{"id":54346,"date":"2013-03-19T11:30:38","date_gmt":"2013-03-19T16:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=54346"},"modified":"2013-03-17T17:35:16","modified_gmt":"2013-03-17T22:35:16","slug":"demographics-and-the-future-of-the-gop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/03\/19\/demographics-and-the-future-of-the-gop\/","title":{"rendered":"Demographics and the Future of the GOP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jeb Bush told CPAC that the Republican party had an image problem.<\/p>\n

Way too many people believe that Republicans are anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-science, anti-gay, anti-worker.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

People have good reason to believe those things.\u00a0 But the \u201cway too many\u201d suggests that the GOP\u2019s problem is not image or brand, it\u2019s demography.\u00a0 For five years or longer, the Republican faithful have been complaining that \u201ctheir\u201d country was being taken away from them, and they were going to take it back (e.g., see my \u201cRepo Men<\/a>\u201d post).<\/p>\n

They were right.\u00a0 Their country, a country dominated by older white men, is fading in the demographic tide.\u00a0 The groups whose numbers in the electorate are on the rise don\u2019t look like them.\u00a0 Andrew Gelman (here<\/a>) recently published these graphs as an update to his 2009 Red State, Blue State. \u00a0They reveal the tendency for different groups to vote more Democratic (blue) and Republican (red):<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(The exit poll the data are based on sampled only in the 30 most competitive state. Texas and Georgia are large, and they have significant non-White populations. But demographic changes there are unlikely to have much effect on which party gets their electoral votes.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for the GOP, the non-White proportion of the electorate will continue to grow. The female proportion may also increase, especially as education levels of women rise (more educated people are more likely to vote than are the less educated).<\/p>\n

The key factor is party loyalty.\u00a0 And, at least in presidential elections, people do remain loyal. I think I once read, \u201cIf you can get them for two consecutive elections, you\u2019ve got them for life.\u201d\u00a0 Or words to that effect.\u00a0 If that\u2019s true, the age patterns of the last two elections should be what the Republicans are worrying about.<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Trying to make themselves more attractive to younger people will not be easy.\u00a0 Oldsmobile tried it not so long ago (a post on that campaign is\u00a0here<\/a>).\u00a0 \u201cThis is not your father\u2019s GOP\u201d might have similar lack of success.\u00a0 But insisting that this is still your father\u2019s GOP (or more accurately, some white dude\u2019s father\u2019s GOP) seems like a formula for failure.<\/p>\n Jay Livingston is the chair of the Sociology Department at Montclair State University<\/a>. You can follow him at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a> or on Twitter<\/a>.<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog. Jeb Bush told CPAC that the Republican party had an image problem. Way too many people believe that Republicans are anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-science, anti-gay, anti-worker. People have good reason to believe those things.\u00a0 But the \u201cway too many\u201d suggests that the GOP\u2019s problem is not image or brand, it\u2019s demography.\u00a0 For […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[349,55,2094,3920,85,8121,20068,285],"class_list":["post-54346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ageaging","tag-gender","tag-gender-politics","tag-nation-united-states","tag-politics","tag-election-2012","tag-politics-election-2016","tag-raceethnicity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54346"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54353,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54346\/revisions\/54353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}