demographics

DemfromCT over at DailyKos has an interesting interview with Ruy Teixeira, an expert on political demographics and a Senior Fellow at both The Century Foundation and Center for American Progress and author of the recently published working paper titled, Demographic Change and the Future of the Parties.

While you should go check it out in its entirety, here are the main points, which should be very familiar to faithful Future Majority readers.

• The Republican base is shrinking. The white, working class vote, a demographic that you hear all the "smart" television personalities talk about, is vanishing before our eyes, notes Teixeira. We heard a lot about this particular voting bloc in the 2008 Democratic primary, especially in the Ohio, Texas, and Mississippi contests. Yet, those states, like everywhere else, are seeing the size of this group diminish.
  

  In Texas, the white working class share is down 17 points, with minorities up 9 points and white college graduates up 7 points. In Ohio the share of white working-class voters fell by 15 points between 1988 and 2008 while white college graduates rose by 8 points and minorities by 6 points. Even a state like Mississippi has seen a huge drop in the white working class vote since 1988 (down 21 points).

• Millennials continue to decidedly identify with the Democratic Party. Though we continue to battle the "conventional wisdom" that youth always become more conservative with time, Teixeria corrects this, pointing to multiple studies that show partisan loyalty increases with age. And why would Millennials be attracted to the GOP anyway? In supporting the oppressive Arizona immigration law, continuing to treat gay people as if they are not human, and acting as if government has no redeeming value, it is almost as if the Republican Party is running away from our generation (you know, like Mark Kirk).
• To continue to build a long-term political advantage while championing good policy, the Democrats need to provide an alternative to Arizona's SB 1070, getting behind comprehensive immigration reform. Polling shows that the Arizona legislation is popular, but so is a description of a fairer comprehensive reform, in which the federal government strengthens border security and investigates employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants. These undocumented workers currently living in the United States would be required to register with the federal government, have criminal background checks, pay taxes, learn English, and go to the back of the line for U.S. citizenship (84 percent of those supporting the Arizona law support this alternative). For the Democrats to put forth a strong alternative to the GOP-backed position, they would be strengthening their attachments with already friendly Latino voters, and they also would be enhancing their stature as a party that can solve our larger problems.

The writing is on the wall. Despite the gloomy outlook for the midterms at this point, there are quite a few promising long-term trends for the party. Yet, in order for these to mean anything, we must go all out, institutionalizing peer-to-peer registration efforts. Luckily the DNC recently unleashed their voter registration strategy for the midterms, which significantly targets young voters and minority voters, a large chunk of the President's and the Democrats' base.

And while we face some short-term stress in 2010 while looking at some friendly long-term trends, the GOP is in the opposite situation. While the Tea Party continues to drum up conservative resistance to Obama and the Democrats (occasionally attracting attention for racist behavior), they are moving in the wrong direction of where they need to be to have any influence on the Millennial vote in the long-term. With Millennials forming about 40 percent of the electorate (and 44 percent of the generation identifying as a minority) in 2020, they form the anchor of this country's electoral future; meanwhile, the GOP can't seem to break away from the Tea Party, which actively resists a move toward the center.

For further reading, check out Teixeira's white paper (linked above) and read the reviews by Tom Schaller for FiveThirtyEight.com and Ed Kilgore at the Democratic Strategist.

After looking at the built-in demographic advantages the Democrats enjoy, Michael Hais ties his post back to today's Democratic strategy.

The United States is a changed and continually changing nation. Taken together, these changes have made America a more diverse and more open nation. To a large extent these changes occurred because of Democratic efforts over Republican opposition. This should let the Democratic Party face the future with confidence and courage rather than the fear and paralysis that seems to be gripping it a year after the election of Barack Obama and a large congressional majority. But, the Democratic Party's opportunities cannot be taken for granted. The first step in taking advantage of those opportunities should be looking toward the America that is and will be and not looking back to the country that was.

Emphasis is mine. I suppose this is an echo of Colin's post below. There's a popular saying in hockey -- skate to the puck. Meaning, anticipate where the puck is going to be, not where it is. The decision-makers, particularly those within the Democratic Party, would be well-served to find their inner hockey player and follow that advice.

• A new iPhone app could help charity fundraising.
• A Twitter maintenance update that would have shut down efforts by Iranian protesters was rescheduled after an uprising among the Twitterati.
• Kos explores the GOP's "empathy" problem with Millennials.
• The 80 Million Strong National Summit gets some press.
• The GW School of Political Management wonders if politics is "recession proof." To find out, they video-interview a number of experts.
• Can a young republican candidate jump start his parties efforts courting Millennials?
• The Economist finally catches on (and becomes the gazillionth news outlet to make The Who reference), noting that The Kids Are All Left.
• Republican strategist Mike Murphy looks at the demographic trends and foretells an ice age for the GOP.

One of the more interesting sites that I read from across the aisle is Next Gen GOP. The site is a conservative counterpart to the more progressive politics we hold here at Future Majority, and on any given day you will see well researched and impassioned arguments for why and how the GOP should engage young voters. It reads very much like the emails, memos and research papers passed around on the Democratic side 3 or 4 years ago. In short, I respect the writers and what they are trying to do.

But I have to take issue with a recent post by Brad Tidwell, arguing against the prospect of 40 years of Democratic rule. It's not that I believe that we will have Democratic Presidents for the next 40 years. Just as with the Republicans I imagine that scandals will mount, as will corruption. Electoral conditions will fluctuate and 8 or 12 years from now we may well see a Republican President once more - or at least, a President from whatever arises out of the ashes of the current minority party that is the GOP. Rather, my problem is with his demographic assumptions and what a changing demographic tide will really mean for a recovering GOP.

Here's the main thrust of Tidwell's demographic analysis:

When considering the turnout, there is also promise of a future coalition for the Republican Party, starting with an emphasis on social conservatism. Right now for the Republican Party, “culturally conservative, working-class whites are today its most reliable voters” (Brownstein 2009). McCain did not represent these voters well- “It is likely that GOP voting decline started at the top of the ticket—with some of the culturally conservative Republicans not seeing McCain as one of their own” (Gans, 2008). A return to social conservatism will help get these voters to return to the party- McCain only led Obama with these voters by 58% to 40%, leaving much room for improvement (Brownstein 2009). Meanwhile, this increase in social conservatism will help the party make gains in minority groups where social conservatism is important- in California, around 70% of African American voters and 53% of Latino voters voted for Proposition 8, a measure limiting marriage to heterosexual unions (Harmon, 2008). Already, many key Republican strategists are working on how to appeal to these voters- Scott Baugh, chairman of the Orange County Republican Party, stated “We did not lose because of social issues. The vast majority of Republicans are anti-abortion. Voters in the state favored Obama, but they voted down gay marriage. And there is widespread opposition to illegal immigration.” Chuck DeVore, candidate for U. S. Senate seat has stated “The future of the Republican Party isn’t in white voters… That demographic is dying” (Wisckol, 2009). Clearly there will be greater attention paid to the minority voters- previous attempts to create such a movement have failed, but this does not have to be the case in the future- political parties have a way of coming back when all else seems to be against them.

I see a number of flaws in this argument:

• Culturally conservative, working class white voters are an ever-shrinking portion of the electorate, and Democrats no longer need that block to win elections. Chris Bowers has written extensively on the creation of the new demographic coalition Obama assembled, and notes that this coalition will only grow stronger as younger, more diverse voters come of age.
• Social conservatism is not a voting issue for minority voters, and it is repugnant to many younger voters, who make up an increasingly large share of non-white voters. Fully 40% of Millennials identify with one or another ethnic minority group. On social issues, like Prop 8, cited by Tidwell, they were the only age group to vote against the proposition. If the Republican Party becomes more conservative in order to appeal to older working class whites, they will only succeed in further alienating the next generation, who are disproportionately of color and socially progressive.
• Even among younger evangelical white voters, who would presumably replace the older white working voters on the older end of the electorate, social issues like choice and LGBT rights are neither the top priority nor are younger religious whites likely to hold similar views to their parents on those issue. In fact, white evangelical youth are increasingly receptive to progressive ideas.
• The GOP will never win Latino voters - especially younger Latinos - while they continue to oppose humane comprehensive immigration reform. John McCain was the standard bearer for such reform in the Republican Party. It's not clear to me how the GOP will win back Latinos - particularly younger Latinos needed to build a long-term voting block - by rejecting McCain's philosophies on immigration and spotlighting anti-choice and anti-LGBT messages.

The number of Millennials moving into the electorate is staggering: upwards of 80 - 100 million depending on how you set the boundaries. In 2008, they made up 18% of the electorate and broke 2 - 1 in favor of Democrats. As Millennials get older, they will vote in higher and higher numbers and occupy a larger and larger portion of the electorate. By 2016, they may account for 30% of the eligible electorate.

Do the math and the answer is simple: the GOP cannot climb out of its demographic hole by running to the right. The only way out will be to adapt to the current political environment and accept a wide range of progressive stances not just on social, but on economic, environmental, and foreign policy issues. If the GOP is to have a future, it's going to need to run to the left, not the right.

Over at Open Left, Chris Bowers notes a fact that seems to elude most political pundits. Among Obama's three top demographics - African Americans, Latinos, Youth - there is a very large amount of overlap. These are not distinct constituencies, but are in fact overlapping groups that are increasing in size and influence as part of a massive demographic shift in America.

Mainly, however, I think there is a failure to recognize how most of the new demographic groups Obama and Democrats are using to win are closely connected to one another, and that these connections represent a new American majority. For example, newfound Democratic success with voters under 45 is closely connected to voters under 45 being far less white than voters over 45 (40% of voters between 18-44 are non-white, compared to 20% of voters over 45). The same can be said of LGBT voters, single women, and voters who do not self-identify as non-Christian. Most of these demographics--young voters, LGBT voters, non-Christians, Asians, African-Americans, single women, Latinos, low-income voters--heavily intermix with one another. The significant majority of people who fit into one of these eight demographic groups actually fit into two or more of these demographic groups. Democrats tend to perform well in each of these groups because they perform well in all of them. It is a trend toward Democrats that is reinforced, for most people, in multiple areas, and should not be understood as success for Obama and Democrats in a laundry list of isolated, ghettoized, discrete demographics. It is a rising pluralist majority, rather than successful politicking with individual groups.

Bower's concludes that because of the growing size and influence of these demographics, the GOP's Southern Strategy of appealing to conservative white voters is no longer operative, and Democrats can effectively ignore calls to court those voters (aka the elusive "Reagan Democrats").

There is simultaneously a recognition that Obama won without increased Democratic support among socially conservative voting groups, and a lack of recognition that this signals a major shift in the center of American political power. Democrats don't need Bubbas anymore, or at least they need Bubbas a lot less than they need young voters and racial minorities.

Bowers identifies these groups as the new "swing" voters in a reshaped/realigned electorate, and he's looking to find a way to properly frame them and their participation.

I would suggest, however, that such a frame already exists, and we don't need to outthink ourselves here in an attempt to reframe the debate. The majority of this demographic change is being driven by the Millennials, 40% of which belong to a racial/ethnic minority. As more Millennials age into the electorate over the next eight years, these trends are going to become more apparent and more influential in our elections. Thanks to the huge turnout in recent years, and the pivotal role of young voters in electing Obama, the political class is already accepting of the influence, activism, and diversity of Millennials. It's a positive brand that is already descriptive of all the trends laid out by Bowers in his piece. Rather than create a new term out of whole cloth, we should be organizing and messaging around this generational tag. Not only will that serve to move Democrats away from failed strategies of courting conservative white voters (those elusive "Reagan Democrats"), it will keep them focused on youth outreach, a necessary party-building/campaign activity that typically gets short shrift from the political class.

As we approach 2018, the oldest Millennials will be approaching their 40s and a new generation will begin to enter the electorate. By then, huge changes in our political system brought about by these demographic shifts will have had almost ten years to take effect and become conventional wisdom. At that time, it may be worthwhile to talk about a broader term that extends beyond a single generation, but that discussion would probably best be had in the future, when the political optics are more clear. For now, I think Millennials is a more than suitable term.

• AlterNet reviews Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. It's on my Amazon Wish List.
• Medill News Service chats with the first Congressperson born in the 1980s. Surprise - he's a Republican.
• The Albany Project alerts us to Republican efforts to challenge student votes in a special election in Queens. The students are being subpoenaed and dragged into court to have their ballots challenged.
• Hah! Supporters of Prop 8 think that young voters will learn to hate teh gay as they get older and start their own families, thus ensuring the "sanctity of marriage" for a long time to come. Sorry guys. Enjoy your victory while you can. You're going to lose this one in the long run.
• In this video panel, the Center for American Progress asks the Colbertian question: 2008 - a great web campaign, or the greatest web campaign?
• The National Journal credits youth, African Americans and Latinos with driving the increase in voter turnout and swinging the election.
• The authors of Millennial Makeover have some thoughts on how to continue engaging Obama's supporters now that the election is over.
• Larry Lessig on Change.gov's shiny new Creative Commons License.
• Andrew Gelman plots the support of Republican Presidential candidates by age going back to 1988. His graph shows some interesting trends. Go check it out.
• Kansas Jackass notes that the local GOP is running claiming around that Obama won Kansas youth because young people are dumb. You stay classy, GOP.

Some Sunday reading:

• The New York Times reports that President Obama may have to give up his blackberry. It certainly is nice to have a technologically-engaged president in the White House who is at least pushing the envelope on these issues.
• Meanwhile, Obama's not procrastinating at staffing his White House. Some more roles have been filled today.
• An examination of young voters' preoccupation with merit and what that meant in the Minnesota senate race.
• A panel discussion on "Generation We" will be held tomorrow at Noon at the First Amendment Lounge at the National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, in Washington, DC. Sponsored by Eric Greenberg, author of the book "Generation We: How Millennial Youth Are Taking Over America And Changing Our World Forever," and moderated by The Politico's Ben Adler, the panel will include the following confirmed panelists: Ruy Teixeira, Senior Fellow at both The Century Foundation and American Progress, who will present new findings on the youth vote this election cycle; Alexandra Acker, national executive director of Young Democrats of America; Michael Moschella, director of outreach at the Truman National Security Project; and Kat Barr, political outreach director at Rock the Vote.
• Bruce E. Cain, a professor at UC Berkeley, offers his thoughts on the GOP's demographics problems. He discusses youth and their current politics and nails it:
  

  Finally, there is the new generation. Even before this election, the Generation Y kids were participating in public life at higher levels than their Generation X predecessors. What strikes me as I read their resumes and talk to them at the university is that they are more service-oriented (partly because community service is a requirement at many schools), technologically oriented (they have been running computers and electronics for their parents for years) and world-savvy (they intern as a way of testing out the world). Generation X was the "me" generation; Y seems to be the "us" cohort. Republicans may want to think about what that means for them.

• An examination of the new electorate in American politics.
• The Nation has a "You Voted. Now What?" post-election guide for young voters on how to stay engaged. Check it out.
• Young Australians are also politically engaged at record levels.
• "Liberal" just isn't pejorative with young voters. Deal with it.

The verdict from PEW, which is working off of the exit polling data:

Without a doubt, the overwhelming backing of younger voters was a critical factor in Obama's victory, according to an analysis of National Election Pool exit polls that were provided by National Public Radio. Obama drew two-thirds (66%) of the vote among those younger than age 30. This age group was Kerry's strongest four years ago, but he drew a much narrower 54% majority.

Taking our own look at the exit poll data, here's how the youth vote broke down within various racial demographics:

The margins among black and latino youth are enormous and I'm eager to see what the turnout was for those groups when we get more data. At the moment, though, the breakdown of white youth is most interesting to me. In 2004, Kerry lost white youth to President Bush 58 - 40%. On Tuesday, Obama gained 14 points on Kerry's support among white youth, while McCain lost 14 on Bush's support. White youth still make up a majority of young voters (though that is quickly changing) and that is an enormous amount of votes.

In addition to their excellent fact sheet on voter registration and election laws earlier today, CIRCLE also released a fact sheet providing the definitive data on youth turnout in 2000 and 2004, and youth demographic data for 2008. The page also links to an interactive flash map that breaks the youth vote turnout data down on a state by state basis.

Every reporter, blogger, and youth advocate should have this page bookmarked.

And here are the demographic breakdowns of the youth vote for 2000, 2004, and 2008:

Some reading for your Sunday:

• David Sirota's latest column is spot-on, criticizing the obsessive focus we all have with the presidency, and examining how that hurts the quality of our nation.
• A post from the Utah Amicus blog discusses the College Democrats of America's role in the surge in youth political activism.
• More College Democrats -- An Obama blog post on the meshing of the Obama campaign with the College Democrats' efforts this fall at the College Democrats convention.
• More evangelicals: The Rothenberg Political Report has yet more polling information with regard to evangelicals voting in the presidential election.
• "You Don't Have to Burn Bras to Be Politically Active," an op-ed by Jessica Sidman in the Dallas Morning News, discusses a topic we're all well-aware of around here -- Boomer youth political activism versus Millennial youth political activism.
• A story in the Providence Journal on Obama's appeal to youth and how the campaign uses technology to connect.
• A California newspaper discusses the Democrats' advantages given the current national political climate bringing the political views and demography of young people into the analysis.