Demographics
By Mitch Berg
Democrats are fond of claiming that demographics favor them; that as America becomes less white, it’ll become more Democrat.
That presumes two things, of course; that the GOP never changes, and that demographic groups never change.
The first is always an open, entertaining question.
The latter? This past election put that in question, at least among Latino and Asian voters:
2. Hispanics represented 8 percent of voters in 2014 and 10 percent in 2012, and those percentages will rise. But they’re not unanimously Democratic. They voted 62 percent Democratic in House elections this year, but that figure was buoyed by the nearly 40 percent of Hispanics who voted in heavily Democratic California, New York, and New Jersey. Hispanic Democratic percentages were significantly lower elsewhere, including Texas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, and Colorado.
And the reasons?
Well, they’re pretty much exactly what some of us on the right have been saying:
Evidence suggests that gentry-liberal causes — abortion absolutism, gun control, and opposition to fracking — have been repelling rather than attracting Hispanics. Polls also show they’re more interested in jobs and education — and dissatisfied with Democrats’ performance — than in immigration, on which they are miffed at both parties.
And Asians – who are stereotyped as people who value free markets and the ability to be entrepreneurs?
3. Asians, 3 percent of the electorate, have been oscillating wildly in exit polls: 73 percent to 26 percent for Obama in 2012, 50 percent to 49 percent for House Republicans in 2014. These may be small and unrepresentative samples. But note that California Asians squelched an attempt by gentry liberals, Hispanics, and blacks to overturn the state’s voter-imposed ban on racial preferences in higher education.
It remains to the GOP to give Latinos and Asians a better option – as opposed to anger at Obama’s broken promises – to turn this into a trend.
I give it 50-50.
November 18th, 2014 at 11:56 am
I volunteered as Range Safety Officer at my local gun club’s Sight-In Days, when members of the public could test-fire their deer hunting firearms to make sure they were ready for hunting season. We had a significant number of Asian guests, not as many Hispanics, and a couple of Black guests. I suspect it’s cultural – if your Daddy didn’t teach you to hunt, you don’t hunt.
November 18th, 2014 at 12:28 pm
I do two “Carry Expo” events a year at Gander Mountain in Lakeville, and did another Shooter event at Bill’s in Robbinsdale last year as well. They mostly focus on home defensive and carry pieces.
Significant number of Asians, some Latinos – and more blacks than I expected.
Home defense is pretty color-blind.
November 18th, 2014 at 12:33 pm
Lots of Hmong hunters in Wisconsin and Minnesota. That lifestyle is more Republican than the urban wienie liberal Democrat lifestyle.
November 18th, 2014 at 1:40 pm
School choice and reforming our State’s business and occupational licensing system(s) would be two things I’ve loved to see Minnesota Republicans focus on. Both are good policies are the on merits and they’d be a nice colorblind way of expanding the number of people who don’t see their own welfare and that of their family’s as tied to an ever-expanding Nanny State.
November 18th, 2014 at 2:28 pm
When I hear that Hispanics are ‘natural conservatives’, I remember that the same could have been said, at one time, about Blacks. Blacks now believe that only the federal government, controlled by liberals, can protect them against conservative white lynch mobs.
The core of American conservatism is suspicion of centralized power and the federal government. There are plenty of hillbillies out there who don’t care about family values, don’t care about religion, don’t care about anybody’s property rights but there own, are enthusiastic about the government benefits they receive, and still vote a straight Republican ticket.
The democrats know that if they give voting rights to 11 million illegals, two out of three of them (at least) will vote Democrat. Believe them.
November 18th, 2014 at 4:18 pm
When I hear that Hispanics are ‘natural conservatives’…
…you hear it from someone who is not me.
Conservatism is never “natural” for anyone; it’s counterintuitive to anyone raised in Western society, with its contemporary views on society and religion, in the past 100 years.
November 18th, 2014 at 5:22 pm
Mitch:
I think your post points out something that liberals want to ignore which is if the Republicans state their case right they will win anybody, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and women. We have to go and try to show hey we want your vote and we can improve your life. If the Republicans do that then eventually the groups you cite despite peer pressure will all become Republican groups.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
November 18th, 2014 at 6:02 pm
Who knew Hispanics and Asians were becoming more racist?
November 18th, 2014 at 9:55 pm
In the article Mitch links to, Barone notes that whites are moving from the D and independent column into the GOP column. Obama’s Caesar-like amnesty command will drive more working class white independents and Democrats into the GOP column. Good God, the man is an idiot.
In the last election the D’s went after single, college-educated women with such ferociousness it was ridiculed.
They could have gotten better results by going after working class white men. They did not. My theory is that there is no one at the leadership level in the DNC who has any understanding of the issues that working class white men are interested in, other than what they have mocked.
They know how to get the vote of the lgbt community, but not white men.
November 19th, 2014 at 6:44 am
With the ‘LGBT community’ using the courts instead of the legislature and presidency, they may decide to stay home in 2016.
November 21st, 2014 at 3:06 pm
Not the legislature so much, Emery, with the exception of Minnesota’s state legislature, but I dare say that the LGBTQ???? community has the President in their back pocket, if not elsewhere.