# Where are the young Democrats? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 20, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-young-democrats/735275 "2015-10-20T20:46:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2015, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-young-democrats/735275/61 "2015-10-24T12:55:42Z")
Possibly, but right now the GOP is winning everywhere except the Presidency despite their huge problems. Imagine what would happen if the GOP got some sense? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2015, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-young-democrats/735275/62 "2015-10-24T13:26:14Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I don’t believe demographics are destiny in elections … Oh they are not. But they are a powerful modeling and predictive tool. The nature of the demographics and geography is that the GOP is going to have a lock on the House for long time unless the Democrats figure out some sort of response. Less solidly the Senate too. And it will take either some _extremely significant_ and unprecedented shift in GOP share of the Black and Hispanic votes and/or unprecedented ahistorical shares of the White vote (“and” most likely) to win the White House. Neither of those changes are impossible but both are improbable and it results in a bit of a dysfunctional stalemate. Unfortunately what would happen if the GOP got some sense is that the party would not hold together. The only point was however that the current lay of the land is such that a Kerry or even a Dukakis would win. History informs and circumstances are not static. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2015, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-young-democrats/735275/63 "2015-10-24T13:48:26Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Possibly, but right now the GOP is winning everywhere except the Presidency despite their huge problems. Imagine what would happen if the GOP got some sense? They’d lose a huge chunk of their base, in that case, which I think would have a real chance of forming a new party. I think there are a significant chunk of Americans that demand nutty politics – if they don’t get it from Republicans, they will look elsewhere. We’ll see. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2015, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-young-democrats/735275/64 "2015-10-25T02:37:07Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Possibly, but right now the GOP is winning everywhere except the Presidency despite their huge problems. Imagine what would happen if the GOP got some sense? The Republicans are only winning the House because of gerrymandering. More people vote for the Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2015, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-young-democrats/735275/65 "2015-10-25T04:22:55Z")
1. [Not last time anyway.](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/01/05/the_myth_of_democrats_20-million-vote_majority_125145.html) And not in two out of three of the last elections. > [@](#): > > … Look at it this way: Suppose we take the popular vote wins for the parties (53 percent to 47 percent Republican in 2010, 53.7 percent to 46.3 percent Republican in 2014, and 56.1 percent to 43.9 percent Democrat in 2012), and assign the same number of votes cast to each election (it doesn’t matter how many). It works out to a narrow Republican popular vote win (.0042 points, to be precise). 1. Of course gerrymandering gives them a huge advantage and amplifies their House majority mightily. These are simply the facts on the ground and whining about it won’t change the facts on the ground any more than GOP whining about the changing demographics’ impact on their presidential prospects change that. 2. The GOP success is not only in the House (and less so the Senate). They also control more state legislatures and they have more governorships … both by far. So where is the new talent for the national bench to come from when they are relatively blocked out of the minor league teams? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2015, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-young-democrats/735275/66 "2015-10-25T12:35:21Z")
Plus in 2012 the Democrats’ smashing victory was by 1%. And Democratic supporters whine that this “landslide” should have flipped 25 seats or more? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2015, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-young-democrats/735275/67 "2015-10-25T14:14:49Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Plus in 2012 the Democrats’ smashing victory was by 1%. And Democratic supporters whine that this “landslide” should have flipped 25 seats or more? Huh? The number is quoted directly above. In 2012 the margin was _56.1 percent to 43.9 percent Democratic_. Where do you get this 1% bit? And while more votes were cast for GOP candidates in two out of the last three elections in absolute numbers 2.5% have indeed been cast for the Democratic ones adding them all up. [quote=same as last source] … we can just add up the total number of votes cast for all Democratic candidates and Republican candidates in the 2010, 2012 and 2014 elections, using Dave Leip’s election atlas as a source. It works out to 103 million votes for Democrats to 98 million votes for Republicans: a difference of 5 million votes, or 2.5 points. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-young-democrats/735275/68 "2015-10-25T14:32:10Z")
The House vote was 48.8-47.6: > **[2012 United States House of Representatives elections](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2012)** > > John Boehner > Republican > John Boehner > Republican > The 2012 United States House of Representatives elections were held on November 6, 2012. It coincided with the reelection of President Barack Obama. Elections were held for all 435 seats representing the 50 U.S. states and also for the delegates from the District of Columbia and five major U.S. territories. The winners of this election cycle served in the 113th United States Congress. This was the first congressional election using districts dr... ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2015, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-young-democrats/735275/69 "2015-10-25T15:48:25Z")
I type corrected. You are right **adaher**. My cite apparently is using Senate numbers and discussing the Senate claims. For Senate the margin in 2012 was huge D. And for anyone who is interested [here](http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=205221.0) is a good source for the numbers for both all in one place. Meanwhile this is the nature of the beast. Rural America is dominated by the GOP and increasingly so. The GOP has its conundrum of dealing with the shrinking of the White majority in terms of winning the Presidency and the Democratic Party has its as well for Congress, for governorships, and for state legislative control: how to do better in rural America while not losing ground in cities. Gerrymandering makes fixing the issue much more difficult but the root cause is not gerrymandering; it is that the GOP is simply much more popular in rural America and there is still a lot of rural America. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2015, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-young-democrats/735275/70 "2015-10-25T15:53:18Z")
It’s also group motivation. Our voters come out, yours don’t. Even in Presidential elections, Democratic turnout has tended toward the lackluster. 2008 and 2012 were exceptions, thus my contention that there might not actually be a Democratic advantage in general elections. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2015, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-young-democrats/735275/71 "2015-10-25T16:39:26Z")
In midterms yes. In Presidential elections, apparently [not](http://harvardpolitics.com/hprgument-posts/african-american-millennials-extremely-politically-engaged-hispanic-millenials-less-enthusiastic/). Look at the graph labeled “[voting rates](http://harvardpolitics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/HPOP_KateDonahue2.jpg)” … The trend to increased Black turnout has been linear from 1996 on, _before Obama_. Even Hispanic rates increased from 1996 to 2008 (with a slight drop off in 2012 but still higher than in 2004 and previous). What is notable, and frankly shocking, is that White turnout dropped off from its 2004 peak in both Obama elections. I speculate that it is the fracture within the GOP that causes that, as some of the base sits on their hands rather than vote for someone they consider not conservative enough (and the opposite would likely be true if someone acceptable to extreme elements topped the ticket). Meanwhile [more](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303636404579395532755485004) [about](http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2012/03/14/the-gops-fatal-attraction-to-rural-america/) the urban/rural divide. The first link, from Forbes, looking at the 2012 election, posits that posits that urban/rural sort of plays out within the GOP as well, but less urban than _suburban_, with the mainstream “establishment” candidates being popular with more suburban GOP elements and the large rural part of the party going for candidates like Santorum. > [@](#): > > We can see this in the extraordinary difference in the religiosity between more rural states, particularly in the South, and the rest of country. Roughly half of all Protestants in Mississippi, Alabama and Oklahoma, according to the Pew Center on Religion and Public Life, are evangelicals, not including historically black churches. In contrast, evangelicals make up a quarter or less of Protestants nationally and less still in key upcoming primary states such as Pennsylvania, New York, California and Connecticut, where the percentages average closer to 10 percent. > > Let me be clear: Urbanity is not the key issue here. Cities have become so lock-step Democratic as to be essentially irrelevant to the Republican Party. Instead it’s the suburbs — home to a record 51 percent of the population and growing overall more than 10 times as fast as urban areas — that matter the most. Much of the recent suburban growth has taken place in exurbs, where many formerly rural counties have been swallowed, essentially metropolitanizing the countryside. In terms of how it plays out red/blue the WSJ link puts it context: > [@](#): > > The U.S. divide wasn’t always this stark. For decades, rural America was part of the Democratic base, and as recently as 1993, just over half of rural Americans were represented by a House Democrat, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Conservative Democrats often represented rural districts, including Ms. Hartzler’s predecessor, Ike Skelton, who held the seat for 34 years before she ousted him in 2010. > > That parity eventually gave way to GOP dominance. In 2013, 77% of rural Americans were represented by a House Republican. But in urban areas—which by the government’s definition includes both cities and suburbs—slightly less than half of residents were represented by congressional Republicans, despite the GOP’s 30-seat majority in the House. > > The urban-rural divide has also grown in presidential contests. In 1992, Democrat Bill Clinton beat Republican George Bush in the 50 densest counties—the most urban in the country—by 25 percentage points. By 2012, Democrat Barack Obama’s advantage in those urban counties had shot up to 38 points, according to a Journal analysis of Census and election data. > > Today, almost all big cities, even those in red states such as Missouri, Indiana and Texas, favor Democrats for president. > > The shift in rural areas has been even more dramatic. In 1992, Mr. Bush won the 50 least-dense counties—the most rural in the country—by 18 points. In 2012, Mr. Romney’s advantage there had roughly tripled, to 53 points. … [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-young-democrats/735275.md?page=3)