From all indications, the face of the electorate will look very different in 2010 from the way it did in 2008. That prospect presents an immediate danger for Democrats. But it also represents a more subtle, long-term threat for Republicans. …
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In 2008, Obama assembled what I’ve called a “coalition of the ascendant” that revolved around minorities and rapidly growing groups, such as the Millennial Generation of young people. Those voting blocs still provide him his strongest approval ratings. But if historical patterns persist, they will turn out at lower rates next year — possibly declining even more than usual because Obama inspired such an elevated turnout among them last year.
Their place will likely be filled by white voters, especially seniors. And that possibility looms as a huge gray cloud over Democrats. In 2008, Obama won the votes of just 40 percent of whites over age 65 (compared with 54 percent of whites under 30). All surveys show that white seniors remain the most resistant to Obama’s health care agenda and the most skeptical of him overall. In the nonpartisan Pew Research Center’s most recent poll, Obama’s approval rating among elderly whites stood at just 39 percent. Surveying all of these numbers, veteran GOP pollster Whit Ayres says that the Republican margin among white seniors could “easily expand to 25 points” in 2010.
That’s ominous for Democrats.
Sure it is - in 2010.
But:
that dynamic also means that Republicans could do very well in 2010 without solving their fundamental demographic challenges. In the 2012 presidential election, the young and minority voters central to Obama’s coalition are likely to return in large numbers. The risk to the GOP is that a strong 2010 showing based on a conservative appeal to apprehensive older whites will discourage it from reconsidering whether its message is too narrow to attract those rapidly growing groups. “It can’t be the same formula in 2012,” Ayres warns.
Even in 2010, the electorate’s increasing diversity could constrain Republicans.
The GOP these days is all tactics and no strategy, and I doubt most have even thought beyond 2010. It’s all about whipping the angry white (and now aging) white male into a frenzy. But how does that affect the young and non-white vote? Lalala. Hadn’t thought of that.
