On November 4th, we Democrats are headed towards a huge win for both Obama and both houses of Congress. Current polls have Obama ahead by 7-8 percentage points and Democratic congressional candidates running well ahead of him. We will likely win 7 Senate seats and 20 House seats, and possibly more. The Republican Party will suffer for the multitude of their economic and moral failings. It will be a wonderful night.
Will Democrats be able to maintain these advantages in future elections? Are the Republicans well-situated to gain seats and power in 2010 and 2012? Or will Republicans be out of power for a generation? I feel that Republicans will most likely be out of power for a generation. Follow me below the fold for the reasons why.
The Republicans Party is headed for a generation-long downfall because of demographics. The Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll gives breakdowns by age and race/ethnicity. The breakdowns are enlightening, to say the least.
Looking at the internals of today's poll, Obama is up 95-3 among Blacks. Wow - I think we can safely assume that Obama will win Blacks by a 95-5 clip. This isn't as unusual as it sounds; Blacks voted for Kerry by 88-11 and Democrats have been able to count on about 90% of the vote in recent Presidential Elections. If we look at past presidential election polls, we see:
- 89D/10R
- 88D/11R
- 90D/9R
- 84D/12R/4 Perot
- 83D/10R/7 Perot
- 89D/11R
Obama is also ahead 66-21 among Latinos. This suggests that Latinos will vote for Obama at a 75-25 clip. Overall, the Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll suggests that 28% of the voting electorate will be nonwhite, and we will vote for Obama at a 87-12 clip. The extent to which Republicans have driven us away with their racist rhetoric cannot be understated.
Also, according to the same poll, Obama is ahead 64-30 among voters 18-29. Gallup/USA Today found that Obama was ahead 61-32 among voters 18-29. Either way, Obama's huge advantage among the young make it almost impossible for McCain to win this election. In the Daily Kos poll, 18-29 years old voters are 18% of the sample. If we assume that 13 percentage points of this sample are White and that young nonwhites have the same voting preferences as older nonwhites, then Obama is winning 18-29 year old non-whites at about a 62%-36% clip.
If we assume that the voting preferences of nonwhites remains unchanged from now until Election Day, then McCain would have to win White voters by 29%. Given that McCain is probably losing among 18-29 year old White voters by at least 20 points, this isn't going to happen.
So, given that this election is about over, what do the Republicans have to do in the future to win elections. According to the breakdown above, Republicans have to do some combination of:
1. Win more Black votes.
2. Win more Hispanic votes.
3. Win more votes of White voters currently in the 18-29 cohort.
4. Win much more votes of other White voters.
Is this possible in the near future? I don't think so.
First, Republicans aren't going to win more Black votes in the near future than they do today. We Democrats will elect the first Black president. Enough said. We will win at least 90% of Black votes from now until eternity, if not 95%.
Second, the Republicans are going to have a very hard time winning more Hispanic votes in the near future than they do today. Here's how Hispanics have voted over the last several elections. I'm also including the 2006 Congressional elections to show recent movement in the Hispanic vote.
2006 30R/69D
2004 44R/53D
2000 35R/62D
1996 21R/72D/6 Perot
1992 25R/61D/14 Perot
1988 30R/70D
From above, I conclude that the natural distribution of the Hispanic vote is about 30R/70D. Also, George W. Bush was VERY popular among Hispanics. His 2004 performance was especially noteworthy. However, there won't be any other national politicians named "Bush" after W's disastrous performance as president. It's a good thing too - Jeb Bush would be extremely popular among Hispanics (Jeb speaks Spanish and his wife is Mexican).
I actually think that long-term Democratic performance among Hispanics will be better than this. The Democratic Party is becoming increasingly pro-Hispanic and Republicans have become very anti-Hispanic. Republicans killed immigration reform that was supported by both Democrats and Bush. Republicans rhetoric around immigration reform has gotten increasingly racist. John McCain was forced by rank-and-file Republicans to backtrack on his prior support for immigration reform. Even worse for Republicans, the only prominent Hispanic politicians are Cubans from South Florida (3 House members and 1 Senator, Mel Martinez) and several (and possibly all!) of those are likely to get voted out of office either this year or 2010. Democrats will pass immigration reform this year. After that, I think that we can count on at least 70% of Hispanic votes for the foreseeable future.
So, we've established that Democrats can count on at least 90% of Black votes and 70% of Hispanic votes. What about White voters?
Obama's current performance among 18-29 young White voters is stunning. It is the largest advantage that any candidate has had among any age group. I've read that once a voter has voted for a party for three consecutive elections, they will stay with that party for life. We can't count on this cohort of White 18-29 year-olds to remain this Democratic forever. However, this cohort certainly will remain strongly Democratic because of youth disdain for George W. Bush and Obama's popularity among the young.
This also explains why McCain's vote is as high as it is (and it isn't high!). Lots of current McCain voters started voting Republican in the Reagan/Bush I years and never stopped, even though all we've gotten from Republicans lately is a shit sandwich. Younger voters don't think about Reagan when they think about Republicans. Instead, they think Democrats = hope and Republicans = shit sandwich. That impression is likely to persist, to say the least.
So, the future Democratic performance of today's 18-29 year-old cohort is to be determined, but we can count on many of them to vote Democratic forever. For the purposes of this blog entry, I'll assume a 20 point Democratic advantage among today's White 18-29 year-old cohort.
For the current election, there is some dispute about the fraction of Whites and nonwhites that will vote. For the purposes of this blog entry, I'll assume and assume that Blacks will be 11% of the electorate, Latinos 10%, Asians 2% and other 2%. That suggests a White fraction of 75%. In the last couple of presidential elections, the White fraction of the electorate was:
- 85%
- 83%
- 83%
- 81%
- 77%
Note the trend. The electorate is getting less White every year. If we assume that Blacks and "Other" vote Democratic at 90D/10R rates, while Hispanics and Asians vote Democratic at 70D/30R rates and young Whites vote Democratic at 60D/40R rates, then these groups would be 38% of the electorate voting Democratic at 73D/27R rates. That means that the rest of the White electorate would have to vote Republican by at least 28 points. That's very unlikely. In 1984, Reagan won the White vote by 32 points en route to winning by 18 points. Do you really think that the Republicans will be able to pull that off any time soon? Reagan was an extremely popular incumbent. You can't become an extremely popular incumbent without getting into office in the first place - and the Republicans aren't getting back into office any time soon. Even in 1984, though, Reagan lost Hispanics at a 66-32 rate, suggesting that Hispanic vote preference has been fairly static over time.
As if this weren't enough, the Hispanic population in the US is set to skyrocket. The Census Bureau predicts that the Hispanic population will increase from 15% today to 19% in 2020, and 23% in 2030. As those folks become citizens and vote Democratic at a similar ratio to today, the Republican Party will be shut out of power for a generation. The Republican Party will eventually have to rebuilt on a nonracist foundation, and that will take a long time.
So, where do we go from here? Democrats need to understand that we are likely to hold power for a generation. With this knowledge, we need to do several things:
- Organize, organize, organize! The Obama campaign has been a triumph of organization, registering and contacting voters at record rates. We need to keep this up in this election and future elections.
- Take care of your best supporters. Our biggest supporters are Blacks, Hispanics, and the young. We need to take care of them so that they keep voting Democratic. That means passing comprehensive immigration reform, crime reform, programs for poorer people and communities, and programs to help youth go to college and deal with after-college debt. Fortunately, Obama has very strong planks in his platform for all of these groups. We just need to pass them through Congress.
- Move the Overton Window. For a very long time, progressives have thought about what they can get passed, and not what we really want. Now that demographics have assured long-term majorities, we need to think BIG. We can make America the country we've always wanted it to be, but we need to fight for what we really want and not what the corporate elite is willing to tolerate.
- Stay clean. If we're not careful, corruption will erode our majorities. We need to have a very low tolerance for corruption within our ranks. Corrupt Democrats need to be primaried, or put in jail if they deserve it.
A better future awaits the Democratic Party - it's time to let America be America again!