What the demographics portend

blog_icon_elephant4.jpgWhat sort of future lies ahead for the national Republican Party? Dan Balz of the Washington Post analyzes the latest demographic data and concludes that the party’s future is not exactly a promising one.


Balz makes the same point as other experts (such as Alan Abramowitz of Emory University): a party that depends on conservative white males for its strength has a shrinking base of support that will only get smaller as this country becomes more racially diverse.

Writes Balz:

Republicans are still capable of winning individual elections, but until they find a way to reverse, or at least minimize, these broader changes in the country, their chances of returning to majority status will be severely reduced . . . outside the South, Republicans are in trouble. McCain won the South in November, but Obama swept the rest of the country by an even bigger margin. The same pattern holds now for House and Senate seats. Republicans may continue to win governorships in Democratic-leaning states, but in congressional and presidential elections the geographic divides are sizable . . .

Republicans can’t reverse the demographic trends; their only solution is to increase their share of the minority vote. Opposing Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, because of her pride in being a Latina won’t help solve that problem.

There was much attention paid to Obama’s trouble winning the votes of white working-class voters. The bad news for Republicans is that these voters represent a declining share of the electorate.

We are seeing those same demographic trends here in Georgia, where the percentage of white registered voters has slowly but steadily declined while the percentage of black voters has moved upward and the percentage of Latino voters has exploded. Blacks and Latinos, two groups that tend to vote strongly for Democrats, now comprise a combined 30 percent of the state’s registered voters.

In legislative districts where the percentage of black voters is 30 percent or more, Democrats usually win. In legislative districts where the percentage of white voters is above 70 percent, Republicans usually win. It looks like Georgia will be straddling that 70-30 breakpoint on a statewide basis as we head into the next governor’s race. Should be interesting.


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