Amidst all of the discussion about how the Republican Party is searching for a way out of the wilderness, the sheer scope of the Republican deficit is often missed. Currently, Republicans face a far more severe electoral problem than Democrats faced four years ago. Consider the following:
Republicans equally popular as Republican boogeymen: With a favorable rating hovering just on the south side of 40%, Republicans are currently about as favorable as most of their favorite boogeymen used to scare voters. Republicans are currently viewed about as favorably as legalizing marijuana, gay marriage, Communist China, and increasing the current level of immigration. All of these right-wing scare tactics--increasing immigration, legal drugs, gay marriage, Communist superpowers--hover around the same 40% favorable rating as Republicans themselves. Among voters under 45, Republicans lose pretty solidly to most, if not all, of these boogeyman. If you are only as popular as the ideas you try to scare voters with, and if long-term trends suggest that it won't be long before the boogeymen you use will actually be more popular than you are, then it is really, really hard to see a way back for your party.
Demographic trends point in the wrong direction for Republicans. This has been a favorite subject of mine for a while, as I wrote in Maybe It Is A Battle Of Civilizations, Towards a Pluralist Strategy, and The End of Bubba Dominance. The simple fact is that Democratic voting groups, mainly non-whites and non-Christians, but also union voters and the LGBT community--are actually growing in size. For example, when projected ethnic population growth (PDF), and is applied to current ethnic voting patterns, if the 2008 election had been held in 2020, Obama would have defeated McCain by 9.8%, a 2.5% increase from the 2008 margin of 7.3%. That doesn't even factor in what will inevitably be a large non-Christian and LGBT vote, two groups that vote for Democrats at nearly the same rate as non-whites. The point is that if Republican popularity stagnates among current demographic groups, overall Republican popularity will actually decline. They have to improve just to maintain their current level of unpopularity.
(more great anti-Republican numbers in the extended entry)
Democratic advantage two to three times as large as any held by Republicans: Even in the darkest hours for Democrats, the period from 2001-2005, they never faced a popularity deficit like the one Republicans current face. Using long-term trends from Polling Report, you can see that Republicans currently trail Democrats in net favorability rating by two to three times the amount Democrats faced at their lowest point:
NBC poll, Democratic Party net favorability edge on Republican Party, 1998-2009
Gallup poll, Democratic Party net favorability edge on Republican Party, 1997-2008
During this entire stretch, which runs back into the days of Monica Lewinsky, the Democratic Party never reached a double-digit net negative unfavorable rating. By contrast, Republicans have been in that territory almost continually for three and a half years. The same can be said for facing a twenty-point net favorable gap to the other party. While Democrats never fell behind by that much, Republicans have trailed by that amount almost continually for three and a half years.
I am not pointing this out to argue that there is no conceivable way for Republicans to close this gap. However, I do think it is safe to venture that there is no way Republicans can close the gap entirely either over the short term (say, by the end of 2010), or without a change in core message.
Can Republicans still win national elections by scaremongering on topics such as immigration, drugs, Communism, or gay marriage? Every day, the odds appear less and less likely. Can they win without a noticeably improved performance among non-whites and non-Christians? Again, the odds of pulling that off decline every day. Can they use the same strategy as Democrats-aka, don't be the governing party when the country is in the crapper--to find a path back to power? Perhaps, but Democrats were never as unpopular and discredited in the eyes of the American public as Republicans are now. If Democrats can't turn things around, voters won't think "OK, time to give the other guys a chance." Instead, it will be more like "wow, they both frakked it up."
Unless Republicans can find scarier boogeyman, unless Democrats really screw things up beyond even Bush administration levels, and unless Republicans find a way to start appealing to growing demographic groups, then they aren't going to find a way back to power. Eventually they will pull it off, as Democrats will not govern forever. However, I think the smart money is that they won't be able to succeed until 2016, or possibly even later.
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