Image of the Day — Changing Electoral Demographics

From America’s Internal Environmental Geopolitics:

As you can see from the graph below, the US immigration boom has increased steadily in recent decades, and took off in a big way around 1990. So, immigration to the US is to a certain degree actually a fairly recent phenomenon (ignoring the pre-WW1 immigration boom, which is practically ancient history at this point). In fact, most second-generation immigrants from the heart of the most recent boom are still just turning 18 around now. And even among those who have already turned 18, voting participation tends to rise with age.

We already discussed the flipping of California from swing state to Democrat state, which was, at least in part, the result of inward internal migration from other parts of the US as well as external immigration to the state from Asia and of course from Latin America. More recently, immigration from Mexico has flipped the state of New Mexico, which voted for the Republicans in every presidential election from 1968 until 1992, but has now voted Democrat in every presidential election since (with the exception of 2004, when it voted for a second Bush term). In the 2000 election, in fact, New Mexico was surrounded by a virtual sea of red states (see map below), but still voted for the Democrats; it was the counterimage of New Hampshire in that election, which voted Republican but was utterly surrounded by blue states.

Immigration from Latin America (plus internal migration of young liberals to the city of Denver) may also have led Colorado – the population of which is now 20-25 percent Hispanic – to go from voting for the Republicans in every presidential election but one from 1968 until 2008, to voting for Obama in both of his elections. A similar thing is probably true of Nevada (now 25-30 percent Hispanic, and with a huge amount of internal US migration to Nevada’s Las Vegas metropolitan area in the past decade), which has actually voted for the winning US president in every single election since after 1976 (most of which have been Republicans), and could be about to vote Democrat for the third election in a row in 2016.

Many Democrats also think it may just be on the verge of happening in Arizona as well (now 30-35 percent Hispanic, and with lots of people from across the US moving to Phoenix), which voted Republican in every single presidential election but one since 1948. In 1964, in fact, Arizona was the only Republican-voting state in the country outside of the “South” – see map below. While Arizona did not vote for Obama in either of his elections, it may be that it would have voted for Obama in 2008 had his opponent not been Arizona’s own John McCain. Arizona and Nevada both produce almost no fossil fuels.

Immigration may also help the Democrats win the eastern states of North Carolina and Virginia, the 9th and 12th most populous US states, respectively, neither of which produce much fossil fuels. The populations of North Carolina and Virginia are both now around 10 percent Hispanic (in other words, far less than some states, but far more than many other states). The population of Raleigh, North Carolina has also been swelled by a very large amount of internal migration from across the country during the last decade, as has the population of the metropolitan area of the city of Washington. D.C., which extends into Virginia. In fact, the cities of Charlotte, North Carolina and Raleigh, North Carolina have had the US’s two fastest-growing Hispanic populations since 2000, and Washington D.C. was not far behind them. North Carolina had not voted Democrat since 1976 and Virginia not since 1964, but both voted for Obama in 2008 and Virginia voted for Obama in 2012 as well.

Even more importantly, many Democrats think these same trends are now working to help them secure some of the country’s largest states, most notably Florida. Florida has historically tended to vote for the Republicans more often than the Democrats, but voted for Obama twice (and may technically have voted for Gore over Bush in the contested 2000 election which saw a Florida recount, even when the governor of Florida at the time was Bush’s own brother Jeb). Florida’s population is now around 25 percent Hispanic, and in particular has seen a large amount of growth in its non-Cuban Latin American population and among younger Cuban generations. This demographic shift is probably significant, given that the original Cuban generation that has been prominent in Florida’s politics in recent decades tended to be relatively conservative politically, reflecting the fact that in many cases it was made up of middle-class and upper-class Cubans who had to leave Cuba following the Communist Castro takeover there. Florida too produces very little fossil fuels.

Illinois, which in recent decades has been a swing state that has tended to vote for the Democrats, has perhaps seen its Democratic base strengthen as well because of demographic changes. It is now more than 15 percent Hispanic. New Jersey, the 11th most populous US state, is a Democrat state that used to vote often Republican prior to Bill Clinton (and which the Republicans probably hope to retake, which may be a part of the reason why they have been considering choosing the current Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie as their candidate in 2016), and it now has a population that is approximately 19 percent Hispanic.

Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, the three largest conventional swing states in the US apart from Florida, have also had fast-growing Hispanic populations in the past decade or so, though their overall Hispanic populations remain only about 3.5 – 7.5 percent of their total populations. (Michigan also had fast-growing immigration from Iraq during the past decade). On the other hand, these states have also seen some outward internal US migration of young voters to other states.

Finally, even Georgia, a firmly Republican state which is the 8th most populous state in the country, could perhaps soon flip to the Democrats, the result of having a fast growing Hispanic population (the 10th fastest-growing of any state since 2000, which now accounts for more than 10 percent of the state’s total population), a large, long-established African-American population (roughly 20 percent of the state’s total population), and some young, potentially liberal families moving to Atlanta (which was one of the US’s fastest-growing metropolitan regions during the 2000s). Georgia also produces very little fossil fuels.