Why the "emerging Democratic majority" isn't happening

[adaher]

This from one of the writers who first posited an “emerging Democratic majority” due to demographic change.

The Emerging Republican Advantage

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.

The more surprising trend is that Republicans are gaining dramatically among a group that had tilted toward Democrats in 2006 and 2008: Call them middle-class Americans. These are voters who generally work in what economist Stephen Rose has called “the office economy.” In exit polling, they can roughly be identified as those who have college—but not postgraduate—degrees and those whose household incomes are between $50,000 and $100,000. (Obviously, the overlap here is imperfect, but there is a broad congruence between these polling categories.)

The defection of these voters—who, unlike the white working class, are a growing part of the electorate—is genuinely bad news for Democrats, and very good news indeed for Republicans. The question, of course, is whether it is going to continue. It’s tough to say for sure, but I think there is a case to be made that it will.

Another problem for Democrats is that they are becoming increasingly reliant on upper income, socially liberal voters to cobble together majorities. Since this group is very likely to defect if their taxes are raised too much, that limits Democrats’ options when trying to create a middle class agenda:

Opinion | The Problem With Middle-Class Populism (Published 2015)

Greenberg’s analysis and the CNN poll data suggest that the shift to “middle-class populism” has the potential to win votes among a key target constituency, white people without college degrees.

Middle-class populism, however, raises a host of problems for the Democratic Party. When the middle-class populist message is turned into actual legislative proposals, the costs, in the form of higher taxes, will be imposed on the affluent. Such a shift in the allocation of government resources threatens the loyalty of a crucial Democratic constituency: well-off socially liberal voters.
Over the past two decades, the Democratic Party has successfully won over – or perhaps it’s better said that the Republican Party has lost – many well-educated, well-paid, fiscally moderate men and women. These voters are repelled by a social conservatism that is anti-abortion, anti-gay rights and anti-women’s rights. But they are not eager to see their taxes raised.

In 1992, Bill Clinton lost the most affluent segment of the electorate, voters with household incomes over $75,000, by 12 points. In 2008, Obama lost voters with household incomes from $100,000 to $200,000 by 2 points, 50-48, and actually carried voters making over $200,000, 52-46.

Even more significant: In 1992, voters from households making from $15,000 to $75,000 a year – a very rough estimate of the working and middle class – made up 74 percent of the electorate. By 2012, voters from households making $30,000 to $100,000 (again, a rough estimate of the working and middle class) made up 52 percent of the electorate. By 2012, nearly three of every 10 voters, 28 percent, came from households making in excess of $100,000, the upper middle class and beyond.

In other words, the size of the target constituency for a political strategy emphasizing middle-class populism has grown substantially smaller, while the size of the affluent voting population that would bear many of the costs of financing the new populism has grown larger.

As always, predictions of demographic change are unreliable to begin with. It’s even less reliable trying to figure out how demographic trends will change politics.

[iiandyiiii]

Sorry, but I can’t take seriously analysis that suggests that wealthy liberals are likely to vote Republican. Wealthy liberals love it when their taxes go up – that’s a big part of their thing.

[The_Joker_and_the_Thief]

@iiandyiiii

Sorry, but I can’t take seriously analysis that suggests that wealthy liberals are likely to vote Republican. Wealthy liberals love it when their taxes go up – that’s a big part of their thing.

I have never met anyone who liked paying more taxes. It’s like a defining ethos of humanity. Perhaps there are people out there, perhaps even on this board, but in my experience they must be improbably rare.

[adaher]

Millionaires perhaps. If that was true of the $100,000-$500,000 range, Northeastern Democrats wouldn’t have been trying to shield that group from tax increases, both in the reversal of the Bush tax cuts(where they were mostly successful), and in proposals to raise the SS earnings cap.

Wallet issues always come before ideals for most voters. Millionaires can afford their ideals. People making $250,000 in the NE, less so. They’ve got private school to pay for.

[adaher]

The core swing voters within the middle class are whites, who make up 70 to 75 percent of this group; but the voting patterns of minorities in this income bracket don’t necessarily mirror the overall minority vote. The two most rapidly growing minority groups are Hispanics and Asians. According to a Pew study of the 2012 elections, Hispanic support for Obama was 13 percentage points lower among those with a college degree than among those without a college degree; and it was 23 points lower among those making more than $50,000 than among those making less than $50,000. (There is no comparable polling among Asian voters, but they are more likely to be college-educated and have higher incomes than other minorities—and than white voters. They recoiled against Romney in 2012, probably due to his anti-immigration rhetoric, but split their vote evenly in 2014 House races.)

Some Democrats believe that the party’s support among millennial voters—the 18-to-29-year-olds who first went to the polls in the 2000s—and their successors can mitigate any losses among other groups. It is true that these voters were an important part of the original Obama coalition, but they are not quite as enthusiastic about the Democrats as they once were. In 2006, 60 percent of young voters backed Democrats in House races; that number hit 65 percent in 2008, fell to 60 percent in 2012, and slid to 54 percent in 2014. Moreover, an ongoing study by the Harvard Institute of Politics has found a steady deterioration in young voters’ support for Democrats since its peak in 2008. “Our recent polling,” the study wrote last fall, “shows that on a wide range of issues and questions, young voters … now look very much like the electorate at large—pessimistic, untrusting, lacking confidence in government.”

Apparently rich minorities don’t like paying taxes either. Iiandyii, you can ignore the second paragraph since you’re sure that “lacking confidence in government” cannot possibly be happening.

[adaher]

And it’s not at all hard for Republicans to be acceptable to these affluent socially liberal voters:

Yet while middle-class voters are generally socially liberal, they oppose candidates on this basis only when those candidates take extreme positions. And so, when Republican politicians have soft-pedaled their views on abortion or guns or immigration, middle-class voters have largely ignored these issues in deciding whom to back—reverting to their natural tendency to focus on topics like taxes, spending, and the size of government. In 2014, Democrats in Arkansas, Colorado, Maryland, Ohio, and Virginia learned this the hard way when they centered their campaigns on their opponents’ opposition to abortion rights or gun control—and lost.

[iiandyiiii]

@adaher

Apparently rich minorities don’t like paying taxes either. Iiandyii, you can ignore the second paragraph since you’re sure that “lacking confidence in government” cannot possibly be happening.

When did I ever say this? Cite, please. I’ll repeat my recommendation that you refrain from making any factual assertions without including a cite.

[iiandyiiii]

@The_Joker_and_the_Thief

I have never met anyone who liked paying more taxes. It’s like a defining ethos of humanity. Perhaps there are people out there, perhaps even on this board, but in my experience they must be improbably rare.

I was a bit hyperbolic, but I’ve seen nothing to suggest that wealthy (or moderately wealthy) liberals oppose raising taxes on the top brackets.

[BlankSlate]

You would think the author would have learned something about identifying “trends” with such limited data. But if it gives you comfort, whatever.

[adaher]

He’s not claiming that we are in an emerging Republican majority, or even that the Democratic majority won’t indeed emerge. Only that the last three elections have seen important voting blocs that Democrats were counting on shift to the Republicans, calling those predictions into question.

The point of the second article is to demonstrate how difficult it is to keep a majority together. You can’t please everyone. If you raise taxes on the affluent, then they will be less likely to support Democrats. But you need to raise taxes on the affluent so that you can trickle some benefits down to the working class that keeps on going Republican.

[Procrustus]

@adaher

Millionaires perhaps. If that was true of the $100,000-$500,000 range, Northeastern Democrats wouldn’t have been trying to shield that group from tax increases, both in the reversal of the Bush tax cuts(where they were mostly successful), and in proposals to raise the SS earnings cap.

Wallet issues always come before ideals for most voters. Millionaires can afford their ideals. People making $250,000 in the NE, less so. They’ve got private school to pay for.

I pay a lot of taxes and I’m not especially fond of it. However, I vote for the democrats almost always because I believe that’s best for the country and mupy community, even if it personally costs me more.

I may support a democrat that wants to lower my taxes, but I can’t imagine voting for any Rebublican.

[adaher]

I’d bet that most people in your income bracket feel that way. But all it takes is for 1 of every 5 to shift, and boom, Republicans win.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@The_Joker_and_the_Thief

I have never met anyone who liked paying more taxes. It’s like a defining ethos of humanity. Perhaps there are people out there, perhaps even on this board, but in my experience they must be improbably rare.

Nobody likes paying taxes per se, but leftward voters are more likely to believe that the taxes they’re being asked to pay will be spent in a way that will somehow benefit them. In some of the bluer states and counties we’ve seen voters approve new sales taxes approved to fund transit and other projects.

[iiandyiiii]

@adaher

I’d bet that most people in your income bracket feel that way. But all it takes is for 1 of every 5 to shift, and boom, Republicans win.

Not if Hispanic voter turnout goes way up (or many other possibilities). And it will eventually, though maybe not in the next election.

I’m still waiting for a cite for your claim about me in post #5.

[adaher]

And as Latinos become wealthier, which they will, especially if overall immigration from the south drops, which it is, then Latinos become more Republican.

[iiandyiiii]

@adaher

And as Latinos become wealthier, which they will, especially if overall immigration from the south drops, which it is, then Latinos become more Republican.

Sure, just like black people have become more Republican as they’ve become wealthier. Still waiting for your cite for your post #5.

[adaher]

They have not. African-Americans have been a reliable Democratic constituency regardless of income. Latinos, however, have not. Their voting behavior is motivated by the same interests as white voting behavior. they vote Democrat because they tend to be poorer. I’m sure you’re already well aware that they aren’t nearly as reliable a voting bloc for Democrats as African-Americans are.

and you get no cite.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@adaher

I’d bet that most people in your income bracket feel that way. But all it takes is for 1 of every 5 to shift, and boom, Republicans win.

That, and the fact that however bad things got in the Great Recession, a majority of people probably came out relatively unscathed. They didn’t lose their jobs, they didn’t lose their health insurance, and they didn’t lose their homes even if they did take an equity hit. As a result, enough of them may be secure enough in the feeling that everything’s just fine the way it is now, except that they want to get rid of Obamacare. This may change if wages continue to stagnate and more of the “office economy” workers realize their stake is shrinking.

[iiandyiiii]

@adaher

They have not. African-Americans have been a reliable Democratic constituency regardless of income. Latinos, however, have not. Their voting behavior is motivated by the same interests as white voting behavior. they vote Democrat because they tend to be poorer. I’m sure you’re already well aware that they aren’t nearly as reliable a voting bloc for Democrats as African-Americans are.

Not now, but I have high hopes that if Republicans continue as they do, they will.

and you get no cite.

So you made an assertion about me that you can’t or refuse to back up. You know that that’s not a good thing, right?

[Stringbean]

I think it is happening.

Unless the Republicans wise up.