They’re even losing white voters, according to this opinion piece written by Michael Tomasky in The Daily Beast: Why Whites Will Abandon the GOP (you might not know that the Daily Beast used to be Newsweek magazine, before the ink-on-paper print version went out of business and became internet-only). They’re a fairly respectable source of news, in my opinion.
A lot of demographic groups have already abandoned the Republican party. African-Americans vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Hispanics tend to vote for Democrats in large numbers (because the Republicans have been huge assholes about immigration reform). Women tend to vote for Democrats (because of what Tea Party Republicans say and do about abortion and rape). So that leaves white people -- mostly older, male, white people. More comments under the orange gyroscope.
Here’s what Tomasky says in the article:
We already know all about the creative-class white voters, the well-educated and higher-income people who have shifted dramatically to the Democratic column over the past generation. Those voters are increasingly lost to the GOP. True, Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama among college graduates (of all races) 51 percent to 47 percent, but Obama won going away among postgrads.
Oh, but young (18-29) white working-class people are conservative and religious, right? Nope, wrong…
White working-class young people back gay marriage to the tune of about 74 percent. Another 60 percent say immigrants strengthen the United States (the totals for all three other age groups are below 40 percent). About 56 percent agree that changes immigrants have brought to their communities are a good thing. Nearly 40 percent agree that gays and lesbians are changing America for the better (more than double the percentages in the other three age groups).
Republicans are still getting votes from the older religious homophobic white guys (who are dying off, one by one). But (smart) people with post-graduate degrees aren’t voting Republican and (maybe somewhat uneducated) younger working-class white people are not fond of the Republican message. The Republican base is shrinking, bit by bit.
Where is the Republican base? They’re doing nothing to attract new voters. They alienate everyone. Which is a good thing for us Democrats.
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Postscript and apologies: Here's a few comments I feel like I should make, two days later (Saturday night). I realize I made three minor mistakes in posting this diary. So I apologize.
1. It wasn't meant to be a major statement. I linked to an article, threw in a couple of quotes and added my own comments. No photos or graphs. I posted it at about 2 AM on Thursday (which happens to be one of my days off). Late night post, so I thought it might get a few comments or a few recs. Woke up Friday to find it on the Recommended List (wow!), with over 100 comments. I wanted to reply to many of them, but I had to go to work. Then I spent Friday night with my girlfriend and had to work Saturday, so I didn't really get to read all the comments until Saturday night. So I apologize for not being around to join in the conversation that I started. I didn't babysit my diary. I really should know better than to post late Thursday night. Or maybe I should get out of bed a little earlier on Friday.
2. In retrospect, I should have been clearer about what I was saying. I should have added a few paragraphs. I think the demographics are working inevitably, inexorably against the Republican party in the long run. I wasn't thinking about the upcoming 2014 elections or even the 2016 elections. The Republicans won't go down without a fight. And they're fighting dirty. They have an advantage from the post-census redistricting by Republican legislatures. They're trying to suppress the votes of minorities, college kids, poor people, people without lots of official ID cards, and so on. They favor unlimited spending by corporations in elections. And so on. So I apologize for not saying what I intended to say more clearly. What I was saying was that Republicans are headed downward. But a lot of the commenters who were looking at 2014 made very good points.
3. I have written optimistic diaries before. In fact, in 2009, I predicted 40 years of Democratic dominance (I'm not going to link to it -- you can search for it if you want to). I wrote that diary right before the Tea Party election of 2010. So I've been horribly wrong before. Maybe I'm too optimistic. So I apologize for that. But I won't stop being optimistic about Democrats.
Thanks to everyone who commented below.