage of white non-college voters in every election simply to get the same number of votes from that group that they got in the past.
Statistical projections show that due to the decline in the percentage of non-college whites, if the exact same percentages of turnout and voting percentages that occurred in 2016 are replicated in 2020, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin would flip back to the Democrats as would the Electoral College (278-258). If R leaning voters who voted third party in 2016 voted for Trump in 2020, the result is a 269-269 tie.
The attached analysis is a multi-year study on the likely political effects of demographic change sponsored by Brookings, the Center for American Progress, PRRI and the Bi-Partisan Policy Center. It covers 2020-2036 with various scenarios.
Also included in the links below are comments on the findings of the report by a Democratic pollster and Republican statistician Sean Trende. Trende doesn’t challenge the math at all. His entire response is giving examples of how predictions made in the past turned out not to come to pass.
“When ever I am afraid, I hold my head erect, and whistle a happy tune, so no one will suspect, I’m afraid——- “
Democrats have been banking on demographic change to be the ultimate long term solution to gaining power. But the 'White non Hispanic' population is at by far it's lowest point since the first European settlements took root in the 1600s and yet Democrats are at their lowest level of control in over 100 years.
Looking at the way seats have switched since the mid 1990s you would think it was Democrats facing a declining voter base, not the GOP.
What do you think are the causes and will this change? Will the demographics eventually shift enough to overcome the GOP?
It doesn't help that they have their own equivalent of a "Tea Party", which got the republicans Obama for two terms. The cryers have turned off part of their base. Therefore losing areas of this country they once held.
Demographics isn't the solution for the Democratic party. A good message is. One that isn't just "anti-Trump." Sure, "No Trump" might help, but they need something else.
Also, the bigger picture here is that it isn't like the Republican party will just fade into the sunset as the country becomes more diverse. They'll have to either:
- Change their message a little to the left to pull in on-the-fence voters (white or non-white)
- Convince people their message, unchanged, is still the best
Part of the stagnation in population is the Rust Belt does not get transplants. It retains those who grew up there, mostly.
This is definitely true. With the exception of the principal cities (Chicago, Minneapolis) and college-towns (Ann Arbor, Urbana-Champaign), the Rust Belt is stagnant. There is little reason for immigrants to locate here, or for job-seeking young-people to relocate here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bureaucat
The disconcerting thing for Republicans about the type of demographic change we have in the United States is that the core group supporting the GOP is diminishing in every state. What that means is the law of diminishing returns. If the GOP does not increase its share of the groups that are growing (white college grads and minorities), they will have to continually achieve larger turnout and win a larger percentage of white non-college voters in every election simply to get the same number of votes from that group that they got in the past.
This has been the conventional wisdom, and indeed, is the presumptive point of this thread. Sheer demographics ought to have relegated the GOP to history's proverbial dust-bin, but clearly, that has not happened. Beguiling predictions suggest that it finally will happen in 2020, or 2024, or 2028, or whatever... but I doubt it. Yes, the percentage of the voting-public that's non-college-educated whites is inexorably declining. But the GOP has indeed been successful with increasing its share of other groups, and I think that this trend will persist.
Even if the "Trump coalition" will decline and diminish, Trump-type of issues are pervasive, and will continue to sway voters. What I wonder, is regarding the future of the non-Trump GOP... the Nelson Rockefeller type of GOP. Presumably, its core constituents are people with post-graduate education, regardless of race. This groups seems to be moving resoundingly to the left.
It's because of where those "new minorities" have settled. Clustering in big cities and already-liberal states, along with relatively few in competitive states, means more wasted votes for Democratic candidates. Plus for Hispanics in particular, the fact they've also clustered in the most populated states means that as a group they're underrepresented in the Senate (and to a lesser extent the Electoral College). I don't have a link handy, but I saw a graphic of the progress that women and minorities have made at winning seats in each branch of Congress - women have made comparable progress in both chambers, but minorities have done much better in the House than the Senate (probably largely due to what I said in the last sentence).
Quote:
Originally Posted by dsjj251
well thats wrong for 2 reasons.
1. Because there are more voters in urban areas than rural, If Philadelphia had voted at the same percentage as the rural areas, Clinton would have won that state
2. Because population growth by race seem to be moving for Democrats in Colorado,Virginia, Arizona,Nevada and Georgia.
It is wrong for even more reasons. However rather than delve into the minuscule, lets hit on the big ones. Women are not a minority (other than considered so for leftist schemes like affirmative actions), and do not vote blindly for one party. Many women couldn't stand the thought of Hillary as president, so they voted with their brains, not their chromosomes.
It is clear that many blacks have been suckered into the notion that handouts by certain whites (D's) deserves their blind loyalty, forgetting of course it was the (R's) that removed the chains put on them by the (D's).
Handouts in exchange for a bumper crop of votes is just another form of slavery, and some blacks are waking up to this reality.
We also know that the reason blacks came out in mass was to support another black person in Obama. Liberals do not considered this racism, yet when whites vote for Trump, they call it racism. This, even though his opponent was white.
Oh wait, since she was a women, the Trump voters must be misogynists, right?
I guess the women that voted for Trump were also misogynists.
Identity politics that the left promotes only goes so far. Browns for example typically are religious, and if you want to find religious values promoted in one of the parties, it will be with the (R's). Browns also are very family oriented, and again, family values are promoted within the (R) party much more so than the (D's).
So if the leftists/liberals think browns will blindly vote for them because of handouts like the blacks do, they are mistaken to a large degree.
Statistical projections show that due to the decline in the percentage of non-college whites, if the exact same percentages of turnout and voting percentages that occurred in 2016 are replicated in 2020, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin would flip back to the Democrats as would the Electoral College (278-258).
Forgive me for not reading your links yet. I'll do that later when I have more time.
However, off the top of your head, do you recall if the links used national demographic shifts, and applied them to MI, PA and WI? Or did they use specific demographic trends of each state and apply each state's demographic shift/trend to that specific state.
I suspect the demographic shift can differ by state by state somewhat.
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