Both Gallup and the Census Bureau released reports last week, and each of them looked grim for Democrats. The liberal Washington Post summed up Gallup’s bad news for Biden: “The percentage of Americans who identify as independents tied its high, and the percentage who identify as Democrats hit a new low.”
In the past, Independents tended to lean Democrat — until Biden. Since late 2021 the shift away from the Democratic Party, largely because of young Independents increasingly disliking Biden and his policies, began to accelerate. As Philip Bump summarized the situation for WaPo, “If you’re someone who identifies as an independent but doesn’t like Biden,” what are you going to do? Bump says they’re likely to stay home.
The 2024 election, as Wayne Grudem noted, will be decided by Independents as partisans for Biden or Trump are locked in and no amount of political advertising is likely to change that. So, unless something changes drastically between today and November 5 (Biden out, Newsom in?) Trump’s chances of taking the White House continue to improve.
The Census Bureau’s latest report on America’s changing demographics reveals that the Democrat’s problems don’t end with Biden, they’re just beginning. According to the Bureau, most of the faster-growing states are Republican-red while most of the slower-growing states are Democrat-blue. As Louis Jacobson noted for U.S. News and World Report, “For Democrats, the picture is grim.”
Wrote Jacobson:
Of the 10 states that experienced the fastest percentage growth in population from 2022 to 2023, the top five voted for Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020: South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Idaho, and North Carolina. Two others in the top 10 did so as well: Tennessee and Utah.
If that trend continues, writes Jacobson, the reapportionment scheduled for 2030 will tilt towards Republicans and away from Democrats:
Among red states, Texas would gain four electoral votes; Florida would gain three; Idaho, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah would gain one each….
Among blue states, California would lose four seats, New York would lose three, Illinois would lose two, and Minnesota, Oregon and Rhode Island would lose one seat each.
Among battleground states, Arizona, and Georgia (both won by Joe Biden) and North Carolina (won by Donald Trump) would gain one seat each, while the Biden-backing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania would lose one seat each.
Question: what about the influx of illegals that Democrats are counting on to vote blue? Writes Jacobson:
Not all the population growth from immigration will necessarily benefit Democrats.
One crucial caveat is that immigrants can’t vote until they are citizens, a process that can take years.
Another is that in the Trump era, Hispanics, a key group among current-day immigrants, have been shifting incrementally away from Democrats and toward Republicans.
There is at least one warning, however. In the Lone Star State Democrats have closed the gap with Republicans in recent elections, and as Rice University political scientist Mark Jones noted, “a blue Texas [with its 44 electoral votes in 2030] would effectively drive a stake through the heart of the Republican Party’s hopes of winning the presidency, absent a dismal [Democratic] candidate. It would be difficult to imagine a Republican being elected president in 2032 without Texas’ 44 electors.”
