If Texas flips it may set of a beginning of a totally new realignment of the map

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It’s just so hard to me to buy the idea that demographics are destiny when this country has been getting browner in every election since the 90s and there really isn’t any evidence that there is some trend of a drop in gop support

The 2016 result should have blown up the hypothesis, imo. It’s like the blue wall crap

It relies on the assumption that margins among groups stays constant. It just isn’t true. There has never been a time in our history when a party had a lock on the presidency due to some exogenous factor.

Harry enten likes to make this point in his podcast: the 2014 electorate was as diverse as the 2008 Electorate, and if turnout was identical to 2008, the gop still would have won 2014 by 4 points.

Then why haven't CO and VA come back? It isn't because of Hispanics, it is because of secular whites displacing Evangelical Whites.

Why did Trump find a path of lesser resistance through the rust belt compared to the Bush path of winning VA/CO/NV?  2016 confirms this, not rejects it. It rejects the blue wall yes, but the blue wall was shallow "Democrats have always won x, Trump cannot possibly win it". And also, "Republicans have maxed out among whites in the Midwest, they want higher incomes and unions above that point and thus they cannot possibly gain more". Trump won populist Midwest whites via protectionist appeals. This allowed him to juice non-college white vote to 65%-29% Republican (more than Reagan got with this group) and flip the rust belt even while under-performing Romney with college educated whites.

2014 was not the same electorate as 2008. Top line racial states might have been the same, but it was not the same electorate. Yes, the GOP would have still won 2014 with 2008 turnout, but Gardner would have lost, Gillespie would not have come so close and Kasich would not have got 64%, nor would Sandoval have reached 70%.

Margins among groups don't stay constant, that is precisely my point. Whites will not remain at their inflated levels once the Baby Boomers and Silents are gone. Will whites remain Republican? Yes! Will younger whites become more Republican then they are now? Yes. The important point is, will they be as Republican as whites are currently? No And this why GA and TX are going to turn blue, unless Republicans can somehow walk and chew gum at the same time and begin to peel off minorities.

Trump was a bad fit for co. VA is gone due to one thing: growth of the DV suburbs

I think CO would have gone republican with Rubio or kasich as nominee.

But the DC suburbs have not always been Democratic. Bush tied Fairfax and won Loudon and Prince William Counties in 2000/2004. Loudon gave Bush 55% in 2004, Romney 47% and Trump 38%

Just like Bush won Mecklenburg, NC in 2000 and got 48% there in 2004. In 2012, Romney got 38% and Trump got 34%

Just like Bush got ~65% in Cobb and Gwinnett, Romney got 55% there and Trump got 45%.

In Jefferson County, Colorado: Bush 51%, Romney 46% and Trump 42% 

It is the growth of the DC Suburbs yes, but more to the point it is the generational displacement of Evangelical Boomer Republicans with Secular X and Millennial Democrats. But that isn't just happening in the suburbs of DC, it is happening in Charlotte, Atlanta and the Texas metros. And this didn't start with Trump, he just continued it and in some places accelerated it.

[Tartarus Sauce]

snip

To reiterate, Republicans depend on winning the white vote by inflated margins to offset the minority vote in Texas, Georgia etc. Republican's margin with white voters come from silents and baby boomers. As they die off and as millennial whites age into peak voting years, the GOP margins with white voters will recess towards the national average and that is not enough to sustain GOP majorities or even pluralities in TX and GA.

This assumes that virtually no Gen X-ers or Gen Y-ers will be getting any more conservative as they age. In other words, for most people, once you choose and ideology and a party affiliation, they never change. Not a good assumption to make.

A very good assumption to make. The idea that people become more politically conservative as they age is a flat-out myth with no basis in reality. Most people don't change ideology or party affiliation, research indicates that political perceptions of the party in power during young adulthood is one of the most powerful influencers on life-long ideology. Yes, obviously some people change their partisan status throughout their lives or major shifts can occur due to crises that presage political realingments, and it's not that uncommon for the later-in-life party switchers to originate disproportionately from certain sub-demographics that get edged out of one coalition into the other (e.g. segments of the WWC right now). But taken from a broader view across the aggregate populace, partisan loyalties and ideological leanings tend to remain fairly consistent throughout the lives of most people post-young adulthood.

The types of numbers the GOP is now generating among those under 50 as a whole is bad enough, even worse though is the degree to which they are getting walloped by those under 30. Those are exactly the voters most impressionable to long-term political identity formation being set in stone by current events. They voted for the Democrats by an astounding 35% margin over Republicans in the past midterm. That's a generation of loyal Democrats. Will some of them switch overtime? Yes. Can a new political alignment emerge a couple of decades out due to unforeseen events? Of course. Could some become swing voters between a reformed Republican Party and an ossified Democratic Party? Absolutely.

But numbers like those indicate that Republicans have already burned their bridges with many of today's young adults, who will be carrying their more liberal identity forward as they age into peak political participation years. Any Republican that doesn't take that omen seriously is whistling past the graveyard.

[pbrower2a]

Should a Democratic nominee for President win Texas in 2020, then that nominee is getting 400 or so electoral votes, more than any Democratic nominee for President since LBJ blew out Barry Goldwater.

"If x is going Republican, then said Republican is getting 400 electoral votes" needs to die as a narrative. It presumes that states do not shift their PVI over time, which they do. Trends exist afteral and thus any such concept flies in the face, almost presuming a static map that never changes except by the uniform swings.

That is not how it works, swings aren't uniform (see 2016) and trends cause states to shift relative to each other all the time.

There is a realistic scenario in which Trump wins the rust belt states again and loses Georgia with Texas only going Republican by ~5%.

Why? Differential demographics. All Trump has to do is replicate his margins with non-college whites and scare enough college whites to voting for him bc Dems be cray cray to hold the rust belt, meanwhile higher minority turnout and surge of college educated white millennial voters causes GA to flip and TX to be closer still.

I see Donald Trump as a political disaster nearly sure to go down in electoral flames if he gets the Republican nomination for President in 2020. That says more about Donald Trump than about any American political trend.

The big trends in Texas may be

(1) that Texas is becoming more similar to the rest of the US in its demographics, approaching the American average in educational attainment and urbanization. To be sure, it is possible for a state such as Utah to be strongly R despite having demographics (it is the most urban of states, as it has few people living outside the cities on the I-15 corridor (drifting onto US 89 toward Logan) and being highly-educated. Well, that is because of the LDS Church which is a cultural monolith in Utah. Texas has nothing like that.

(2) the Hispanic part of the electorate is growing fast, and even the middle class is not trending R. 

OK, so if a state such as Michigan begins to have demographics analogous to those of the Mountain South (let us say Missouri) due to urban non-growth, then it can drift R.

This time -- should Texas go D, then the Democrats probably are getting 400 or so electoral votes. I have not seen adequate numbers of recent polls from Ohio or Georgia (I used to see lots of those) to refute or fortify your statement... if Bill Clinton could never win Texas despite  being from a neighboring state and having affinities to Texas culture, then what Democrat can  without getting fewer than 400 electoral votes?     

Note well: Donald Trump is not the trend.