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The Demographic Future of America's Political Parties
HughPickens.com writes: Daniel McGraw writes that based on their demographic characteristics the Democratic and Republican parties face two very different futures. There's been much written about how millennials are becoming a reliable voting bloc for Democrats, but there's been much less attention paid to one of the biggest get-out-the-vote challenges for the Republican Party heading into the next presidential election: The Republican Party voter is old—and getting older and far more Republicans than Democrats have died since the 2012 elections. By combining presidential election exit polls with mortality rates per age group from the U.S. Census Bureau, McGraw calculated that, of the 61 million who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, about 2.75 million will be dead by the 2016 election. About 2.3 million of President Barack Obama's voters have died too but that leaves a big gap in between, a difference of roughly 453,000 in favor of the Democrats. "I've never seen anyone doing any studies on how many dead people can't vote," laughs William Frey, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who specializes in demographic studies. "I've seen studies on how many dead people do vote. The old Daley Administration in Chicago was very good at that."
Frey points out that, since Republicans are getting whiter and older, replacing the voters that leave this earth with young ones is essential for them to be competitive in presidential elections. "Millennials (born 1981 to 1997) now are larger in numbers than baby boomers ([born] 1946 to 1964), and how they vote will make the big difference. And the data says that if Republicans focus on economic issues and stay away from social ones like gay marriage, they can make serious inroads with millennials." Exit polling indicates that millennials have split about 65-35 in favor of the Dems in the past two elections. If that split holds true in 2016, Democrats will have picked up a two million vote advantage among first-time voters. These numbers combined with the voter death data puts Republicans at an almost 2.5 million voter disadvantage going into 2016.
Frey points out that, since Republicans are getting whiter and older, replacing the voters that leave this earth with young ones is essential for them to be competitive in presidential elections. "Millennials (born 1981 to 1997) now are larger in numbers than baby boomers ([born] 1946 to 1964), and how they vote will make the big difference. And the data says that if Republicans focus on economic issues and stay away from social ones like gay marriage, they can make serious inroads with millennials." Exit polling indicates that millennials have split about 65-35 in favor of the Dems in the past two elections. If that split holds true in 2016, Democrats will have picked up a two million vote advantage among first-time voters. These numbers combined with the voter death data puts Republicans at an almost 2.5 million voter disadvantage going into 2016.
It boggles my mind, the extent to which U.S. culture only sees two different possibilities. It makes me want to take up smoking and jogging just to see if anyone's ears start bleeding.
One assumption that this summary makes is that people do not switch party affiliations throughout their life. I used to be Republican, but have wised up as I've gotten older. However, I understand that typically as folks get older they tend to do the opposite of what I did (though I have no source to cite for this). Nonetheless, if true, it would mean that Republicans have nothing to fear from the changing demographics. Unless the article addresses this, the information presented is meaningless.
These trends are not new. The sole reason there is a Republican majority in the House of Representatives is the massive gerrymandering that took place in the last decades. Democrats have consistently won the "popular" vote for the house, but districts are tactically set to favor Republicans almost across the board.
The districts are this way because while Millennials do indeed skew heavily liberal/Democrat/progressive, they tend to NOT get involved in state and local politics. Republican governors and state legislatures used the last gasps of the dying generation to secure powerful gerrymandered districts ensuring the GOP holds onto the house, at least until the next census.
An interesting side effect, however, is that these artificial superdistricts are such that the Republican is practically guaranteed to win it in the general election. Thus, far-right tea party nonsense candidates can appeal to their local base without much fear of throwing the actual election over to the Democrats. The safer these districts are for Republicans, the further right, racist, sexist, and old they'll skew for the foreseeable future.
Until young people get active in local and state politics, then it literally is a game of just waiting for the current old set in those places to die of old age.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Fox News, perhaps the greatest grassroots triumph of the Republican Party since Reagan left office, is starting to become a liability for the party. Sure, it's evening newscasts still trounce CNN and the others in the ratings, but everyone (including Republicans themselves) views Fox News as the voice of the GOP. And it's a dogmatic, right wing voice down the line on economic and domestic issues, the voice the helped destroy the Republican Party in the northeast (practically all of the party's leading politicians there have been derided as RINOs by the rest of the party). It appeals most directly to older white voters, as TFS points out; these are the people who tune in night after night to watch Bill O'Reilly.
Personally, as a former independent who now votes consistently Democratic, I'd love to see the revival of the northeast Republican wing of the party. It was the POV of pragmatic businessmen, not conservative ideologues who wanted to enforce the teachings of the Bible while ensuring that America "stood tall" militarily in the Middle East, and against Russia.
...decide to back legalizing pot and abandon their sex war against abortion, contraception and gays and probably pick up a lot of voters who might otherwise go Democratic.
Backing pot legalization would probably be popular with white collar swing voters who probably like the Republicans on taxes and ultimately take a lot of the harassment heat off blacks by stripping the police of one of their major repression avenues. They might even temper it by announcing that they're going to repurpose those resources being even more law and order on other criminal justice issues to mollify the cops and the law-and-order segment of the electorate.
Ending the anti-sex campaign against women may be even more beneficial. I've read that a lot of middle class women tend towards a certain conservatism and if you stop acting completely anti-woman this could be a major source of support.
Both parties are so close for the most part that it seems like only semi-radical changes on a handful of small issues is necessary to move swing voters. And both of these issues are big from a publicity perspective but probably less meaningful to the corporate guys who fund them.
Republicans could still be the anti-tax/pro-corporate party, pro-military and keep most of their base intact. They may alienate born agains and some law and order cranks with those changes, but who are those people going to vote for anyway? They're not going to vote for tax-hiking, gun-grabbing, affirmative action Democrats (intentional facetious remarks) no matter what.
It's harder to see the issues on which Democrats could being "radical" on. About the only one I can think of is giving up on their general penchant for gun control. They might consider bring more pro-labor when it comes to issues of immigration/H1-Bs but this runs counter to their larger embrace of multiculturalism and also gets them in trouble with Silicon Valley money that wants more tech immigrants.
After the 2008 elections everyone realized the Democrats under Pelosi and Obama were too far left
Really? Obama has signed into law - including during the time when Pelosi was leading the house - bills that Reagan and both Presidents Bush could have only dreamed of. Under Obama - regardless of who controlled either chamber of congress - we saw huge tax cuts to the wealthy, and continued marginalization of the middle and lower classes.
Essentially, while the GOP was marching further to the right, the democrats decided it would be a good idea to follow.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.