The census results were released. We lost six electoral votes and probably close to twenty House seats. It’s going to be a tough decade for winning back the House of Representatives. We picked a bad time to get killed in an election. The loss of legislatures and governor’s mansions is going to translate into an easier reign for Speaker Boehner. On the other hand, the data demonstrates why the Republicans are in deep trouble.
But the most lasting political impact for Republicans and Democrats alike is the rise in the influence of Hispanic voters, particularly across Arizona, Nevada and Texas, which underscores the urgency facing both parties in finding new ways to appeal to Hispanics. In future presidential races, Democrats believe they can make inroads into Arizona and Texas, which are traditionally carried by Republicans, particularly if voters speak out against Arizona’s tough immigration law.
Texas gained four electoral college delegates (and therefore four new seats in the House). But the Republicans will never win a national election again if Texas turns blue. And pretty much all the growth in Texas can be attributed to a growth in the Latino population there.
I know this is a broken record, but Obama shares part of this blame. Why, you ask? He got to appoint whom ever he wanted to be head of the DNC. And whom did he chose? So he shares some. But what this also shows is the complete crap that are state Democratic parties(even after all that Howard Dean did). I guess the parties in states like PA like the scraps they are given.
I should make clear that I mean blame for the crappy turn out for the 2010 elections.
Calvin, with a loss as big as the Dems suffered last month, there’s plenty of blame to go around—including to the party leader/president.
Having said that, voter turnout is always down for mid-term elections, and the electorate is always older, whiter, wealthier and more conservative.
When/if Democrats do better at the polls in 2012, there will be lots of analysis—very little of which will point to the simple fact that we effectively have two different electorates in our national elections.
But what did the Dems do to mitigate the damage? Nothing. The Democrats lost Boo’s Congressional district(which has gone Democratic at the Presidential live since Gore) by the largest margin in ages. And until now, it was always 52/48(or 51/49) .. even in mid-terms. So there was something else going on besides just being mid-terms.
What was it?
BIPARTISANSHIT in a word.
The bipartisanshit that Obama has been dishing out has a huge number of negatives, and no positives at all.
But here is the key:
Bipartisanshit means that the Republicans critique Democratic policy, and Obama does not disagree with them.
Sometimes, he helps them out.
And sometimes he punches hippies just to get a win.
So, with Obama punching hippies and the repukes punching hippies, everyone is in agreement, and the independents think “hippies need punching, vote republican”.
Plus turnout, that’s the midterms
Dems did badly in the midterms because the economy sucked and voters blamed Obama for that instead of the rethugs who caused the problem in the first place. Reasons for this? Here’s a few guesses:
a) many voters are idiots
b) rethugs won the messaging game, somehow blaming Obama for “socializing the economy”, blowing up the debt, spending too much on stimulus, etc
c) many progressives ALSO blamed Obama for the bad economy, not spending enough on stimulus, etc
Agreed. I’m shocked that nobody’s being fired for what happened in 2010. Tim Kaine should be done, and I’m happy to hear someone make the case why he should keep his job, but the facts speak for themselves. In what should be obvious, why not nominate a hispanic with an organizing background as head of the DNC? If we can brand the Dem party as the champion of hispanics, we will be in a very strong position by 2016 when these trends finally start causing problems for the GOP in red state america
Let me understand this. Your whiney asses were sitting at your computers whining the entire election season about how the Black man in the White House hadn’t sufficiently paid his debt to white liberals, depressing Democratic turnout, but it’s his fault? Do you blame him for your baldness and large lady hips too?
You might take a look at where the Democratic losses were before you make allegations about talk on the blogs depressing turnout. I see that Jerry Brown won California.
But a lot of Blue Dog Democrats lost because they were not Republican enough for their districts.
I understand why you are irritated, but the exit polling doesn’t support your allegations.
You really think the Dems did even close to enough to get the base motivated? Most of the campaigns I saw were pathetic, and so is Dem communications.
But a lot of Blue Dog Democrats lost because they were not Republican enough for their districts.
LOL!! They weren’t? They weren’t only because they had a “D” after their names and not an “R”. Most of them voted with Republicans often enough. Voters aren”t given a real choice when represented by a Blue Dog.
It’s worse than that. Blue dogs criticize democratic policy, and so do republicans. IN a blue dog district, who defends democratic policy.
No one.
Little surprise that Democratic plans have lower approval ratings.
Don’t want to harsh your buzz, but they don’t need Texas’s 29 electoral votes if they have Florida’s 29 electoral votes, plus Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. And I don’t see how any of those states go blue in 2012 at least.
Why would PA go red? Especially with the larger turn out of Presidential years? When was the last time PA went red during a Presidential election?
These are the states that the Democratic Party better work at getting back in the game. The good news Washington state and Nevada are not as hard to crack.
The other good news. The increase in the populations of Arizona, Florida, and Texas are from a combination of the influx of folks from out-of-state (meaning a lot of folks from Blue States as well) and growth in the Hispanic population. For Georgia and South Carolina, the growth is from an influx of out-of-state folks. That means that the good ole boy effect is less difficult to deal with than in places like Alabama and Mississippi. A fifty-state campaign that tracks Democrats who have moved to these states and a focus on building the state party in these states would go a long way to mitigating the damage from redistricting.
If Obama holds all of the states that he won in 2008, he will comfortably win re-election. Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia could be a big worry however.
Good point, TarheelDem. Breaking it down a little further:
Washington is already a blue state.
*Nevada, Arizona and Florida are purple and trending blue with the growing Latino vote.
*Georgia seems to be where Virginia and North Carolina were 10 years ago—out of reach for Dems now, but within reach if demographic trends continue and Dems organize consistently.
The larger demographic trend that the census partially reflects: approximately 4 million Americans turn 18 each year for the next decade. If they vote Democratic 2-1 like their 18-29 year old siblings and cousins, then the 2020 electorate will start from a base that favors Democrats by an additional 4.8 million votes compared with the 2008 electorate.
*Assume 50% turnout for new voters in presidential elections. Assume those new voters vote Democratic 60% – 40%. That’s 2 million new voters per year, with an assumed vote of 1.2 million Dems v. 0.8 million Reps, or an additional margin of 400,000 votes each year.
Also assume that we keep working, keep organizing, and keep celebrating our victories.
“assume the new voters vote Democratic 60-40”
Well, you can make that assumption, but you’d be a fucking moron if you did. 52-48 mebbe. 60-40? College campuses MAYBE, nowhere else.
dataguy, per exit poll figures published in the NY Times after the 2008 election: 18-29 year old voters split 66-32 for Democrats.
Granted, if you look back over the last several election cycles, 2008 is an outlier. So assume something more towards the middle—a 55-45 Democratic margin by young voters. In that case, by 2020 the Democrats will have a margin in the neighborhood of 2.4 million votes from voters aged 18-29.
As always, past performance is no guarantee of future results. I’m just saying that there are reasons for hope, and we don’t have to look to hard to find them.
Is majority minority. Driving this is a growing Latino population, higher African American birthrates and a higher rate of white out migration.
I think the implications of the 2010 debacle are finally beginning to be appreciated. The 2010 election was for all the marbles. Because of more aggressive and effective gerrymandering, the winner of the 2010 elections is just about guaranteed to control the political process for the foreseeable future.
I would not be so confident about long-term demographic trends either. It should also be pointed out that the country is becoming more Christian, as family size is strongly correlated to intensity of religious beliefs (in all religions, but Christianity is most relevant to the US). This will further strengthen the Republican base.
America is NOT becoming ‘more christian’.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=7041036&page=1
http://www.doubledutchpolitics.com/2010/11/is-america-becoming-more-atheistic/
But I don’t need a link. All a person needs to do is look around, particularly at local churches here in SoCal. They are literally going out of business.
nalbar
JLG, one of the good things about elections is that they’re not for “all the marbles”. (It’s just another advantage over monarchies and military dictatorships.) You win some, you lose some.
Having said that, you’re right that the 2010 election results—particularly in the state legislatures—will hurt Democrats for the next decade.
And about all those children that intensely religious people are having (assuming you’re correct about that correlation): compared to the adult population they’re disproportionately Latino, Black and Asian, disproportionately not Christian and not religious, and disproportionately prone to vote for Democrats in margins that will—if current trends hold—add a 4 million vote margin to the Democratic base by 2020.
and so is net-neutrality.
Now would be a great time to abolish the electoral college. And radically reform congressional districting while we’re at it. Neither of these “sacred institutions” has any reason to exist in the 21st century, assuming they ever did.