Well, not completely wrong, but wrong enough. My notion before the 2016 election was this. The GOP has topped 48% only once in the last six elections. And the GOP does poorly with non-whites. And the country is becoming more and more non-white over time. Thus it was going to get harder and harder for the GOP to win national elections.
That all makes sense as far as it goes. But here is a component I think I missed. The increasing diversity isn't happening equally in every state. So a state that is already likely to vote Democrat can get more and more diverse and vote more and more Democrat but it doesn't help the Democrats get more electoral votes.
So although the Democrats have been getting more and more of the popular vote that won't necessarily translate into more Democrat wins. This is evidenced in the fact that the GOP has now topped 48% only once in the (now) last seven elections and yet they're won three of them, including two when they lost the popular vote.
I still think the dynamic is happening to some degree though because the diverse places are growing in population more than the non-diverse ones so they'll get more electoral votes over time. So the GOP is going to have to diversify its appeal eventually. But I thought that spelled doom for them in national elections until they broadened their appeal by a significant amount and that proved to be wrong.
Then again the GOP did somehow broaden their appeal a bit in this election because Trump somehow got a larger percent of the Latino and Asian vote than did Romney. That mystifies me. (Trump also got a larger percent of the black vote but that is understandable since Obama isn't running this time.)
Two big ones going in the wrong direction for the GOP though, and who will get even more electoral votes come the 2020 census, are VA and NC. The GOP better lock up some of those blue states that turned red in 2016 in the Rust Belt because they're going to have a harder and harder time winning VA and NC.
That all makes sense as far as it goes. But here is a component I think I missed. The increasing diversity isn't happening equally in every state. So a state that is already likely to vote Democrat can get more and more diverse and vote more and more Democrat but it doesn't help the Democrats get more electoral votes.
So although the Democrats have been getting more and more of the popular vote that won't necessarily translate into more Democrat wins. This is evidenced in the fact that the GOP has now topped 48% only once in the (now) last seven elections and yet they're won three of them, including two when they lost the popular vote.
I still think the dynamic is happening to some degree though because the diverse places are growing in population more than the non-diverse ones so they'll get more electoral votes over time. So the GOP is going to have to diversify its appeal eventually. But I thought that spelled doom for them in national elections until they broadened their appeal by a significant amount and that proved to be wrong.
Then again the GOP did somehow broaden their appeal a bit in this election because Trump somehow got a larger percent of the Latino and Asian vote than did Romney. That mystifies me. (Trump also got a larger percent of the black vote but that is understandable since Obama isn't running this time.)
Two big ones going in the wrong direction for the GOP though, and who will get even more electoral votes come the 2020 census, are VA and NC. The GOP better lock up some of those blue states that turned red in 2016 in the Rust Belt because they're going to have a harder and harder time winning VA and NC.