The Democrats' Demographic Coalition Is Completely Collapsing
The idea that "demography is destiny" - that you can secure a permanent political majority if the demographics work in your favor - has been a part of the Democratic political strategy for decades. Their playbook has allowed them to secure electoral wins over the years simply by having heavy influence over different groups (and groups that are, at times, at odds with each other).
But demography is destiny only as long as you can keep the demographic groups happy, and the Democratic Party has lost its way in that regard, exposing something that Republicans have claimed (but often failed to properly articulate): That there are, in fact, universal considerations for voters that extend far outside their skin color and ideology.
Back in November, CNN's John King and his team went to Wisconsin and talked to a lot of black voters. Their responses in the interviews proved to be a grim view of President Joe Biden's 2024 prospects.
From one of King's interviews:
“All these candidates come by and sell us these promises,” she said in an interview. “You know, say, you got to vote for me to save democracy. And then we don’t always see them again. And so, folks get more and more turned off from the political process.”
Missing from the new Biden ads is an issue raised often in the overwhelmingly Black neighborhoods on Milwaukee’s northern edge.
“People are wondering: What is he doing in terms of police accountability and criminal justice reform?” Lang said. “That is a big issue in our community.”
And from another:
The mood a year from now will affect the president’s reelection odds more than the present mood. But would the president have a Black turnout problem if the election were today?
“Yes, he would,” Johnson told us. “He would have a big problem.”
A couple of hours with the BLOC canvassers backed up that assertion, as did interviews in both Milwaukee’s inner city and along its suburban edge.
This is a problem that RedState has been pointing out for... a while now.
Democrats Headed Towards Panic Mode Over Black Voter Turnout in 2024
Broken Promises and Neglect: Why Black Voters Are Losing Faith in Biden
CNN Polling Guru Drops More Bad News on Democrats Ahead of Midterm Elections
But it's not just a "black voter" problem. The Democrats have been trying to juggle different minority groups to keep them happy for years, using accusations of racism, classism, hate, and more to try and pit these groups against Republicans over the years. It has, to various degrees, been effective, and Republicans have struggled to find inroads with several of these communities.
The Democrats, however, seem to have taken these communities for granted, assuming more and more that they would never be at risk of losing them. The party has doubled down on race-based rhetoric and trying to appeal to one group at a time in recent years, and under the Biden administration, it seems to have reached a breaking point: They are more at risk now of losing voters from these communities than they ever have been before, according to a USAToday/Suffolk poll.
Biden now claims the support of just 63% of Black voters, a precipitous decline from the 87% he carried in 2020, according to the Roper Center. He trails among Hispanic voters by 5 percentage points, 39%-34%; in 2020 he had swamped Trump among that demographic group by 2-1, 65%-32%.
And among voters under 35, a generation largely at odds with the GOP on issues including abortion access and climate change, Trump now leads 37%-33%. Younger voters overwhelmingly backed Biden in 2020.
A 24-percent drop among black voters from 2020 to 2024 is devastating. It's not as though black voters are more likely to vote Republican, necessarily, but it is likely they won't go out and vote (or, if they do, they'll leave the top of the ballot blank).
The Hispanic vote, however, is just as devastating. Democrats have embraced a "Welcome, one and all!" mentality on immigration while failing to recognize that kowtowing to illegal immigrants alienates legal immigrants who had to go through a laborious immigration process to get here. It breeds resentment, and Hispanic voters see Republicans as the ones who will level that playing field.
Meanwhile, Jewish voters are turning away from Democrats because of the party's embrace of Hamas talking points, Muslim voters are turning away because Biden hasn't been tougher on Israel in the wake of the war in Gaza, Asian voters are livid that Democrats justified racism against them in higher education, and the working class is increasingly frustrated with Democrats ignoring them in favor of upper-crust white elitists.
The Republicans, however, aren't quite capitalizing on it yet, according to a breakdown of the USAToday/Suffolk poll.
The possible good news for the president is that much of the support he needs to rebuild has drifted to third-party candidates, not into the camp of his likely opponent. Twenty percent of Hispanic and Black voters, and 21% of young voters, now say they'll back someone other than the two main contenders.
Trump has the support of 12% of Black voters, precisely the percentage he received in 2020.
So, while Trump has closed the gap, it's because people are fleeing Biden, not because Trump is that much more admirable a candidate. That data matches other data we've seen in polling showing that Americans don't want a repeat of 2020 on the ballot this year.
The Republicans have a problem: There is clearly a path forward to express to voters that the Democrats' game of constantly trying to cater to individual groups doesn't work, but they frankly suck at making the point. Ironically, the path forward can be expressed by talking about what Donald Trump did as president. He leveled the playing field when it came to regulations and allowed the American economy to work more every rather than play favorites as the Democrats do.
However, the Republicans have to tout the accomplishments of an administration those same voters don't necessarily want to see coming back into power. That's why Republican governors like Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley have the chance to show what they did as governors and try to translate that onto a national stage. But you can't promise to make America into Florida or make it into South Carolina. Voters don't want that, either.
But the Democrats are most certainly panicking right now, because "Demography Is Destiny" turns out to have been a sham.
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