As Republicans are growing older, Democrats are becoming more diverse and less religiously inclined, a new Pew Research survey shows.
Party identification for all registered voters has been nearly static since 1992 in general, but the makeup of the majority parties has seen some dramatic shifts in race, ethnicity and education, according to the study.
The nonwhite voting population has grown by 12 points, and a majority fall into the Democratic Party. Nonwhite Republican voters have increased since 1992, but not by much.
As the Democratic Party has grown more diverse, it has also become more educated, with the percent of voters with a college degree up from 21 percent in 1992 to 37 percent today. Voters with a postgraduate degree in 2016 are also more likely to be Democrats, with 59 percent identifying with the party, as opposed to the 36 percent in the GOP.
Meanwhile Republican Party’s base has grown older, with the percent of 50 and older voters increasing by 20 points. In all, more than half of registered voters are 50 and older, according to the study.
Pew Research Center surveyed registered voters nationally since 1992. In 2016, the center polled 8,113 registered voters from January to August, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percent.
Republicans; the older, dumber, whiter and meaner Party.
Real attractive if you’re one of those.
Democrats have everything going for them except the cheating factor. We play by the rules and the other side doesn’t even recognize the meaning of that.
Cheaters never prosper, that’s also the good news!
Not clear why the article isn’t also pointing out that relative to the larger population, the Republican party has also become less educated during this time. So, less diverse, less educated, older, and slightly more religious.
This points up quite strongly the benefits to the Republicans from the suppression of non-white voters. In fact, it shows that it is essential if the Republicans are to have electoral success on a national level. I’m sure Kris Kobach and Hans von Spakovsky are on top of this.
The GOP base is dominated by people who grew up when you didn’t need a college degree to succeed in life and who think the same is still true courtesy of fairy tales about China/Mexico being the cause of all our woes. It’s hard to reach out to younger voters when you have nothing to offer them for fear of offending the misinformed current party members. Doubly so when you’re still bent on “family values” (Trump family values? shiver) when people have grown up observing bellicose fundamentalism and the obvious attempts to hide clerical sex abuse.
The election data has been indicating this for some time, a fact that the Southern Strategy-driven GOP has been purposefully deaf to (the 2012 GOP Growth & Opportunity Report has been a clarion call we’ll see ignored for at least another election cycle). They’ve worked hard for this upcoming disaster.
When you’re more of an opposition-to-all-things party and are too busy tearing shit down rather than building something (besides imaginary 100 feet tall walls), your rhetoric is impotent and you allow the other party to set the playing field. We went through this as a party ourselves during the late 70s, the mid 80s and during the Bush years.
Fortunately for progressives, it’s too late for Republicans to turn their ship about. The only thing that will give them pause is a political drowning en masse. And boy is that on its way.