The idea that demographic change was creating a new, dominant electoral coalition for Democrats has been gospel among liberals now for nearly a decade, ever since publication of Ruy Teixeira and John B. Judis' The Emerging Democratic Majority (2002). That "coalition of the ascendant," consisting of blacks, Hispanics, Asians, youth and single women, was, of course, thought to have fully materialized with Barack Obama's victory in 2008 and then cemented into place by his 2012 re-election.
The theory was particularly useful as a source of solace for Democrats following last month's shellacking. Although the GOP easily took the Senate, won its largest majority in the House since 1929, and acquired perhaps historically unprecedented dominance in state legislatures, those results were conveniently dismissed on the grounds that turnout in off-year elections is more "pale and frail" (whiter and older) than in presidential races. Republican gains were therefore merely a speed bump on the road to our inevitable Democratic future. "Demography is destiny," and the GOP destiny is to become a rump party consisting disproportionately of aging (mostly Southern) white males.
Perhaps, but a closer look at exit polls from 2014 reveals some possible cracks in the ascendant-majority thesis; most obvious of which is that turnout among the Democratic base was not as depressed as initially believed. Although the white percentage of the electorate was a bit higher than in 2012 (75 percent compared with 72 percent) and the black-Hispanic percentage therefore a bit lower (20 percent compared with 23 percent), electoral analyst Sean Trende notes that, even if the turnout percentages for Democratic-leaning groups had been identical to those of 2012 and those groups had cast their ballots in precisely the same fashion, the overall GOP advantage for House candidates would have been reduced by only two percentage points, from 6.5 to 4.5.
The problem for Democrats, then, wasn't so much a failure of their base to turn out as a failure of that base to vote Democrat to the same extent as in 2008/2012, which turns our attention to the central flaw of "dominant coalition" projections--the assumption that various groups in the electorate can always be counted on to vote the same way.
Along these lines, each group in the presumed new Democratic majority coalition tilted Democrat to a lesser degree in 2014 congressional races compared to 2012--although black support for Democratic candidates slipped the least (from 91 to 89 percent), the Hispanic Democratic vote declined from 68 percent to 62 percent and the Asian Democratic vote slipped from 73 percent all the way to 49 percent (with Republicans narrowly winning that demographic with 50 percent). In Trende's words, "If Obama had put up the same vote shares among racial groups in 2012 as Democrats ultimately did in 2014, he'd have lost."
Nor did the youth vote go the Democrats' way--whereas the under-30 group supported Obama by a 60-37 percent margin in 2012 (thereby ensuring his victory), the Democratic edge in House races among such voters declined in 2014 to less than half of Obama's margin (54-43 percent).
Putting this all together raises at least three possibilities.
First, that, while it is true that turnout in off-year elections is invariably lower than in presidential elections, the differences in the demographic composition of that turnout are nowhere near as great as believed. There really aren't two electorates out there, as Democrats claim, suggesting that the 2014 results might end up having greater implications for 2016 than those from 2012.
Second, the fabled emerging Democratic majority might have already come and gone. Within this context, it is impossible to imagine either black turnout or the extent of the black tilt toward Democrats ever again matching 2008 or 2012 with no Barack Obama at the top of the ticket. The same can almost certainly also be said for Democratic support from Hispanics--despite Obama's pandering on immigration via executive order, a recent Pew Research survey indicates that Hispanics consider the state of the economy to be more important than the illegal immigration issue, thereby providing potentially fertile ground for future Republican gains.
Figure in even modestly reduced black and Hispanic (and millennial) support for Democrats in coming years and that emerging Democratic majority becomes but an ephemeral "Obama majority" that is already evaporating.
Third, and finally, that perhaps the most important long-term takeaway from 2014 is that Democrats are in deep trouble with white voters who will continue to make up the vast majority of the electorate for some time to come. A weak GOP candidate (Mitt Romney) still won 59 percent of the white vote in 2012, and Republican House candidates won 60 percent of it last month.
So what if Democrats have already hit something of a ceiling in terms of non-white support?
And what if, as Michael Barone, author of the indispensable Almanac of American Politics, suggests, the GOP's 60 percent of the white vote is more a future floor than a ceiling? Such that a more-appealing Republican nominee in 2016 might be able to boost that support all the way into the 65 to 70 percent range?
Under those circumstances, which party would be better electorally positioned for 2016? And for 2020? And 2024?
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Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
Editorial on 12/29/2014