Charlie Cook touches on a point that I think is worth underscoring:
Much has been said about the long-term demographic challenges facing the Republican Party. Given how dismally Republicans fare with African-American voters—Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans garnered only 6 percent and 8 percent, respectively, in 2012, and this year congressional Republicans got 10 percent—it matters how the GOP does with other minority voters.
In 2012, Romney picked up 27 percent and congressional Republicans received 30 percent of the Latino vote. This year, House Republicans got 36 percent. This doesn’t matter that much in the House, because of natural residential patterns and, to a lesser extent, gerrymandering. But it is a big deal in presidential matters and in some Senate election years more than others (the Latino vote will be much more critical in the 2016 class of Senate seats than it was in the 2014 grouping).
But considerably less is being said about a parallel problem that Democrats are facing. Although the national red-blue maps of the partisan makeup of the House, the governorships, and, somewhat less so, the Senate are misleading in that they equate population with land area, the maps do illustrate where Democrats are strong and where they are not (interesting factoid: Only 14 percent of the land area in the U.S. is represented by a Democrat in the House). Increasingly, Democratic strength is concentrated primarily in urban areas and college towns, among minorities, and in narrow bands along the West Coast (but only the first 50-100 miles from the beaches) and the East Coast (but only from New York City northward). The South and the Border South, as well as small-town and rural America, are rapidly becoming no-fly zones for Democrats. Few Democrats represent small-town and rural areas, and the party is find it increasingly difficult to attract noncollege-educated white voters.
Democrats’ strategy of cobbling together a fractious coalition of minority voting blocs has a serious flaw.
It resembles the “Hastert rule”, the rule of thumb in the House under which a Speaker won’t bring legislation to the floor unless it can secure a majority of the majority party’s votes. In order to be able to govern a political party needs to be able to garner a majority of the majority voting bloc.
Regardless of the hype you may have read the majority of voters will remain white in the United States for decades and, possibly, forever. A majority of babies born in 2012 were white. That means that if you divvy up the electorate by race (I don’t but there are a lot of Democrats who clearly do) you can’t afford to ignore the white vote. At least not if you want to win elections.
I would be curious what Cook means by “the Latino vote will be much more critical in the 2016 class of Senate seats than it was in the 2014 grouping”
Perhaps in relative terms since the 2014 grouping was so pro-Republican, but the Republican seats to be defended in 2016 are largely in the Midwest and New Hampshire, where I think immigration can be a wash. Only in Florida is there a large latino population, and is Rubio vulnerable on this particular issue? Seems doubtful.
The two potentially vulnerable Democratic seats (Colorado and Nevada) might have a more important Latino vote.
Well, for one thing he may be speculating that Barbara Boxer won’t seek re-election. She’ll be 77 in 2016 and even for a U. S. Senator that’s on the old side for seeking a new term.
Without an incumbent in California there could be quite a squabble there. I’d assume that she’d be replaced by a Democrat. That’s not the question. The question is which one?
The unifying theme of the Democratic Party is hatred of non-rich, married white people. I don’t see that they need much more beyond that given the dual party nature of American electoral politics. It would matter in a parliamentary system, but that’s not what we have here.
The hair apparent in California then would be Mickey Kaus.
😐
Let’s see. The GOP decided at one point that they had permanently clinched the White House. Then they didn’t. The Dems decided that they had lock on everything because of demographics. Then they didn’t. I am going out on a limb and predicting that the GOP doesn’t have a permanent lock on all whites.
“Democratic Party is hatred of non-rich, married white people.”
Odd. I don’t know any real, live, walking, talking Deomcrats who hate married white people. They must be hiding it.
Steve
I agree with that. For a half century the Democratic Party had a lock on blue collar white voters. Now they’re hard pressed to get any votes from that group. The “gentry liberals” aren’t particularly saddened by that since they have little in common with them but I think it will prove troublesome for them. The “gentry liberals” are more expendable than blue collar whites are.
Funny, that’s all Reynolds ever went on about, how us straight middle-class (formerly, in my case) white males and our slave wives were always looking to keep everyone down. But rich people, Jews, blacks, “Hispanics”, single white baby mommas and gays were going to set everyone free – just as soon as they showed my type our place, of course.
Look at the demographics. Dems win with ethnic minorities, gays, and single white baby mommas. They get killed among married whites, including among the women. It behooves you guys electorally to import more “vibrancy” from around the world and to do everything possible to corrode marriage. The proof’s in the pudding: everything the Dem party & liberals have pushed for since 1965 has led to more ethnic minorities in the country (the better to balkanize with), and has been decidly hostile on the balance against the idea of married middle-class lifestyles.
Or are welfare and entertainment policies enacted over decades just accidentally leading to such high numbers of out of wedlock births?
Gentry liberals will hold on so long as they supply the bulk of the money & organizational chops of the party. Looking at how Detroit turned out, they seem to have got their act together and held the line in NYC. And don’t forget the great Whitopias in places like Vermont & the Pacific Northwest. As long as demographics preclude them from dealing with vibrancy up close &personal, they will provide votes for the party, which will get them a seat at the table.
I don’t think either of those have much to do with it. I would say that’s due to a combination of social and economic factors. Loss of stigma. Acceptability of women holding jobs outside the home. More jobs open to women. Phlegmatic wage growth. Other factors.
We actually subsidize illegitimacy a lot less now than we did 20 years ago.
Entertainment is at the cultural vanguard. I don’t think its effects should underestimated. Especially not with its ubiquity in the television era.
“The “gentry liberals†are more expendable than blue collar whites are.”
I’m not so sure – blue collar whites may be heading toward extinction.
“I am going out on a limb and predicting that the GOP doesn’t have a permanent lock on all whites.”
I’m going out on a limb and saying that neither party should have a lock on people because of their color, or lack of color. That’s why I’m drawn to the tone taken by Ben Carson.
Carson’s words, similar to those uttered by MLK, resonate far better with me than let’s say the inflammatory rhetoric screamed out by Rev. Sharpton — the president’s hand-picked spokesperson for black/white racial relationships.
We’ve got to be straight up in our community, too,” he said. “We have to be outraged at a 9-year-old girl killed in Chicago. We have got to be outraged by our disrespect for each other, our disregard for each other, our killing and shooting and running around gun-toting each other, so that they’re justified in trying to come at us because some of us act like the definition of blackness is how low you can go.”
“Blackness has never been about being a gangster or a thug,” Sharpton continued. “Blackness was, no matter how low we was pushed down, we rose up anyhow.
Jan,
That’s Al Sharpton speaking at Michael Brown’s funeral. That’s Al Sharpton, a total operator, saying this about black people at a funeral for a dead black kid.
There’s not a single geriatric blowhard on Fox who would dare be this honest about what white people have to do.
Modulo,
Al Sharpton was recently called a “charlatan” by a WI black sheriff.
IMO, Al Sharpton is a human opportunist of the highest degree — salvaged only by his black ethnicity where he is allowed to circumvent his disreputable history of disruptive harmful lies, tax evasion and current dishonesty by cover of his color. As for those comments at the funeral — words can be verbal chameleons, adapting to the environment at hand, but reflecting nothing enduring or of long term value.
Sharpton is a creation of white media. They needed him. How often do you see him actually quoted by anyone of note, or see him writing influential articles? Never? Almost never? About the only time I see Sharpton quotes, the above excepted, is when they are sent to me by my tea party email chat group. They know everything he does.
Steve
“Sharpton is a creation of white media.”
That’s odd. He ran for president and meets with the current president in the White House.
Not bad for a race baiting apparition.
If Sharpton was an invention of the white media what is he doing in the WH sitting with the POTUS as they consult with each other about divisive racial issues? Sure MSNBC has embraced him. But, what is it about his expertise, his ethics, his ‘honorable’ background that lets him in the front door of the Oval Office?
I’m not so sure – blue collar whites may be heading toward extinction.
Only because we won’t pick tomatoes for $3 an hour. If we would, we’d RULE THE WORLD! You know, like the Dominicans & the Haitians.