Saturday, March 19, 2016

The GOP’s Demographic Demise Was On Full Display At The Miami Debate

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/03/11/3759023/gop-demographic-demise/
"After losing the 2012 presidential election, the Republican Party underwent some soul searching, and produced an “autopsy report” urging future candidates to reach out to non-white voters, women, and young people. The GOP then proceeded to follow none of these recommendations, and now Republican strategists warn that the party is dooming itself not only in 2016 election, but for a generation or more to come. This November, Latinos will make up a higher percentage of the electorate than ever before, especially in key swing states like Colorado, Nevada, and Florida. There will be more than 27 million eligible Latino voters this fall, and more than half of them are millenials. Polls this year have repeatedly shown these voters have unfavorable views of Donald Trump as Trump continues to advance towards the Republican nomination. The Pew Research Center found that about two-thirds of Latino voters say that it’s extremely important or very important to have changes in federal immigration policies to pass new immigration legislation soon. The same poll found that about one-third of Latino voters say that they would not vote for a candidate if they disagreed with the candidate on immigration policy. Republican presidential candidates may need anywhere between 42 and 47 percent of the Latino vote, especially in key battleground states like Virginia, Ohio, New Mexico, Florida, Nevada, and Colorado, the polling group Latino Decisions found. The party won less than 30 percent in 2012. The GOP is also showing signs of losing the youth vote. After conducting surveys of more than 1,000 18 to 26-year-olds, top Republican pollster Frank Luntz reported “a chasm of disconnection that renders every prominent national Republican irrelevant with the voting bloc that could control campaigns for the next 30 years"."