The GOP's Demographic Problem
During the podcast this week, Mike Murphy several times mentioned the Republican Party's demographic problem, prompting a number of Ricochetians to post comments asking about it.
From my 2000 book, It's My Party, a brief explanation--and, even though I wrote the book more than a decade ago, the basic contours of the problem remain unchanged:
The difficulty that Hispanics pose for the Republican Party has all the inescapability of a mathematical proposition. It can be stated in just four points.
Point one: The Hispanic population is growing more quickly than the population as a whole—since 1900, Hispanics have increased their numbers by 38 percent, rising to 31 million, while other Americans have increased their numbers by just 9 percent. By 2005, Hispanics will make up 14 percent of the population, passing African-Americans, who make up 13 percent, as the nation’s largest minority. Then, by the middle of the twenty-first century, a date that my children will see even if I do not, Hispanics will account for a full one quarter of the population.
Point two: Hispanics vote Democratic. For the last two decades, Hispanics have consistently given Democrats between 65 and 75 percent of their vote. Some Hispanic, notably Cubans, vote Republican, but they make up only a small proportion of the Hispanic whole. Even when Hispanics live inside the Finkelstein Box*—300,000 live in Fresno County—they occupy, so to speak, a box within a box, voting Democratic. It is Hispanics, for example, who ensure that Fresno is represented in the state senate by a Democrat.
Point three: During the 1980s the Republican Party achieved rough electoral parity with the Democratic Party for the first time in half a century. If the GOP cannot persuade a sizable proportion of Hispanics to become Republicans, then the GOP will revert to minority status and stay there.
Point four: Broadly speaking, as my friend John Morgan** points out, the Republican Party represents the descendants of those who arrived in America during the colonial or federalist periods. Of all the immigrant groups who came afterward—the Irish, the Italians, the Jews, the Slavs—the GOP has failed to make even one—just one—a loyal part of the Republican constituency. This doesn’t necessarily doom the GOP to fail with Hispanics. But it certainly isn’t encouraging.
* The Finkelstein Box, devised by the political consultant Arthur Finkelstein, represented an early version of what we now all know as the famous map of America colored in red (Republican country, which was, and is, largely that--out in the country) and blue (Democratic country, which is largely coastal, urban, and ethnic).
**One of the sweetest and smartest men I ever knew, John Morgan served in the Reagan White House. A political junkie before computers made the slicing and dicing of databases easy, John had in his office a series of enormous maps of the United States showing presidential election returns, county by county, going back decades. John had colored in every map by hand.
- Comment (43)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments :
May '10
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
Again, the mob mentality of the conventional wisdom at work (Sorry, Ann, but there's a GOP mob, too.)
What happens when the Democrats no longer have the money to purchase large blocks of votes?
Dec '10
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
Why? The facts of Hispanic voting habits are indisputable, but the reasons behind them are very elusive. The Hispanics I knew growing up were extremely conservative in their personal lives. Why do so many who live right vote left? I'm baffled. The only explanation I can come up with is that the Republican party has succumbed to the labeling done by the Democrats. On the day I checked on board my first submarine one of my shipmates said, "you look like Winnie the Pooh." Eighteen years later there are still people who cannot recall my actual name and refer to me as Pooh exclusively. An applied label can be very difficult to shed.
Oct '10
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
"Nothing changed in 2009-2010. There was no tea party, there was no 'great American awakening'. All of my fancy models of how people vote still work. Here is my invoice." - Highly paid political consultant
Edited on Jul 8, 2011 at 1:31pmJun '10
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
Thank you, Peter.
The suggestion seems to be that immigration is today's hot button issue in converting the U.S. Hispanic vote. If that is the case then the plan of attack should be simple: Slam the border closed and then grant amnesty. First the border than the amnesty. There is no reason to give Democrats the Hispanic vote by default. Certainly, Hispanics are as interested in good government, low unemployment, and high market wages as any other minority. Doesn't voter confidence and party affiliation spring from sound economics? The Canadian experience (not that you asked) suggests that the party in power when the immigrant entered the country is the party of preferred affiliation, but the Vancouver metropolitan area is at least, if not substantially more, 25% Asian. These particular Asians seem to vote overwhelmingly conservative. Now, Asians are not Hispanics and vice-versa, but voters can and will be won over if the politicians get the economy right.
Sep '10
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
Right, why? Is there nothing a conservative philosophy has that would attract Hispanics?
Murphy seems to think "amnesty, now" is an answer; I'm dubious that would work, and I'd rather not try.
"Better messaging" is always trotted out, and I'm sure that's a requirement, but the first question is content, not messaging.
My own thought is that the first thing to do is to develop leaders within the Republican party who belong to the demographic groups you mention, Peter. Maybe that shouldn't be so, in some pure rational world, but the fact is that people are much more receptive to a message if it comes from somebody they can relate to, and ethnicity does matter to people, a lot. It seems to me that in the last few years we have seen a sudden rise in the number of non-Anglo Republican stars: Rubio, Jindal, Haley etc. This is a very hopeful development, and will make a great difference over the long haul.
That's not all we need, but it's a move in the right direction.
Jul '10
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
Ted Kennedy may have been a buffoon, but he knew full well what he was doing by pushing the Immigration Reform Act of 1965.
At that time, Democrats saw quite clearly that, with Southern white voters abandoning the Democrat Party, they were electorally doomed. The only solution was to import more minority voters and convert them to an entitlement mentality.
Mission accomplished.
Apr '11
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
The answer, at least for the next 20-30 years, is the "Steve Sailer Strategy"- get more white people to vote, and get a greater majority of that vote to go Republican. This is happening already as we become more racially balkanized, with the Republicans getting 60% of the white vote in 2010. Hispanics, incidentally, are not really a great electoral force yet (and may not be, at least in this half-century), accounting for only 8% of the vote last year.
Sep '10
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
Cas Balicki has touched on a point missed in the debates about immigration. The reason that Asians are more conservative voters generally than Hispanics is that Asians are more prominent landholders when they emigrate.
Unfortunately, that's also resulted in stratospheric housing prices in Vancouver, but that's a story for another day.
As you were.
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
One theory is that the GOP symbolically represents the “in” crowd (in the old days, WASPs), and if you self-identify as an outsider, the GOP looks like the Man who is proverbially keeping you down, so you vote against (and, since the Progressive Era, for the party that says, “You got stuff; now we want stuff.”). And that becomes tribal wisdom unto the generations.
You do see some switching; e.g., I think church-going Catholics are now pretty firmly Republican for the most part, regardless of ethnic heritage. But that said, the “Catholic vote” has only gone for the GOP in ’72, ’80, ’84, and ’92. Likely the growth in Hispanic immigration has done a lot to keep the overall number more Democratic than it would be were it merely the descendants of the earlier Catholic immigrants (even the firmly Democratic 19th-century waves of Irish and Italians).
Here’s another question not easily answerable by economics: Why do Chinese- and Indian-Americans vote Democratic while the relatively poorer Vietnamese- and Filipino-Americans are more Republican? And why are Asian-Americans as a group getting more, not less Democratic? Will Milton Himmelfarb’s quip apply to them soon?
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
Thinking it's time for a "It's My Party" sequel, Peter, if Republicans manage to lose to Obama.
Same dynamics as post-1996, if the nominee is Romney and he turns in a Dole-like performance that deflates the base. Moderates will say Mitt pandered to the right; the right will say Mitt was too squishy; Tea Partiers? Who knows where they'll be?
You'll have Christie, Rubio and who knows who else all positioned as the next GOP savior. Will be fun to see if a rivalry develops between those two, or others, that compares to the McCain-Bush rift.
Sep '10
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
The best analysis I've ever read of the Catholic vote, even though its not a book about the Catholic vote, is Phil Lawler's The Faithful Departed.
Edited on Jul 8, 2011 at 1:59pmJun '11
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
There seems to be something to John Morgan's insight (point four). Look at where the Scots-Irish live and their voting preferences. The question is whether there was a relationship between an individual's conservative/liberal bias and the year one's ancestors arrived on these shores. Does anyone know of any studies that try to determine this factor?
Going back further, could any more data be discerned based on whether one's relatives were Roundhead or Cavalier? (see Kevin Phillips' - "The Cousins' Wars)
Mar '11
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
When I am in the US I am in the blue part of AZ. All the Hispanics I know are very hard-working entrepreneurs. So it's a mystery to me why they would vote for Mr Obama, just as it is with the Jewish community.
One obvious solution is the Ryan/Rubio ticket, but by the time they feel ready to run it may be after 4 more years of Mr Obama, when it will be too late.
Edited on Jul 8, 2011 at 2:19pmOct '10
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
If Hispanics remain reliably Dem then the numbers might look bad, but that doesn't have to happen, and I don't think that it all hangs on immigration reform (although getting that resolved and in the past as soon as possible would help). But Hispanics are family oriented and the large number of Hispanic Catholic and Evangelicals also makes the GOP a natural fit for them. With the likes of Rubio and Susana Martinez of New Mexico, the GOP can't look too forbidding to Hipanics. And what about Jeb Bush's son George P. ?
I'm not pessimistic.
Aug '10
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
Pseudodionysius
The best analysis I've ever read of the Catholic vote, even though its not a book about the Catholic vote, is Phil Lawler's The Faithful Departed. · Jul 8 at 1:55pm
Edited on Jul 08 at 01:59 pm
I would closely evaluate the Mexican attitude to the Catholic Church, it has been a much different relationship there and was codified to an extent we can't imagine, compared to the United States situation.
Sep '10
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
I would closely evaluate the Mexican attitude to the Catholic Church
I've heard some very interesting stories from Mexican immigrants coming across as to how testy the situation is.
Dec '10
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
Just a small point. Within Florida, we have a large and powerful hispanic demographic, mostly of Cuban ancestry, but it is very split. The "old" cubans were the cigar factory workers around Tampa and they are very Democratic. The post Castro Cubans are centered around Miami and are very Republican. However, the south Florida youth are mostly Democratic, as they don't have the memories of socialist tyrany. We can hope that they are young and will get over it. We can also hope that the Tampa Cuban community will see the demise of the cigar factories that has followed the Democrat-pushed steep SCHIP taxes on cigars and re-think their steadfast support for Democrats.
Mar '11
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
If the GOP cannot persuade a sizable proportion of Hispanics to become Republicans, then the GOP will revert to minority status and stay there.
This is undeniably true, but the key word here is persuade. I'm a female of Mexican descent on my father's side of the family, therefore I'm Hispanic as far as the demographers are concerned. I don't see anyone on the Republican side of the aisle, at least at a national level, trying to persuade Hispanics, both sides pander. No one is out there explaining how conservatism benefits people, how it's the general way most Hispanics live their lives, etc., etc.
When everything dealing with Hispanics is boiled down to immigration and whether or not they want to be citizens - most I know do not, including non citizen members of my own family that are here legally - it's a losing proposition. The way to appeal to Hispanics, I think, is to talk about opportunity, economics, family, those kitchen table issues that relate to everyone. No one does it. They just pander on immigration and slice up the pie like we're all the exact same because we're Hispanic.
Edited on Jul 8, 2011 at 3:01pmOct '10
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
It all comes back to the border. Hispanic leaders know both parties want/need their support, and think they can get an unlimited open-border immigration policy. This is obviously insane, and will lead to escalating ethnic conflict.
Of course, Hispanics as a group are very compatible with Republicans outside of the immigration issue. Unfortunately we're in a trap: the insanity of our immigration policy means most people support reform, but Democrats can kill our credibility amongst Hispanics by finding every last racially-motivated nativist they can and using that to label all Republicans as racist.
If we secure the border, we'll suffer. If we do a blanket amnesty and leave the border open, we'll suffer. It sucks. We'll just have to deal with it when the time comes.
Jan '11
Re: The GOP's Demographic Problem
This immigration/hispanic/GOP is demographically doomed topic comes up periodically like a bad meal. Do we, as conservatives have the courage of our convictions or not. "lizze" above makes the point of making the case to hispanics on economic grounds. I agree - if this is all about amnesty, why didn't those percentages change after the first amnesty in 1986? Do low wage workers think their wages are going to go up or down with unchecked immigration? Do illegal immigrants mind paying into a SS/MC system that they're not legally entitled to draw from (i.e. privatization?). Do Indian & Asian parents abide by having their high performing students jump through tougher standards for college admissions? Will blacks continue to support an educational system that fails their children? Will former manufacturing workers continue to support a party that has driven manufacturing businees away from the US for labor/environmental/regulatory reasons? Will Hispanic agricultural workers continue to support a party that places the value of a wann-be 'sardine' above farms in the Central Valley?
Exactly what "white" policies do conservatives and the GOP espouse?
Our leaders are pathetic salesmen!