The White Vote Will Continue To Shrink

The Republican Party seems to think it doesn't need the votes of minorities -- that they can win future elections with only white votes. At least that is the message sent to minorities by their recent actions. They alienated Hispanic voters by killing off the immigration reform bill, a bill that in poll after poll Hispanic voters have said is important to them. Although the bill passed the Senate, more than twice as many Republicans voted against it as voted for it, and the Republicans in the House won't even let it come up for a vote.

Then last week the GOP made it clear it is not going to court Black voters. Not a single Republican bothered to show up and speak at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington (an event that marked an important step in racial equality in this country). And it wasn't because they weren't wanted, or weren't invited. Organizers of the event invited numerous Republicans and even begged Republican leaders to find one or more of their members to speak at the event, but they were snubbed by the GOP. That sent a clear message to African-Americans -- a message that said "we don't need or want you".

But by pushing their "whites only" agenda, the Republican Party is making a huge mistake. The white vote has been dropping as a percentage of the entire vote for several elections now (and the minority vote has been growing as a percentage). This trend is not going to change. And a look at the charts above (made from information provided by the Center for Public Education).

Note that the median age for Whites in the United States is 39 years old -- much older than the median ages for any other racial or ethnic group. This is because a much larger percentage of Whites are 45 & older than any other group -- and a much smaller percentage of Whites are 44 & younger than in any other group. That means as those 45 & older die off, they will be replaced by a population with a much higher percentage of minorities than our current population (and larger percentages of voters will be minorities).

The Republican base seems to be buoyed by their ability to hang on to a majority in the House of Representatives. But they shouldn't be. That was not a result of a majority of voters preferring GOP representatives. Democratic representatives got more than a million more votes than Republican representatives got in the 2012 election. The Republicans hung on to their majority through some effective gerrymandering after the 2010 census. But that will change as minorities increase as a percentage of voters, and Whites decrease. And that cannot be reversed through voter suppression efforts by the GOP, only delayed for a short time.

The Republicans can continue to be an anti-minority party if they really want that (and that seems to be what they want). But time and demographics are working against them. They must change, or they will join the Whigs as a party that no longer exists. That is just a fact.