The always perceptive Ronald Brownstein has an article in National Journal entitled “Demography Is Not Destiny for Democrats.” You might see it as a rollback from the argument, made in detail by him and more sketchily by many others, that American politics was inevitably headed to a more or less permanent Democratic majority because of the increasing percentage of “nonwhite” voters.
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In this article Brownstein, looking at House elections from 1992 to 2014, points out that Democrats have been capturing the lion’s share of the increasing number of House districts that are majority “nonwhite,” Republicans have been increasing up toward 100 percent their share of districts that are less than 20 percent “nonwhite” and have been holding their own in districts that are 20 to 50 percent “nonwhite.” He notes, correctly, that Republicans have been doing just fine in many Texas districts with large “nonwhite” percentages — because, as indicated in the statewide exit poll, Hispanics have not been producing anything like the overwhelming majorities for Democrats that blacks have.
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I have been critical of lumping together blacks, Hispanics and Asians as a single “nonwhite” bloc. Two weeks after the 2014 election I wrote a Washington Examiner column looking at the voting behavior of the different blocs into which the electorate is divided these days. I noted, as Brownstein does, that “whites” are casting historically high percentages for Republicans. Here are the final paragraphs:
