The Wall Street Journal reported last week on a new demographic study by a researcher at the Brookings Institution. Inside the 2008 numbers are implications that should get the attention of both political parties as they look ahead to 2010 and beyond (emphasis mine):
Census Bureau data released Monday (7/20) show the extent to which strong minority-voter turnout in the 2008 election helped President Barack Obama win over swing states and make inroads into Republican strongholds.
About five million more people voted for president in November than four years earlier, with minorities accounting for almost the entire increase. About two million more black and Hispanic voters and 600,000 additional Asians went to the polls.
Brookings Institution demographer William Frey combined new Census Bureau data about the 2008 electorate with VNS exit poll data to make his analysis. In it, he claims that the demographic shift of the electorate, coupled with a decrease in white voter turnout, may well have sunk McCain's chances in a number of battleground states.
Frey does include a few howlers--it is a little hard to believe that there was anything unique to the 2008 voter demographics that delivered Maryland and New Jersey to Obama, for example. But, on balance, he makes a solid point. Not only did Obama do better with voters of color, the overall balance of the voting population seems to be changing. To put it simply, there were simply more Americans of color in 2008, which is one of the reason that there were more voters of color. The diagram below shows how the rise in "minority" voters was prompted, at least in part, by those population shifts.
This should be cause for concern over at GOP headquarters. According to a separate analysis in Florida done by the Palm Beach Post, the three groups that saw the biggest increases in voter turnout were young voters, African-Americans, and Hispanic voters.
African-American voters have been a loyal Democratic voting bloc for decades. But let's look at how much the other two segments of the electorate changed from 2004 to 2008.
Republican Share of the Vote With Key Demographics-2008 (2004 In Parentheses)
Hispanic/Latino Voters 31 (44)
Voters Aged 18-29 32 (45)
So, with two of the fastest growing segments of the electorate, the GOP cratered in 2008. And, if the most recent incarnation of the tracking poll are any indicator, the standing of the GOP with those two demographic groups has not improved. The Republican Party grabs an almost comical 6% favorability from Latinos, and an indentical 6% seal of approval from voters aged 18-29.
The conundrum for the GOP is simple: the groups that appear to be becoming a larger demographic share of the electorate are the two groups that they are having virtually no success in reaching. Bashing Sonia Sotomayor is not going to bring Latino/Hispanic voters closer to the GOP (as recent polling attests), while young voters are not going to find much appeal to a party whose leader of their "youth" contingent is someone pushing forty years of age who responds to racist screeds with "LOL".