Even before Election Day delivered a Republican wave, liberals were falling back on a “wait ’til next year” claim that boils d🌟own to this: Demographic diversity means Democratic destiny!
The idea is that the future of America looks less like the older whites who were key to GOP victory and a lot more like the so-call💃ed “Obama coalition” of younger voters, minorities and women proved decisive in winning the White House in 2008 and 2012 — and (goes the argument) will likely do so again in 2016, even without Obama on the ticket.
Indeed, Demo📖crats have won the po🐼pular vote in five of the last six presidential elections relying on some variation of that coalition.
Conversely, the Republican base — which turned out𝔉 in force in the 2010 and 2014 midterms — is heavily older and whiter.
So, Democrats can look past the midterms to a future where the GOP’s older white voters begin to die off, re🍸placed by a younger, more ethnically diverse electorate that’s naturally d🧸rawn to the Democratic Party message.
Does this mean the GOP will inevitab🎃♕ly be “locked out” by rising diversity in the electorate?
Not at all. The “demogr🍎aphics is destiny” argument can be easily turned on its head by posing one question: What about the diversity of each party’s elected officials — particularly heading into 2016?
Because, on the national 🥃level, it’s the Republicans who look more like the party of tomorrow while the Democrats are the party of (predominantly𝔍) old white guys.
Con⛎sider: Going back to 1960, there’s been only one major-party presidential nominee who didn’t previously win a top statewide office (i.e., senator or governor): Vice-President ꧅George H.W. Bush in 1988. That is, a key qualification for leading a party is having shown that you could successfully appeal to a broad electorate.
Sဣo the next nominees will likely have served as a senator or governor. And in that context, the GOP’s 2016 “bench” is at least as diveꩵrse as that of the Democrats, and arguably more so.
Among governors come January, Republicans will have three women to the Democrats’ two. Then the GOP adds two Latinos (New Mexico’s Susana Martinez, ꩲNevada’s Brian Sandoval) and two South Asians (Nikki H💟aley of South Carolina, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana), to zero for the Dems.
The parties each have a black senator — New Jersey’s Cory Booker and South Carolina’s Tim Scott, who became t🐻he first black elected to the𒀰 Senate from the South since Reconstruction. And Republicans have two Latino senators (Texas’ Ted Cruz and Florida’s Marco Rubio) to the Democrats’ one (New Jersey’s Bob Menendez).
(Democratic Sen. Liz Warren of Massachusetts hasn’t made any official claim to Native American blood since she got tenure at Harvard. If she runs🦄, it won’t be her fans bri✱nging up the issue.)
Of this group, Cruz, Rubio, Haley, Jindal and Martinez are all already being discussed as being part of a natioℱnal ticket, with several having made the obligatory trip to an early primary state.
Ironically, the shadow cast by Hillary Clinton has kept nearly all other Democrats (save Warren and the non-diverse Joe Bid🍨en) out of the White House conversation.
This hurts Democratic hopes more🌟 than you might think: It obscures the top-elected-official area where Democrats do have a diversity edge over Republicans: women in the US Senate.
Come January, there will be 13 Democratic women (unless Mary Landrieu pulls a big upset in Decemb☂er’s Louisiana runoff) to six Republicans (including glass-ceiling breakers Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Joni Ernst o🦂f Iowa).
For all that Republicans tend to avoid “diversity” rhetoric, their actual diversity numbers can actually 𝔉give something of an advantage come 2016.
The fact is that today’s cultural dynamics — plus America’s ingrained sense of fairness — often causes voters to give an edg✅e to a nontraditional can🐈didate, so long as they see that individual as competent and ideologically appealing.
So, a serious Rep🥃ublican Latino or w🍬oman (or Asian) candidate — or combined ticket — can appeal to members of voting blocs that have, until now, defaulted to the “D” on the ballot.
As important, such a candidate can talk about di꧃versity, opportunity and inclusion in a far different — but no less authentic — manner than most liberal Democr🍰ats.
At which point, the other party may realize ✱that, while “Dem” may be part of “demographics,” it’s by no means the whole word — or the whole story.