Hmmmm… Seems to me John Judis and Ruy Teixiara’s long-predicted Emerging Democratic Majority is coming true. Or the U.S. is finally catching up to the new political culture and post-materialist politics predicted by Ronald Inglehart. Check out this map of Blue America from the Gallup Organization.
What is immediately clear from the map is that residents of the United States were very Democratic in their political orientation last year. In fact, Gallup has earlier reported that a majority of Americans nationwide said they identified with or leaned to the Democratic Party in 2008.
All told, 29 states and the District of Columbia had Democratic party affiliation advantages of 10 points or greater last year. This includes all of the states in the Northeast, and all but Indiana in the Great Lakes region. There are even several Southern states in this grouping, including Arkansas, North Carolina, and Kentucky. … In contrast, only five states had solid or leaning Republican orientations in 2008, with Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska in the former group, and Nebraska in the latter …
The political landscape of the United States has clearly shifted in the Democratic direction, and in most states, a greater proportion of state residents identified as Democrats or said they leaned to the Democratic Party in 2008 than identified as Republicans or leaned Republican. As recently as 2002, a majority of states were Republican in orientation. By 2005, movement in the Democratic direction was becoming apparent, and this continued in 2006 … With Democratic support at the national level the highest in more than two decades and growing each of the last five years, Republican prospects for significant gains in power in the near term do not appear great. But the recent data do show that party support can change rather dramatically in a relatively short period of time.
February 1st, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: There was no seismic cultural shift in ‘08. We had a weak candidate (McCain) and a disastrous economy – the Republicans never had a chance. Trying to read anymore into it is just silly. Judging by the first 2 weeks of Obama’s appointments, this will be a one-and-done president.
I can assure you the conservative side will be rejuvinated and have come back much stronger than we were before. Don’t forget, we thought we had gotten rid of the dims in ‘04 too – This time is not different.
BTW, I don’t see anything in obama’s “stimulus” plan that encourages innovation or moving us into the direction we need to go.
February 1st, 2009 at 4:48 pm
There was no seismic shift in ‘08, its been more glacial. I’ve see this happening in Oregon over the past few decades. Oregon used to be a safe Republican state. As recently as the mid ’70’s, Oregon had a popular Republican governor, two Republican senators, 2 of 4 Republican congressmen and several statewide officeholders. Today Republicans have no statewide officeholders and 1 of 5 representatives. The Democrats control the legislature.
When Mark Hatfield retired in 1996 after 30 years in the senate he had won 11 political races and lost none. Gordon Smith who just left office lost 2 of 4 senate runs.
The amazing thing about this map is formerly solidly Republican states like New Hampshire and South Carolina in the strong Democratic column.
The Democrats gained in Congress in 2006 when the economy was supposedly still booming. Judis and Teixiara laid out the demographics and they seem to have been right. Bush was an aberration reinforced by 9/11 and with his incompetence and disasterous policies probably hurt his party over the long run.
February 1st, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Keep telling yourself it was McCain’s fault. Or the economy’s fault. Then explain 2006.
Face it, unless Obama screws up (a very possible outcome), we are entering a period of Democratic dominance.
February 1st, 2009 at 5:49 pm
I can explain 2006 with one word – Katrina.
Maybe, it’s not McCain’s fault, he was just being himself; hardly anything to get excited about, but better than obama.
You lefties have your own civil war to unfold these next 4 years, between the greenies and the blue collar union types. From what my conversation with liberals have been, is that they view unions (like I do) as dinosaurs. This “stimulus” scam is very tilted towards the greens and against blue collar interests (see fuel standards as an example).
Seems like they said the Republican party was over after Nixon, and well, we see that didn’t happen then either…
February 1st, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Sorry, I meant NORTH Carolina.
The idea of Oregon as a Democratic state is recent, although most of the Republicans were moderates — and moderate Republicans held out here longer than in most of the country, which is why the state stayed competitive.
While the Oregon Republicans weren’t still as dominant as before, the last Republican Governor left office in 1987 at which time they had 2 of 5 congressional seats and both senators. If I remember right they held the State Senate and a few statewide offices.
February 1st, 2009 at 9:51 pm
If anyone has actually read the book in question, you would note that the Democratic upsurge began around 2000.
February 1st, 2009 at 11:50 pm
The book’s preface says the demographic upsurge was underway in 2000, but that in 2002 (when it was published)9/11 and the war in Afghanistan had artificially boosted Bush & the Republicans. I’d buy their theory that demographics favor the Democrats, especially if the Republicans stick to their far-right positions. I’d argue that the 2008 election swing was pent-up demand that had been surpressed by the anti-terror scare.
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:46 am
Whatever the reasons, the reality is hard to deny. My state, Virginia, has also followed Michael’s glacial theory, turning blue slowly as the GOP gasps for air here. I would not just attribute this phenomenon to changes and demographics and culture however; the US remains center-right on fiscal/national security issues (albeit more open generally) but has become center-left on social issues. The Dems have also fielded much better candidates with the exception of Kerry in 04 and moved to the center; while the GOP is still held hostage by the hard right, it’s achilles heel.
I don’t think this movement is finished. With the GOP reduced to a regional party relevant only the South and midwest; with mayors and urban leaders growing in prominence (let’s not forget Rudy ran for president as a former mayor, a laughable idea even 10 years ago) and the party lines blurring at the local and regional levels; we’ll see more independents in the future and probably new parties being formed in the democratic strongholds. As candidates lose close elections in primaries in democratic strongholds, the temptation to leave the party and run the same race again in a general election as an independent or new party candidate will increase. We know what happens when power is at stake…
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:56 am
Yeah, these things tend to go in waves. Success breeds complacency, which allows the other side to regroup.
Take Illinois, for example. The Democrats own that state, and have since former Republican Governor Ryan went to the slammer for selling trucker licenses.
But the Democrats are hugely complacent. Blagojevich is only the tip of the iceberg. Deomcrats are seriously considering doubling the state income tax. Democrats in Chicago rammed through the highest sales tax rate in the nation last year.
The conditions for a Republican comeback there are good.
So… as Illinois goes, so goes the nation. I mean, we’ll see, but New York and California have gone very heavily Democrat the last few years, and are a fiscal basketcase as a result.
And with a “stimulus” package that is more pork that anything else, and that will spend more in 2 years than we’ve spent on the Iraq war so far, Obama seems to be taking us down the same road that Democrats in Illinois, New York, and California took those states.
February 2nd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
The disastrous policies of Bush II have shattered the late 20th century Republican coalition of economic, foreign policy and social conservatives. Bush exposed the Republican claims to economic aptitude and foreign policy wisdom as a sham. The sole guaranteed constituency that the Republicans have left are social conservatives, and they have an outright majority only in the Deep South and the Mormon West.
The moderate “Rockefeller-Republicans” are finally fed up with voting for inept stooges whose main (only?) qualification for office is that he (“Dubya”) or she (Sarah Palin) likes to talk about Jesus.
Obama could swing too far to the left on the economy, which would send the fiscal moderates back to the Republicans. Barring that however, the Republicans are in a very bad way and they know it. Demographics are not on their side with regard to stem-cell research, gay marriage, “intelligent” design, abortion, etc. They can’t win a national election on these issues alone, yet if they drop them they risk alienating a large part of their base.
February 2nd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Bush exposed the Republican claims to economic aptitude and foreign policy wisdom as a sham.
Maybe.
But if the states are the minor league proving grounds for the party, show me a blue state that is doing well, economically speaking.
All the big ones are at a race to the bottom, and all the standard Democrat remedies for budget deficits (raise taxes) will just make things worse.
When you have a David Patterson in New York doing surtaxes and such, it just drives more and more businesses to low tax sunbelt states. Texas doesn’t even have an income tax, for example.
On foreign policy, I think Obamas is in for quite an… education.
February 2nd, 2009 at 5:21 pm
I don’t pretend that Obama has all of the answers, but thanks to the excesses of the last administration, he doesn’t have to. Bush & Co. were so intensely ideological that, if one is even vaguely pragmatic, s/he appears quite progressive in comparison. Bush squandered the Republican’s self-proclaimed birthright/monopoly on economic and foreign policy expertise. The Democrats attracted economic moderates; the Republican repelled social moderates.
The true loser in the last election was Ideology. Elections are won in the center.
The point of this page is interpreting the map. The “big-business” states, New York, Connecticut, California, New Jersey, Illinois, have been solidly in the Democrats’ column for a long time. So long that they’re not contested anymore. The only way to really shake-up the map would be to compete in those states, otherwise it’s merely the traditional battle for Ohio. There are plenty of Republicans who could be competitive in New York and California: Rudy Giuliani, George Pataki, Bill Weld, Tom Ridge, Christine Todd Whitman, Arnold Schwarzenegger (if he could run), et al. The problem is they are all pro-choice and, for the most part, pro-gay rights. As such, they could never win the South Carolina primary, or the south in general.
February 2nd, 2009 at 5:34 pm
This is the biggest fiscal problem in America.
Notice that most of the examples are from Blue States.
Who is more likely to tell public employees to go pound sand?
Regarding social issues… I just don’t know. I’ve read Richard’s books, and he is very persuasive. Despite that, I still just don’t see why social issues should trump economic ones.
And, whatever you think of Dubya’s economic stewardship, I just don’t see any answers from the current Democrats (Bob Rubin, yes, but he doesn’t seem to have any sway in the party right now).
Regarding public employees, Bloomberg is saying all the right things. So what is he this week? An independent?
February 2nd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Here’s another good one. Democrats are making it harder to be an independent contractor.
Look at the states that are cracking down: “Since 2007 Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Washington have passed laws or set up task forces to force companies to put more of these workers on their payrolls as employees.”
Blue states, every one. Probably all rank high on Richard’s “Creative Index” too.
Wouldn’t the flexibility of that contractor status feed into the creative class? Isn’t something being sacrificed?
And who represents the interests of the contractors?
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Buzzcut,
Another way to look at this is that states are making it harder to take advantage of full-time, often low-income, workers by avoiding paying them benefits. Many companies try to avoid payroll taxes by calling full time workers with no other jobs “contractors”.
The law as I understand it is pretty clear. An independent contractor has their own business license, their won location and business phone, has more than one client, pays their own payroll taxes and benefits, and makes their own decisions about when and where to work.
I’ve been consulting as an independent contractor for 20 some years and have hired subcontractors. My wife has both employees and independent contractors in her business. So I’m pretty clear on the distinctions.
As for who represents the interests of true independent contractors, that’s a whole different story but they’re not being taken advantage of by laws designed to protect workers.
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Demographics are not going in the Republicans’ favor. Democrats are much more likely to capture the vote of those under 35, even more so under age 30.
Republicans also do not fare well with blacks, Hispanics, Catholics, Asians, gays, atheists, Buddhists, agnostics, pagans, or Hindus.
In 1980, when Reagan won, the country was 90% white and Christian, IIRC.
Today, Christians are 75% of the population and whites are 75% as well.
Bush captured the youth vote 55-45 in 2004. Obama captured the youth vote about 65-35 in 2008.
Do the math. You all can bring up as many irrelevancies as you want. The political shift had begun in 2000 and was temporarily masked, as Hayden said, by 9/11.
Now, does that mean the Democrats cannot fail? Of course they can, and the next four years will be singularly important to the political direction of our country. If the Obama Presidency is a success, the Democratic Party is probably going to be rewarded by a long period of dominance. If the Obama Presidency is a failure, we will probably continue the 50/50 back-and-forth we have had since about 2000.
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Swordsman,
As important ethnicity & religion are geography and income(class). The Democrats have been gaining in the suburbs and the middle class. Whoever wins them wins the election because they’re the largest segments of the electorate.
The trend to the Democrats in Oregon I mentioned before has played out primarily in the Washington and Clackamas County suburbs. The city of Portland has always, or at least for 50+ years, been Democratic. The rural vote has always leaned Republican — but it’s been a shrinking percentage of the population. The suburbs were reliably Republican through the 1980’s, then have drifted Democratic. Oregon’s First District (Washington Co) drove the R’s crazy in the ’80’s because it used to be theirs, and on paper they should have been competitive, but as the party got more right wing it drove away the suburbanites. Then the same thing happened in the Fifth District, some 50 miles south of Portland.
When the party machinery began purging liberal/moderate Republicans they lost the swing vote. I remember talking to a prominent businessman years ago and he said he’d been a lifelong Republican but then realized it had been a over decade since he had voted for a Republican candidate.
I think this same trend has been happening across the country. The Republicans aren’t ever going to get Blacks, Hispanics, gays, etc. in any numbers. But if they could recapture the suburbs and middle class they could become competitive again. Obama’s success with these groups will determine the long term direction of our politics.
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:34 am
And I’m telling you that that success in the ‘burbs is built on a house of cards. When the economy is good, you can vote based on social issues. When it isn’t, you come back to basic issues of finance.
When the public employee unions dominate the Democrat party, and when those unions and their insane sallaries and benefits are causing your taxes to be raised to unsustainable levels… I think that will be the tipping point back.
Or maybe not. I mean, California and New York are there, and Democrats are even more powerful than they ever were. The taxes are just stupid. And outside of a couple of enclaves, their economies are in freefall. They’re losing population. California is going to lose a Congressional seat in the next Census for the first time, for example.
So what’s happening is the blue states are shrinking, and the Red sunbelt states are gaining population (but getting a little bluer as a result).
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:23 am
According to the recent Rasmussen poll, “the plurality of GOP voters (43%) say their party has been too moderate over the past eight years, and 55% think it should become more like Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in the future.” (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/republicans_like_gop_s_conservative_direction_democrats_don_t)
If this is true then Republicans better get used to the map, above. It is their future.
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:33 am
Yeah, the “blueing” has really worked out great for California.
/S
California is a beautiful piece of land, with a shrinking population, the republicans are moving to Nevada and the liberals are stuck raising taxes on each other. I can’t think of a reason anyone would live there; San Francisco is one massive earthquake away from losing it too.
Funny how 9 out of 10 of the worst cities in the US have democratic mayors. Not a coincidence.
Michael Wells:
What makes you think the Repbulicans can’t get the black vote? Catholic voters are now mostly Republicans and that didn’t happen until after they got a president in office (JFK). Now that the African-American community has landed a president (as a democrat) they can (and will) move on. I’ve yet to meet an African-American who agrees with the abortion/gay rights platform of the lefties. Over the next few decades I believe you will see them shift to the Republican side as the economic opportunities increase and their standard of living increases.
The Republicans have made great strides on the governor ballots as well, that will eventually translate into a better candidate for president.
No one in this thread has addressed my question of how the greenies and the blue collared’s are going to co-exist. By all means keep focusing on social conservatives whom you think are the weak link.
February 3rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
tpk, keep in mind that both political parties have their hard cores.
43% of Democrats probably think their party was too “moderate” too. They wanted Dubya impeached, and even now want Holder to go after former Bush officials.
That would be a rat hole that the country doesn’t need to go down. Not unlike the impeachment of Clinton, which probably was the start of social conservatives alienating the economic conservatives out of the Republican Party.