kane

It isn't about today. It is about 10-15 years from now. Right now more people are registering as Independents than Democrat or Republican combined. The Democrats have been harder hit in that area and have lost more people who identify as Democrats than the Republicans have, but that doesn't mean these new independents won't vote Democrat. The number of Democrat leaning independents and Republican leaning independents is almost identical, at least according to Gallup. So even though the Democrats have lost about 13% of the total number of people who identified themselves as Democrats at the time of the election it doesn't mean most of those people are suddenly going to vote republican.

Here are some stats about what I was talking about pulled from various sources.

Many people call the current generation (those who are around 15-25 years old) Millennials. By 2015 these people will make up 33% of the electorate. 39% of these voters identify themselves as non-white. In many states the number of young voters tripled or quadrupled their turnout as compared to 2004.

These young voters supported democrats by a 2 to 1 margin in 2008.

47% of these people identify themselves as Democrats.

Voter turnout among this age group has risen in each of the last three elections.

Right now there is a general discord among many voters. They are angry with both parties and are starting to identify themselves as independents. However, the question is "who will they support?" Just like the Tea Party 95% of the time supports republicans, many of these new independents are going to be left leaning. As this age group comes into power and more and more blacks and Latinos are voting, odds are they are going to swing democrat whether they identify as democrat or not.

The Republican party has been trying hard to reach out to these voters over the last several years, but has had very little luck. They are trying to shed their image as the party of the rich white guy, but have had very little luck. This doesn't mean they will not be relevant in the next few elections, they will. They will likely win back the house this fall and have a very slim chance of winning back the senate as well.

What has to be worrying them is 10-15 years down the road. If they want to remain relevant they are going to have to expand their base. They are going to have to either pull in more middle class white people or figure out a way attract black and Latino voters. It seems like they have decided to go the route of attracting more middle class white voters by kicking up the heavy immigration reform talk. They know if they can get the law in Arizona to stick it will catch on and more states will quickly follow suit. This could kill their chances with a lot of minorities, but it could bring them in a bunch more white voters.