New National Journal Article: The Emerging GOP Advantage

[greenman3610]

I'm thinking this is bullshit, but if anyone else has a perspective, might be worth discussing.


http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/the-emerging-republican-advantage-20150130

At the time, some commentators, including me, hailed the onset of an enduring Democratic majority. And the arguments in defense of this view did seem to be backed by persuasive evidence. Obama and the Democrats appeared to have captured the youngest generation of voters, whereas Republicans were relying disproportionately on an aging coalition. The electorate's growing ethnic diversity also seemed likely to help the Democrats going forward.

These advantages remain partially in place for Democrats today, but they are being severely undermined by two trends that have emerged in the past few elections—one surprising, the other less so. The less surprising trend is that Democrats have continued to hemorrhage support among white working-class voters—a group that generally works in blue-collar and lower-income service jobs and that is roughly identifiable in exit polls as those whites who have not graduated from a four-year college. These voters, and particularly those well above the poverty line, began to shift toward the GOP decades ago, but in recent years that shift has become progressively more pronounced.

[Orsino]

1. Revisionist bullshit.

The shift in voting is more or less explained by suppression. The only shrinking base is the GOP's.

[Dawson Leery]

2. 36% voter turnout = GOP landslides.

The dismal turnout last year shifted the numbers to the right as more Repugs/leaners voted.

-Pennsylvania saw the opposite. Tom Wolf won large margins in the middle class counties around Philadelphia.
-Dan Malloy improved his margins in several middle class Republican suburban towns.
-Republican voter suppression tactics denied many people their vote last fall. It is the most plausible explanation for Mark Warner barely winning and "wins" for Tom Tillis and Martha McSally.

[YarnAddict]

3. I took a college course

on American political parties in the mid to late '70's. In the wake of Watergate, the professor declared the Republican Party dead. Said it might live on as a "regional party," but would never regain the influence it once had.

Well, just a couple of years later Reagan was elected, then re-elected in a blowout landslide, then Bush I, for a very rare twelve years of a single party in the Presidency. Clinton was elected in 1992, but the Republicans took both the House and Senate for the first time in many years.

I have learned not to underestimate the Republican Party, which has a tendency to rise from the dead. Kind of like a bunch of zombies.