Is Doubling Down on White Voters a Viable Strategy for the Republican Party?

by Alan I. Abramowitz and Ruy Teixeira

Our findings indicate that the growing size of the nonwhite electorate constitutes a major challenge to the Republican Party in future presidential elections. This does not mean that a Republican candidate cannot win the presidency in 2016 or later. Given a sufficiently favorable political and economic environment, it certainly would be possible for a Republican presidential candidate to win the White House despite a growing nonwhite electorate, but this would require winning a much larger share of the white vote than any Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984. And Reagan accomplished this feat in an era when the electorate was much less polarized and party loyalties were much weaker than they are today. Moreover, our results demonstrate that unless Republicans improve their performance among Hispanics, African Americans and other nonwhite voters, the task facing Republicans is almost certainly going to become more and more difficult over time as the nonwhite share of the electorate continues to grow. Doubling down on white voters does not look like a very promising approach to restoring the White House to GOP control.

via Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball » Is Doubling Down on White Voters a Viable Strategy for the Republican Party?.