Is the Republican Party in decline?

[Annatar]

Well the statistics would say no, in terms of state legislatures, Republicans are the strongest they have been since the 1920's.

They hold the Senate and have a huge advantage now because of the 2016 realignment, only 26 states with 52 senate seats voted to the right of the nation in 2012, that went up to 64 senate seats in 2016 and 62 in 2020, even if Republicans run average candidates, in most years they will win control of the senate due to the post 2016 realignment which gives them a huge advantage in the Senate.

In the house, they will almost assuredly take back control in 2022 and they will be able to expand their number of safe seats since they control redistricting in most states.

With regard to demographics, well a lot could be written here, and there a lot of myths.

Let us start with age, the oldest Republican coalition was in 2012, in 2016 Trump did worse with voters over 65, winning them by 7% vs 12% for Romney, he did better with younger voters, so the Republican coalition got younger in 2016 relative to 2012, in 2020 again Trump lost as much or more ground with overs over 65 than voters under 65 so the coalition became somewhat younger again.

Regarding the base dying off, according to the AP exit polls, Trump won 65+ voters 51/48 over Biden, basically a 50/50 split, and we know of the 65+ voters, the most Republican are those born in the 1940's, so voters in their late 60's, so Biden likely won voters in their late 70's and 80's, the voters who dies the most each year, so actually more Biden voters are likely to die by 2024 than Trump voters, so the GOP base is hardly dying off when more Biden voters are likely to die each year than Trump voters.


As for appeal to future generations, well as long as people keep getting more Republican as they get older the GOP will be fine, I am using Edison exit polls here since they go back decades and use the same methodology, Clinton's best age group in 1996 were voters aged 18-29, he won them by 19%, how did these voters vote 20 years later when they were in their 40's, 40-49 year olds voters voted for Trump by a 3% margin, that is a 22% shift towards Republicans over 20 years.

Let us take a more recent example, in 2016, 30-39 year old voters voted for Clinton by 12%, who were the cohorts that turned 30 by 2020 vs 2016, well it was 25-29 year olds in 2016 who in 2020 were now in their 30's, well 25-29 year olds voted by 16% for Clinton. So in theory the 30-39 year old cohort should have gotten more democratic in 2020 as a D+16 cohort replaced voters in their early 30's, did that happen, no, Biden won 30-39 year old voters by 5%, so he did worse despite a more democratic cohort, voters in their late 20's replacing voters in their early 30's, so again voters became more Republican as they aged.


Let us go on, in 2008 voters aged 18-29 voted for Obama by 34%, these voters in 2020 were aged 30-42, so mainly 30-39, did they vote by 34% for the democrats, no, Biden won 30-39 voters by 5%.

I could go on and give example after example of voters getting more Republican as they get older but it would get repetitive.

As for high propensity voters, Republicans still do better with voters over 30 than under 30, these are the voters that really stay home in non-presidential years and Republicans do worse than democrats with Hispanic voters who also don't tend to vote much outside of presidential years, Republicans still have the higher turnout base, one simple reason is among college whites, non-college whites, Hispanics etc, it is the youngest among these groups that stay home in non-presidential years and the GOP does the worst with the youngest voters in all of these groups.

For example take college whites, which college whites stay home in a midterm, the younger college whites and which college whites are the most democratic, the younger ones, the same holds for all demographic groups except blacks, Republicans still have more high propensity voters.

[Annatar]

Only won the popular vote once since 1988.

Lost their House majority.

Has effectively become a personality cult built around one individual who will very likely be dead or in jail within the next few years.

Has shown no ability to get their base out to vote when said individual is not on the ballot.

Has plummeted with white, college-educated and suburban voters (the highest propensity voters).

Electoral college and Senate advantages may be slipping as states like AZ, GA, NC, TX move left.

Base is dying off, party has almost zero appeal to future generations and growing demographics.

Literally doesn't even have a platform anymore.

If we're going to ask this question about the Democratic Party, which just won the presidency against an incumbent who couldn't even get 47% of the vote, why not ask it about a party that you could make a much better case is slowly but surely declining?

Neither party is going anywhere and presidential elections will be hard-fought tossups well into the future. The Democrats are at a serious disadvantage in the Electoral College though which makes it easier for Republicans to win while losing the popular vote and this scenario will likely happen again in the next 20 years. Republicans also need to do better among younger voters in future elections although most people do tend to get more conservative as they age.

Last part is not actually true, if anything closer to the opposite:

https://www.livescience.com/2360-busting-myth-people-turn-liberal-age.html

But really it has more to do with when you are born and grow up:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/08/upshot/how-the-year-you-were-born-influences-your-politics.html

There is no reason to believe based on this that millennials will suddenly become conservative.

All these studies are wrong, if voters did not get more Republican as they get older the Republican party would have been finished by the late 2000's since democrats have been winning younger voters for decades, either the real life election results are all fake or these studies are fake.