Gallup: Republican Party Now Almost All White
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2012 Election, Democrats, Polls, RepublicansBad news for Republicans and a sure sign that they need to either change their ways or risk being a regional party.
Here’s how that breaks out…
More than 6 in 10 Republicans today are white conservatives, while most of the rest are whites with other ideological leanings; only 11% of Republicans are Hispanics, or are blacks or members of other races. By contrast, only 12% of Democrats are white conservatives, while about half are white moderates or liberals and a third are nonwhite.
Yikes.
So will they continue to ignore the fact that our country is getting more diverse and appeal only to their base, or will they actually adopt a big tent strategy and lose some of the wedge issues?
I have my doubts that they’ll do that by 2010 because there’s not much more ground they can lose in the House and Senate so they’ll probably hold their ground for the most part. But those are local races. And come 2012, they could be in for a drubbing if the economy turns around.
So what’s the DNC doing with info like this?
Why, targeting red states that at one time seemed completely unwinnable, what else?
For instance…take Texas:
Obama lost to Republican presidential candidate John McCain by 11 percentage points and close to 1 million votes. Still, that margin is less than more than half of what it was when the state’s favored son George W. Bush was on the presidential ballot.In his letter Monday, [DNC Chairman Tim] Kaine specifically cited Texas’ large Hispanic organization and the grassroots infrastructure put in place by the Obama campaign in 2008 as reasons the traditionally-considered red state may turn blue.
“In so many ways, I believe Texas is poised to move towards our column, just as Virginia has,” Kaine said.
Could it happen?
Well, did you think Obama would take Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and a district in Nebraska? And let’s not forget that McCain barely won in states like Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Missouri.
I’m just saying…
This entry was posted on Monday, June 1st, 2009 and is filed under 2012 Election, Democrats, Polls, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 1st, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Except, as Nate Silver notes, this how piece of news is that there’s no news. Situation normal, film at 11.
June 1st, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Sorry, how=hot.
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:04 am
Let us not forget what happened to the Whigs !
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:20 am
Um, yeah. Without showing there has been some kind of shift, this constitutes news how?
June 2nd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
well i am truly shocked. shocked that it’s not 99% white. How many black people did you see at RNC? 1?
June 2nd, 2009 at 2:48 pm
“less than more than half”
HUH???
–Ag
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:21 am
Interesting statistics, but somewhat less relevant than usual since there is an African-American in the White House — one would expect an uptick in Democratic self-identification among African-Americans right now.
I think an interesting side item to this is to look at individual issues — issues that I’m sure Mr. Gardner would consider “wedge issues” — and the demographics. For example, African-Americans in California voted for Prop 8 that ended gay marriage; this is consistent with their voting on the issue in other states. Hispanics are largely anti-abortion according to surveys, and also tend against gay marriage. African-Americans tend to favor school choice. And so on.
Obviously, if the GOP wants to remain a national party, it must work to expand among women and minorities. But at the same time, it is fair to turn the question around on the Democrats: why are you scaring away white voters, particularly white males?
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:40 am
[...] I talked about a Gallup poll yesterday that showed only 11% of GOP voters were non-whites. But after reading some of the comments on that post, I felt the need to amend those thoughts. [...]
June 4th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
How are we ever supposed to win over non-whites when the Democrats lure them into identity politics? Trust me, I know about this tactic because I’m an ex-Democrat.
The soft-sell is, “Why would you want to be a Republican? They’re a bunch of old, rich, white guys” But the truth is that wouldn’t be true if minorities weren’t pilfered by the liberals and hoodwinked into thinking that they need the government to look out for them.
Isn’t it awful?!