Voters Of Color Are Voting GOP - But Not In Large Numbers

The talking heads of cable news have been making a big deal of a shift of voters of color to the GOP. But the truth is that shift is small, and most still favor Democrats by a large margin. Here's the analysis of the situation by Perry Bacon, Jr. in The Washington Post: 

Asian American, Black and Latino voters have shifted to the right over the past decade. That should delight Republican Party officials and worry Democratic ones. At the same time, voters of color have favored Democrats by more than 35 percentage points in every recent election. The news media and others who analyze politics shouldn’t emphasize the rightward shift so much that they obscure that these voting blocs remain very Democratic-leaning.

Here’s what is really going on with voters of color:

Asian, Black and Latino Americans combined in 2020 to vote around 73 percent for Joe Biden, compared to 25 percent for then-President Donald Trump, according to the political data firm Catalist. If only those three groups voted, Democrats would likely have won every single state. Democrats also overwhelmingly won among those three groups combined in 2022.

U.S. politics remains a contest between a Republican Party that is much more non-Hispanic White (about 85 percent) than the Democratic Party (about 60 percent White) and the country overall (also about 60 percent White).

Yet Biden’s 2020 margin was a notable decline from President Barack Obama’s in 2012, when those three groups chose the Democratic incumbent over Republican nominee Mitt Romney by a combined 81 to 17 percent. And because U.S. national elections are so close, small shifts matter.

The electoral trajectories of Asian, Black and Latino voters are not the same.

Black voters. Before 2008, between 85 and 90 percent of Black votersusually backed the Democratic presidential candidate. That support increased to around 95 percent in 2008 and 2012, likely because some Black Republicans and Black people who don’t usually vote embraced Obama. Black support for Democrats is now back to pre-2008 levels.

The Obama-era uptick among Black voters, who are about 11 percent of the electorate, was helpful for Democrats. But with such high levels of overall support, it’s hard to argue that there is dissatisfaction among Black voters with the Democratic Party.

Asian voters. Because Asians are a small percentage of voters (around 4 percent), their slight rightward shift hasn’t altered national election results too much. Also, there is nothing new about some Asians being open to voting Republican. They were about equally split between the two parties in the 1990s.

Latino voters. Latinos are about 10 percent of the electorate and an even larger bloc in states such as Florida and Nevada. If Latinos were shifting to the left, Democrats wouldn’t be struggling to eke out wins in Arizona and Nevada and would be more competitive in Florida and Texas.

The Latino vote has never been overwhelmingly Democratic. George W. Bush won about the same percentage of the Latino vote in his presidential campaigns as Trump did in 2020.

But Latinos’ shift to the right has been surprising. Democrats over the past decade have pushed more lenient immigration policies in part to appeal to Latino voters. Meanwhile, Republicans have abandoned Bush’s pro-immigrant posture in favor of “build the wall” Trump-style politics. Most political observers, myself included, didn’t expect Latino voters to be so accepting of this version of the Republican Party.

Among White voters, there has been a clear pattern: Those with four-year college degrees and more liberal attitudes on issues such as immigration are becoming Democrats; those without degrees who are more conservative on issues of identity and race are becoming Republicans. There is also a huge religious divide — White people who aren’t Christians are much more likely to be Democrats.

Among voters of color, it’s not really an education story — Democrats are losing ground among those with four-year degrees and without them.

There is a big ideological component. Asian, Black and Latino Americans (along with White people) who describe themselves as conservative were significantly more likely to back Trump in 2020, compared with 2016, according to research from political scientists John Sides, Chris Tausanovitch and Lynn Vavreck. Racial issues are a part of this conservatism — Republicans are winning voters of color who are more skeptical of, say, the Black Lives Matter movement.

And there are important divides within each racial and ethnic group. Black women are still backing Democrats at near Obama-era levels, while 10 to 15 percent of Black men are now supporting Republicans.

Among Latino voters, a big divide is religion. Latinos who are Catholic or who aren’t religious are much more Democratic-leaning than Latino Protestants are. Another divide is geography. Latinos in some states (Florida and Texas for example) are more conservative than in others (California).

Asian Americans who describe themselves as “born-again” Christians are more Republican than those who don’t.

Overall, the good news for Republicans is that the United States’ growing Asian and Latino populations are not voting overwhelmingly Democratic the way Black people do. So they are not creating a voters-of-color colossus that flips states like Texas and ensures perpetual Democratic victories. That was a doomsday scenario for Republicans that a few years ago seemed like a real possibility.

The good news for Democrats is that the clear majority of Asian, Black and Latino voters are still backing them, lifting the party to victories in states such as Georgia and Virginia where White voters are mostly Republicans. The increasing racial and ethnic diversity of the country has been an electoral boon for Democrats — just less of one than was expected.

The big question is what happens next. Have all of the Asian, Black and Latino voters who were open to backing Republicans already shifted — or could the Democratic margin among these voters further decline next year? Alternatively, could Democrats win back some lost ground among these groups?

I am not sure — and I am not sure anyone else is either. The move to the right among voters of color shows that demographics are not destiny. But their strong Democratic tilt shows that demographics still matter.

The U.S. Is Much More Diverse And That Scares Republicans

The Census Bureau has finally released it 2020 report, and it's a report that has to be scaring Republicans. It showed that the white (non-hispanic) portion of the population dropped in all fifty states. And for the first time, the percentage of whites in the population dropped below the 60% mark. Whites now make up only 57.8% of the population. 

The population grew by 7.4% -- the lowest since the Great Depression. And non of that growth was among whites. Non-white minorities made up all of the growth of the country.

Predictions are that in another 20-30 years, whites will be less than 50% of the population.

If you wondered why Republicans are trying to suppress voting (especially among minorities), this can give you a clue. They want to maintain white superiority in the government, because the policies they pursue advantage whites over everyone else.

Seeing the demographic change that is happening (and is unstoppable), the Republicans had a choice -- they could change their policies to be more inclusive of minorities, or they could try to make it much harder for those minorities to vote. They chose the latter.

The GOP leaders really had no choice. After letting the racists and white supremacists into the party, they lost control over them. Now the racists make up too large a share of the party, and they dictate the whites-only policies of the party.

Voter suppression is a last-ditch effort, and it's doomed to fail in the long run. But the racists controlling the GOP are not very bright people. They actually think they can preserve white privilege in our society. They are wrong.

A Demographic Look At 2020 Electorate In 5 Charts

 The charts above are from the Pew Research Center.

Percentage Of The Nonwhite Electorate In U.S. Is Growing

The chart above reflects the percentage of the U.S. electorate that is not white. Note that the percentage has grown with each presidential election -- and there is no reason to believe that won't continue in the future. In fact, it is very likely (since the U.S. population is expected to be a majority of nonwhites by the middle of this century).

This poses a problem for the Republican Party (whose policies are anti-minority and anti-immigrant). They could change those policies, but it is unlikely that their racist and anti-immigrant base will allow that. So they have resorted to other measures.

One is the border wall. That's not going to help them though, even if they could manage to get it built. The growth in the number of minority voters is not primarily due to immigration. Most of the new minority voters are actually born in this country.

They are also trying to suppress the votes of minorities (Voter ID laws, closing voting stations in minority areas, striking voters from registration rolls, gerrymandering districts, etc.). We must continue to fight against these efforts. While those efforts may help the almost completely white Republican Party, it strikes at the heart of our democracy.

In a real democracy, all citizens should have the right to vote. Unfortunately, the Republicans don't believe in democracy.

Demographic Breakdown Of Support For Leading Dems

This chart reflects the demographic breakdown of the latest Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between September 19th and 23rd of a national sample of 561 Democrats/Leaners, with a 4.9 point margin of error.

This chart reflects the demographic breakdown of the latest Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between September 22nd and 24th of a national sample of 608 Democrats / Leaners. (No margin of error was given for just this group.)

Don't Count Texas Out In 2020 - It Could Turn Blue

I have discussed on this blog the fact that there's a chance that Texas could go blue in 2020. It would be the first time in quite a while, and while it is not a sure thing by any means, I think the events of the last few days may well have enhanced that chance.

While some Republicans have gotten a significant portion of the Hispanic vote in Texas (George W. Bush got about 40%), that portion has been going down recently. In the last couple of presidential elections, Romney and Trump got less than 30%. The problem with the Hispanic vote in the past has been turnout.

The events of the last couple of days may have fixed that turnout problem. Hispanics in Texas have been feeling targeted by Donald Trump for quite a while now. The mass shooting by a white supremacist that targeted Hispanics in El Paso has shown them that those feelings were justified. They have heard Trump nasty words about them, and are convinced that the white supremacist was just carrying out Trump's hate speech.

I believe the El Paso shooting, combined with Trump's failure to apologize for his hate speech, may well have energized Hispanics. It would not surprise me if the Hispanic voter turnout was record-breaking in 2020. In fact, I expect it -- and that would not be good for Trump (or Texas Republicans).

Combine a record Hispanic turnout with recent demographic and voting trends, and it really could result in Texas turning blue!

Consider this analysis by Sean Trende at RealClearPolitics:

At least since the publication of “The Emerging Democratic Majority,” Democrats have hungrily been eyeing the Lone Star State, as its growing Hispanic population seemingly offers them inroads. I’ve been skeptical of this, in part because the state’s Hispanic population is relatively conservative (compared, at least, to California’s), in part because the white population is heavily conservative, and in part because the state showed no significant sign of moving politically over this time period.

Yet, there are reasons now to believe these shifts are real, and that Texas’s 38 electoral votes are in jeopardy for the GOP. The reason goes to a misunderstanding about the nature of Texas, and the bottom line of the 2016 election.  In early 2017, David Byler and I concluded our analysis of that election. In it, we wrote:

As you can see, Hillary Clinton had the best performance of any Democrat in recent memory in the so-called “Mega-Cities,” winning almost two of every three votes cast. In large cities (those with metro areas of between 1 million and 5 million people), Clinton performed a bit worse than Barack Obama in 2008 and Bill Clinton in 1996. In other words, looking only at large urban areas, she was headed for a big victory.

The problem is that the Democratic coalition fell apart below that. Her performance in small cities was closer to Al Gore’s 2000 performance than either Obama’s or Bill’s landslide wins. Beneath that, her performance was a disaster; she ran behind Michael Dukakis in large towns, about 10 points behind him in small towns, and about 15 points behind him in rural areas.  She ran over 20 points behind Bill in small towns and rural areas.

Nationally, the 2016 election can be viewed as a contest that Democrats won in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, but lost in the rural areas.  In the lead-up to that election, prognosticators focused on changes in Democrats’ favor in the urban areas, but forgot just how many people voted in rural areas and small towns in many states. In particular, in states like Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, the Democrats’ weakness in rural areas and small towns overwhelmed their strong performance in the larger cities. In the Midwest, a near-majority of the votes are still cast in rural areas, small towns and large towns. The notable exceptions are Minnesota, where over 60% of the votes are cast in metropolitan areas, and in Illinois, which is dominated by metro Chicago.  Tellingly, these are the states that Trump failed to flip.

When people think of Texas, they think of rural areas. Cowboys on horseback, cattle roaming the plains, and giant ranches (complete — for people of a certain age -- with J.R. Ewing in a Stetson hat). But while the Llano Estacado – what we might call “stereotypical Texas” – does cover a large swath of the state, it is relatively underpopulated.

The nature of rural America changes dramatically when one crosses the 100th meridian. Here, as famously described by John Wesley Powell, rainfall drops beneath levels required for reliable crop growth, so a flourishing rural population never took hold.  Unlike eastern states, states west of this longitude are better thought of as city states: Think of how Denver dominates Colorado, Phoenix dominates Arizona, Salt Lake City dominates Utah, and Las Vegas dominates Nevada.

Texas straddles the 100th meridian. Eastern Texas is actually an extension of the Deep South: It is wooded, humid, has a large number of small towns and cities, and has some rural African American population. The rest of the state, however, is more like New Mexico or western Oklahoma.  Much of the land is given over to ranching, and few votes are cast there.

Instead, votes are cast in the major metropolitan areas. In 2016, the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan areas combined for a majority of the vote in Texas. Donald Trump very nearly lost these areas for the GOP for first time in recent memory, receiving just 48% of the vote there. Despite winning the popular vote nationally by larger margins than Clinton, Barack Obama took just 43% of the vote here in 2012, and 45% during his landslide win in 2008.

Another 17% of the vote was cast in the metro areas of large cities like San Antonio and Austin.  Obama narrowly lost these areas to Mitt Romney in 2012, but Hillary Clinton won them with 55% of the vote. Small cities like McAllen and El Paso contributed another 4%. All told, the large metropolitan areas cast almost three-quarters of the vote in Texas, and Hillary Clinton won them with 51% support, a five-point improvement from Obama. Trump more than held his own in the rural areas of the state and in the towns, winning almost 70% of the vote (roughly the same vote share as Romney had four years earlier). But it was the Trump collapse in the urban areas that dominate the state that made it a single-digit race. . . .

Two years later, Beto O’Rourke shocked the political world by holding Sen. Ted Cruz to a three-point margin of victory, while Democrats swept local offices and judgeships in Dallas and Tarrant counties and picked up long-held Republican seats in these areas. O’Rourke performed well by improving Democrats’ showings in the urban areas. He won the big metro areas outright with 52% of the vote and blew Cruz out in San Antonio and Austin by 20 points. Once again, the rural areas and the towns saved the Republicans’ candidacy. They cast just a quarter of the vote, but Cruz won them by a 2-to-1 margin.

Could a Democrat really win in 2020? It seems a stretch, but remember that Mitt Romney won Texas by 16 points, Donald Trump won by nine, and Cruz won by just three. These are not good trendlines for the GOP. States do shift their partisanship quickly at times. George H.W. Bush won New Hampshire by 26 points in 1988 and New Jersey by 14; in 1996 New Jersey went for Clinton by 18 points, while New Hampshire was a 10-point Clinton win. That same year, West Virginia was a 15-point Clinton win; eight years later George W. Bush won it by 13. . . .

Once one realizes that these urban/suburban areas cast a supermajority of the vote in Texas, one realizes quickly that the rural and small-town areas can’t keep the Republican Party afloat in Texas forever. I wouldn’t bet the farm, or the cattle ranch if one prefers, on Texas turning blue this cycle. But the state is not safe for Republicans in 2020 either, and it will likely be very competitve.

Demographic Support For The Leading Democrats

These charts reflect the results of the latest Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between July 21st and 23rd of 1.500 adults, with a margin of error of 2.7 points. The charts above show only the responses of the 600 Democrats and Democratically-leaning Independents in the poll. No margin of error was given for just this group.

The top chart shows the support for each candidate among men and women. The second chart shows support by Blacks, Whites, and Hispanics. And the bottom chart shows the support of each age group. To keep the charts readable, I only included the candidates with at least 2% support. Personally, I think if a candidate can't get 2% support at this stage, they're not really a viable candidate.

Demographic Change (& Trump) Should Terrify Republicans

Donald Trump has recently made obviously racist remarks (about women of color in the Democratic Party). It was not a mistake. Trump is proud of his racist remarks, and continues to repeat them. He has decided he does not need votes from anyone but racist whites. he is going to campaign on his racism in 2020, and believes he can scare enough white voters into re-electing him.

And that seems to be OK with congressional Republicans. They have been remarkably silent about Trump's racism, and most House Republicans refused to vote to condemn the racist remarks. It looks like they are going to be happy to go into the 2020 election being led by a racist -- even though the leader of their party brands all party officials with his beliefs.

That, combined with the changing demographics of this country, should terrify all Republicans. That did not work in the 2018 election, and I believe, it is unlikely to work in 2020. And even if it could work for one more election, the changing demographics (see chart above) will very soon insure that it never works again. This is a diverse and multi-cultural nation -- and it becomes more so with each passing day.

If Republicans were smart, they would change their policies to appeal to the growing diversity. But they haven't, and are unlikely to in the future. I'm not sure their largely racist base would let them anyway.

They have tried to protect their party by gerrymandering, putting a citizenship question on the census, building a wall on our Southern border, denying refugees entry into this country, and voter suppression of minority voters. None of those efforts will succeed for long. The demographic change is overwhelming and unstoppable.

Here is how Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen describe this threat to Republicans at Axios.com:

The single biggest threat to Republicans' long-term viability is demographics.

The big picture: The numbers simply do not lie. America, as a whole, and swing states, in particular, are growing more diverse, more quickly. There is no way Republicans can change birth rates or curb this trend — and there's not a single demographic megatrend that favors Republicans.

Why it matters: President Trump’s short-term calculation to stir up white voters with race-baiting rhetoric might very well echo for a generation. . . .

For any Republican thinking past 2020, here are numbers to fear, reported by Axios' Stef Kight:

• The Hispanic share of the population has grown in every state since 2000, according to Census data.
• Hispanic people now make up a quarter of the population in Florida, almost a third of the population in Arizona and 39% of Texas — all Trump states in 2016 that are becoming more winnable by Democrats.
• Florida and Texas, two of the big electoral giants that voted for Trump, are witnessing the fastest non-white population growth. 

This wave is only accelerating, as Stef reported in "America's majority minority future":

• Next year, the entire under-18 population will be majority non-white, according to Brookings demographer William Frey.
• In less than a decade, the under-30 population will be majority non-white.

Between the lines: Trump clearly thinks this is good short-term politics.

• Truth is: It's unknowable, though highly debatable.
• Long-term, it seems unambiguous: If you need more African American and Hispanic voters, maligning and marginalizing them strikes even some inside this White House as stupid politics.

Demographic Support For The Leading Democrats

Yesterday, I showed you the results of the latest Economist / YouGov Poll of Democrats and Independents who say they'll vote in the Democratic Primary. Only 5 candidates scored over 2% support. These charts show the demographic breakdown of the support for those 5 candidates.

Demographics Of National Support For Leading Democrats

Yesterday, I showed you the support for the leading Democrats in the latest Economist / YouGov Poll. The survey was done between June 30th and July 2nd of 631 Democrats and Democratic-leaners nationwide. No margin of error was given for the individual groups above.

Today I break the support for each of the leading candidates down demographically by gender, race/ethnicity, and age. It shows where the support for each is coming from.

The Trend That's Scaring The Hell Out Of Republicans

Have you wondered why Republican politicians are trying every trick they know to suppress voting (especially among non-whites) -- like Voter ID, purging voter rolls, gerrymandering, etc.? Of course, one reason is that non-whites don't tend to vote for Republicans (because of their racist and xenophobic policies).

But the big reason is that they see Whites becoming a minority in this country, and with their base refusing to allow more inclusive policies, that spells doom for the Republican Party. And the demographic change is not that far down the road.

The map above and the paragraphs below are from Axios.com:

By 2045, the U.S. as a whole is projected to become majority minority. And the changes are already underway: non-white Americans are now the majority of the population in four states, as well as in the most prosperous and powerful U.S. cities.

Why it matters: The U.S. faces two possible futures: A thriving nation that embraces its new demographic makeup, or an escalation of fighting, racism and xenophobia.

By the numbers: Since 2010, non-Hispanic white people have become the minority in 32 more U.S. counties — for a total of 372 counties, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The trends are largely due to a rise in Hispanic and Asian immigrants as well as slightly higher birth rates among non-whites.

• Next year, the entire under 18 population will be majority non-white, according to William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer and author of "Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics are Remaking America." 
• In less than a decade, the population under 30 will be majority non-white.

The demographic shifts are already having an impact on our national identity, politics and the generational gap, according to sociologists and demographers who have studied the trends.

This Is What Is Scaring Republican Politicians

These charts are from the Pew Research Center. They graphically display what scares the hell out of Republican politicians in this country. They show the demographic change that is happening to this country.

In the top chart, it shows the percentage of the U.S. population that is white and nonwhite among those 6 to 21 years of age (called the postmillennials). Back in 1968, this group was 82% white. The percentage had dropped to 70% in 1986 and 61%in 2002. In 2018, whites are only 52% of this age group, and very soon they will be a minority. This is why many are predicting that whites will be a minority in the U.S. by the middle of this century.

The second chart shows that is already true in some regions of the country among postmillennials. Whites only make up 40% of this age group in the West, and 48% in the South.

This is why the Republicans are trying to suppress the votes of minorities in various ways, and it's why they want to build a wall and deny immigration to nonwhites. Their racist and xenophobic base won't let them change their policies, so it's all that's left to them to try and survive politically.

It won't work though. As the minority groups grow in size (and join with liberal whites), they are already starting to put more Democrats in power (and vote Republicans out). Those Democrats will help defeat voter suppression efforts, thus giving the growing minority a larger voice in coming elections.

Building a wall or trying to limit nonwhite immigration is doomed to failure also. As the chart below shows, 93% of postmillennials and 88% of Hispanic postmillennials are born in this country.

This puts the GOP in a difficult situation. The only way they can avoid this demographic disaster is to change their policies to more diversity friendly ones. But any Republican who tries to do that will incur the wrath of the GOP base (which is solidly racist, religiously bigoted, and xenophobic).

I don't see a way out of this mess the GOP has created for itself. By allowing the far-right bigots to take over the party, they may have begun a process that will result in the death of the party. Are they going to go the way of the Whigs. It's very possible. Perhaps then a new and less bigoted conservative party can be created (because we need a two or more party system).

Exit Polls Shows Demographic Breakdown Of 2018 Voting

The following charts (from CNN) show the exit polling for the 2018 congressional election. It shows the percentage of the vote that each group had -- and the percentage of that group that voted for the Democrats or Republicans.

Nothing Can Stop U.S. From Becoming More Diverse

The current anti-immigration efforts by Trump and his Republican cohorts are a futile effort to stave off the demographic changes happening to the population in this country. They are afraid of an America where Whites are the minority, and White privilege no longer exists. But they can't stop it, no matter how hard they try. The change is happening, whether they like it or not.

The chart above shows the increase in diversity between 2016 and 2017 as noted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Here is what's happening -- as reported by Think Progress:

As the nation grows older, it’s also becoming more racially and ethnically diverse.  “Nationally, the population of all race and ethnic groups, except for the non-Hispanic white alone group, grew between July 1, 2016, and July 1, 2017,” the Census statement said.

Specifically, the Census Bureau reported:

• The Hispanic population increased 2.1 percent to 58.9 million.
• The black or African-American population increased 1.2 percent to 47.4 million.
• The Asian population increased 3.1 percent to 22.2 million.
• The American Indian or Alaska Native population increased 1.3 percent to 6.8 million.
• The Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander population increased 2.1 percent to 1.6 million.
• The population of those Two or More Races increased 2.9 percent to 8.7 million.
• The white alone-or-in-combination population increased 0.5 percent to 257.4 million.
• The non-Hispanic white alone population decreased .02 percent to 197.8 million.

Of course, none of these revelations are particularly earth-shaking. Keen demographers and social scientists have been tracking the so-called “browning of America,” for years.

But in the current political environment, it bears repeating over and over, if for no other reason than to remind more Americans of the inevitability of change. Soon — within the lifetimes of the vast majority of Americans alive today — the U.S. will no longer be a white-majority nation.

And that’s why this column is directed to Trump’s MAGA crowd, which seems hell-bent on returning the country to some idealized era of the 1950s or earlier, when white men were the unquestioned arbiters and beneficiaries of the nation’s politics, culture, and economy.

Indeed, the hateful atmosphere brought about by Trumpism and echoed in archly right-wing media has its roots in a vocal white nationalist movement, which seized on the president’s embrace of their racist rhetoric as permission to openly act on impulses that previously were tucked away from public view.  . . .

For all their bluster and bravado, however, white nationalists are whistling past their own graveyards. The numbers and unrelenting facts of demography stare in the face of those who believe they can restore some non-existant glory of white supremacy.

Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy (PREE), estimates that by the year 2043 — about 25 years from now — the U.S. will reach the tipping point when the country transitions to a majority-minority population. Among working-class Americans — made up of working adults without a college degree — she estimates the tipping point may arrive nearly a decade sooner, possibly by 2032, . . .

The sooner most Americans come to terms with this reality, the sooner the public will rally support and encourage politicians to deal with the changing demographics from a position of national strength, and not as the fearsome dilution of white superiority. One thing is certain: the changes coming to America aren’t going to suddenly shift into reverse, no matter how loudly Trump, his subservient congressional leaders, and white nationalists complain.

The Demographics Of The Drop In U.S. Leadership Rating

The Gallup Poll recently released a poll they took of about 1,000 respondents in 130 countries. They asked if the respondents had faith in the leadership abilities of the United States to solve the world's problems. The result showed that faith in U.S. leadership had dropped in nearly every country since the election of Donald Trump -- and now rests at a record low median of about 30%.

Now they have released a demographic breakdown of that drop in the faith of American leadership -- showing the drop by education level, urbanicity, income level, gender, and age. Note that there has been a significant drop in every group -- with the largest drop in those most educated, those in the highest income quintile, those living in urban areas, women, and those over 50 years old.

The Future Is NOT Dim For The Democratic Party

Ever since it was known that Donald Trump had won the presidential election (thanks to the archaic electoral college), some media and political pundits have been trying to write an obituary for the Democratic Party. They want you to believe the Democratic Party is in disarray, and could be a dying institution. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

First, a couple of reminders. Donald Trump actually lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton (the Democratic candidate) -- and it was by a pretty substantial margin (nearly 3 million votes). Trump won because he got a razor-thin majority in a few states -- enough for an electoral college victory.

The future is actually pretty bright for Democrats. Look at the exit polls above (from cnn.com). Trump's biggest support came from Whites and older Americans. He led among White by 20 points and by those 45 & older by 8 points. Guess what -- both of those groups are shrinking. Whites become a smaller portion of the electorate with each election, and those over age 45 will die off.

Meanwhile, Clinton (i.e., the Democrats) did better among Non-whites and younger voters. She led among Non-whites by a staggering 53 points, and among those under age 45 by 14 points -- and both of those groups are growing in size. With each passing election, Non-whites make up a larger percentage of the electorate, and as older voters die off they are being replaced by younger voters (who can't abide the Republican Party's social or economic agendas).

The Democrats didn't do a very good job of effectively communicating how their policies are better for workers (and all Americans) -- and they need to do a better job of that in the future. But the demographics are with them. If they can combine those good demographics with a better communication to voters (and I believe they can), then the future is actually quite bright for the Democratic Party.

The Demographics Of Political Party Affiliation

All of these charts were made from information in a newly released survey from the Pew Research Center. The top chart shows the party affiliation of registered voters. Those leaning toward a party were included in that party's numbers. Currently, Democrats outnumber Republicans by 48% to 44% among all registered voters.

That's good for Democrats, but only if they can get their voters to the polls. The Republicans are energized just because they haven't won the White House in the last two elections (although Trump being the nominee may keep a few of them at home). The Democrats can do very well in the coming election -- if they vote in large numbers.

The bottom charts show the future can also be very bright for Democrats. Note that the percentage of registered voters is getting less white with each election. It is also getting more educated and less religious. And the percentage of older voters is growing in the GOP, as younger voters trend much more toward Democrats -- meaning the GOP will lose voters that will be replaced by mainly Democratic voters. All of these trends shown in the charts below are advantageous for Democrats.

The most recent numbers for the Pew survey were done by surveying 8,113 voters between January and August of 2016. The margin of error is 1.2 points.