Is Demography Turning America Blue? NewsWire

NewsWire: 11/6/2020

• A new report, States of Change, examines how demographic and generational change will affect America’s electoral future through 2036. It concludes that even if post-Millennial generations become more conservative, changes in the racial and educational composition of the electorate will still create a more favorable environment for Democrats. (Brookings Institution)
• NH: This familiar argument, popular among Democratic pundits and political strategists, has been around for well over a decade now. It basically goes as follows. If you look at how America is projected to change in its demographic composition--by state, age, gender, education, and race/ethnicity--the net effect over time is to increase the margin of victory for Democrats over Republicans. You need to assume, of course, that future voters continue to vote, by demographic category, exactly as they do today. I'll come back to that basic assumption in a moment.
• The argument is plausible enough to merit quantitative investigation, which is what these three Brookings authors do here. One of them, Ruy Teixeira, wrote a book, Red, Blue, and Purple America: The Future of Election Demographics (2008), which popularized this good-news message for his fellow Democrats. Just wait, was his basic message, the future is coming to us!
• Let's walk through the authors' four projections, each based on a somewhat different set of assumptions. In their first projection, the authors assume very mechanically that demography is destiny for every group according to the categories already mentioned. That is, for example, a black 55-year-old woman with a college degree in Georgia will continue to vote as she does today and ditto for a 23-year-old white man with a high-school education in Idaho.
• Over time, the authors show, voter changes by age bracket and by state will push the electorate somewhat in the Republican direction. That's because older brackets and sunbelt states, which tend to vote red, will gradually expand as a share of all voters. The authors also show, however, that this shift will be overwhelmed in the opposite direction by voter changes by education and by race/ethnicity: In this case, more educated and nonwhite group voters, which tend to vote blue, will also be expanding as a share of all voters. The net result is an electorate that shifts gradually toward the Democratic Party.

• OK, this is the more modest case for blue-zone supremacy. A more radical case can be made if we assume that, in the future, people will vote not according to their age bracket but rather according to their generational membership. In other words, instead of assuming that Millennials--who are currently voting (on average) about 70-30 for the Democrats--will shift in a Republican direction as they age, let's assume that they continue to vote as they do today. Ditto for older generations. The result, as you can imagine, is a much more rapid blue shift as Millennials vote more in midlife and as Boomers and Silent dwindle in number.
• There is certainly a historical basis for positing at least some generational continuity in partisanship. Think of the G.I. Generation, which voted very heavily for the Democratic Party as youth in the 1930s and 40s and continued to vote heavily for Democrats as they grew older. Or Gen-Xers, who voted relatively heavily as youth for Republicans in the 1980s and 90s and continue to vote Republican today. See this NYT interactive graph for an illuminating look at this historical connection between birthyear and partisanship. See also (from 11:30) of my discussion in this Hedgeye video.
• So this second "generational continuity" scenario is the authors' second projection. The other two projections are intermediate between the first two. In the third scenario, the authors compromise. They assume some generational continuity, but also assume some drift toward the Republican Party with age. In the fourth scenario, the authors assume that post-Millennials (let's call them Homelanders) backtrack on Millennials and become more Republican by a margin of 20 percentage points.
• Here are the scenarios in a nutshell:

• And here of the results of all four projections.

• All of these projections show substantial and gains for the Democrats over time. As we would expect, the most dramatic gains occur in the "full generational effects" scenario, as Millennials take their current partisan tilt into older age brackets. The least dramatic--yet still substantial--gains occur in the "no generational effects" scenario.
• So what's my assessment of this exercise?
• I think it is useful in the near-term because it points out clearly where and how each party is now moving with or against the force of demographic change. It's hard for the GOP to build up a durable or reliable majority if it lacks appeal in most of the demos that are growing year to year--such as nonwhites and educated people. Indeed, one could add to this list: Rural, for example, is steadily losing out to urban. The same goes for young people. As adult voters grow older, there is always significant continuity with how they started out voting in their late teens and early 20s. If your political brand is intensely disliked in that age bracket, you automatically handicap yourself in upcoming elections.
• On the other hand, I think the exercise has limited usefulness as a long-term projection. That's because the parties themselves sooner or later change in response to changes in the values or demographic makeup of the electorate. If a party doesn't change, it disappears. And as each party changes, it often finds new ways to connect with a generation that earlier had no connection to its brand.
• Let me offer a few examples. In the mid-1950s, Eisenhower redefined the Republican Party in a way that appealed to the young Silent Generation. In the early 1980s, Reagan again redefined the GOP in a way that appealed to young Boomers and Xers. And then, partly in response, Bill Clinton redefined the Democratic Party in a way that won back many Boomers and Xers.
• Bottom line: Yes, it's certainly true that the Republican Party is currently under more pressure to redefine itself than the Democratic Party. Initial exit polls from the 2020 election suggest that (once again) it attracted less than 35% of the under-30 vote. That has to be a flashing warning light. On the other hand, long-term projections of each party's popularity are always perilous. Why? Because each party will almost certainly be something very different than what it is today.