Also, you have to look at WHY Republican states grow. Is it because Republican voters are having more children? B/c that's the only scenario that would make it reasonable to see the trend as indefinitely advantageous for the GOP. Much of the demographic change is actually migration and that just means redistributing the same voters. We see this happening with Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Virginia and so on. At some point this will start flipping these states.
And Vorlon, as always, raises an excellent point. Parity is probably the natural situation in the modern world.
Finally, demographic changes tend to affect policy, not the parties. Basically, if the US would shift to the right both the GOP and the Democrats would eventually shift accordingly. The GOP could in fact easily over-trend and end up to extremist and lose their hold on the country. This has happened in the UK, to give one example.
I think this is an excellent post. Itīs not enough to say "republican states are growing demographically". It could be that blacks or latinos in those states are growing, so that growth would actually challenge the republican advantage there. Besides, demographics is not everything. If that was the case, thereīd be no politics. A social divide, a social cleavage, becomes active when a politican or a party is able to work on it. Campaigning on the "war on terror" was a fine strategy for the republicans in 04, as it could for the democrats campaigning on "womenīs rights" in 08 (provided the new Supreme Court limits abortion). Politicians canīt "plot" to turn a state from being strongly democratic to being republican (as some thread on Maryland said), but thereīs no demographic determinism either. Furthermore, if the country becomes increasingly conservative, then democrats will do too. Politicians converge towards the median voter of that particular district theyīre competing in, thatīs why Maine republicans are more liberal than Georgia democrats. So both the republican and the democratic contender for the presidency always move to the center after winning their primary. The only problem is that the median voters in both primaries are located somewhat far from the general median voter, but that affects both parties, not just the democrats.
A final thought. 2000 and 2004 were decided by very slim margins. In 2004, an incumbent president in a time of war narrowly defeated a Massachussets senator that could credibly be portraited as "the most liberal senator in the country". I think Republicans should actually be asking whether they can win again without the Northeast and the West Coast.
