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A Party Transformed
By Ronald Brownstein, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Feb. 29, 2008
In the crucible of the searing competition between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, a new Democratic coalition is being forged.
Their gripping race for the party's presidential nomination has not only increased Democratic turnout around the country -- often to record levels -- it has also significantly changed the composition of that turnout, possibly tipping the party's internal balance of power.
From New Hampshire to California, and from Arizona to Wisconsin, exit polls from this year's contests show the Democratic coalition evolving in clear and consistent ways since the 2004 primaries that nominated John Kerry. The party is growing younger, more affluent, more liberal, and more heavily tilted toward women, Latinos, and African-Americans.
In the 18 states for which exit polls are available from both 2004 and 2008, the share of the Democratic vote cast by young people has risen, often by substantial margins. Voters earning at least $100,000 annually have also increased their representation in every state for which comparisons are available -- again, usually by big margins. Women's share of the vote has grown in 17 of the 18 states (although generally by smaller increments). In 12 of the states, Latinos have cast a larger percentage of votes, as have the voters who consider themselves liberals. African-Americans have boosted their share in 11 of the 18 states.
These dramatic changes, measured by the Edison/Mitofsky National Election Pool exit polls posted for both 2004 and 2008 by CNN, represent the convergence of long- and short-term trends. Each of the Democrats' growing constituencies has demonstrated a special affinity for one of the two finalists in the nomination race -- young people, the affluent, and African-Americans for Obama; and women and Latinos for Clinton. But some of these rising groups have trended Democratic for years, and the key constituencies all moved, often sharply, toward the Democrats in the 2006 elections that swept the party to control of Congress.
"What you're seeing is that the particular appeal of Obama and Clinton is reinforcing trends that are already there and shifts that are taking place in the electorate," says Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University.
This real-time reconstruction of the Democratic coalition carries important implications for the nomination fight, the November election, and the future competition between the two parties.
Although both Obama and Clinton have benefited from aspects of the shift, on balance most analysts agree that the new patterns are helping Obama more. In most states, he has defeated Clinton among the affluent and routed her among the young, the two groups whose participation has increased the most. "If you look at the groups that are growing, I think it's safe to say that Barack Obama is both causing the majority of it and benefiting the most from it," one senior Obama strategist said.
The implications for the general election could be significant. If Democrats can maintain the allegiance of the constituencies now pouring into their primaries -- especially young people -- they could seize an edge in November's election, and potentially well beyond. "These are long-term opportunities that could change a generation of leadership in the country and give the Democrats a huge leg up on obtaining or achieving elective office," says Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for President Bush's 2004 election campaign and now a consultant for ABC News. "But it all depends on how they conduct themselves."
A New Coalition
The shifts in the Democratic coalition are particularly striking because they are occurring at the same time that party turnout has increased over 2004 in every state that has voted so far. These groups, in other words, are contributing a larger share of a growing pool. Latinos, for instance, increased their share of the Democratic vote in California from 16 percent in 2004 to 30 percent this year, even amid an overall surge in turnout. The absolute number of votes cast by Latinos nearly tripled, from about 440,000 to more than 1.2 million, according to calculations by NDN, a Democratic advocacy group. "The context for these shifts is not just a different distribution but a much larger pie, which makes it more impressive," says Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster unaffiliated in the race.
The most dramatic changes are among young people, the affluent, and, to a lesser extent, women. As a percentage of the total vote, the share cast by voters under age 30 this year approximately doubled in Connecticut, New York, and Tennessee; rose by at least 40 percent in 11 other states; and jumped by nearly one-third in two more. Even more dramatically, voters earning $100,000 or more at least doubled their share since 2004 in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Virginia; affluent voters also increased their share by about half in seven of the remaining states and by at least 20 percent in three others.
The relative increase among women isn't as great because they started from a larger base: Long before Clinton's candidacy, women already cast a majority of votes in most Democratic primaries. But with this year's continued growth, the party has tilted even further female. Women cast a majority of this year's Democratic vote in every state for which an exit poll was conducted -- and they made up at least 57 percent of the total in all but four states.
African-Americans and Latinos are also playing larger roles, though the changes are less consistent and in some cases less pronounced. In several of the 12 states where Latinos have boosted their share of the vote, including Maryland, Massachusetts, and Tennessee, the change has been small, and Hispanics still represent only 5 percent or less of the Democratic electorate in those states.
The African-American percentage of the vote, somewhat surprisingly, has spiked in just a few states (primarily Delaware and South Carolina); in most places, the increases have been small, and in five states, black voters' share has actually declined as other groups have surged. The number of voters who identify themselves as liberal is up in 12 states (including big jumps in Georgia, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire), down in five, and unchanged in one. Compared with 2004, independent voters have cast a larger share of the Democratic vote this year in five states, the same share in three, and a smaller share in 10 others.
Population changes explain only a small piece of these trends. Almost all of the groups that are rising in the Democratic primaries are also growing in the overall population, but not nearly as fast as inside the party's coalition. From 2004 to 2006 (the latest year for which Census Bureau figures are available), the share of the population ages 18 to 29 increased, but just from 16 percent to 17 percent; the share of Americans earning at least $100,000 rose from 15 percent to 18 percent. The female share of the population declined slightly.
Pulling the lens back to include the 2000 primaries in which Al Gore defeated Bill Bradley reinforces most of these trends. In all 14 states in which exit polls are available for both this year's Democratic contests and the 2000 primaries, the share of the vote cast by young voters and those earning at least $75,000 annually is higher now. In 10 states, liberals are now a larger proportion of the vote. For women, whose dominance in Democratic primaries is long established, the trend is mixed: Their share is higher this year in seven of the 14 states, and lower or unchanged in the rest. For African-Americans, dips in turnout slightly outnumber gains; Latinos have gained in all but one state, but mostly only modestly.
As these demographic groups rise in importance within the party, others, such as white men and seniors, are sinking. Total turnout for these groups is not necessarily falling. The overall surge in Democratic participation this year means that in many states, even groups whose relative role is declining are voting in larger absolute numbers: Their share of the vote is shrinking only because they are not growing as fast as other components of the party's coalition. (For instance, although white men's portion of the Democratic vote fell in Massachusetts this year, the total number of white men participating in the state's Democratic primary increased by nearly 75 percent over 2004, according to the exit polls.)
Still, it is the relative weights of competing constituencies that determine the party's internal balance of power. And, measured on that scale, this year's changes have accelerated a clear movement away from key elements of the historic New Deal coalition on which Hillary Clinton has based her candidacy.
Seniors' share of the votes cast has declined this year in all 18 states except Wisconsin (where it remained even) and New Hampshire (where it grew slightly). Likewise, white men have cast a smaller share of the Democratic vote in every comparable state except New York.
White voters with no college education, the foundation of the party's coalition from the time of Franklin Roosevelt through Lyndon Johnson, have also cast a smaller share of the vote this year in three-fourths of the states with data that can be compared with 2004, according to figures on 2008 recently published by The Washington Post's Jon Cohen and an analysis of the 2004 results by Abramowitz. In some cases, that decline was small. But just before the Wisconsin primary in mid-February, ABC News polling director Gary Langer calculated that a cumulative majority of white Democratic primary voters in all of this year's contests had college or postgraduate degrees -- a remarkable tipping point for a party that since its 19th-century inception has viewed itself as the tribune of the working class.
"The Democrats are replacing a union working-class voter with a nonunion upscale voter," says Dowd, who advised Texas Democrats before enlisting with Bush in 1998.
Tipping The Party Balance
In the Democrats' longtime upscale-downscale divide, these changes are tilting the party away from blue-collar and often gray-haired "beer track" voters toward younger and more affluent "wine track" voters.
Since 1968, Democratic presidential candidates who relied on beer track voters (such as Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore) routinely defeated rivals who depended mostly on wine track supporters (Eugene McCarthy, Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas, and Bill Bradley). But now Obama, an upscale candidate, is on the brink of capturing the nomination from Clinton, who has constructed a classic beer track coalition.
Obama is succeeding where his wine track predecessors failed, largely because he has won overwhelming majorities of African-Americans, who in the past generally sided with beer track candidates. But his success is also tied to the party's changing composition. Two of Obama's most supportive groups -- the young and the affluent -- are expanding their influence in the party. Clinton's strongest support has come from seniors and noncollege white voters, two groups that are waning in significance.
These shifts could create long-term strains for the Democratic Party. In particular, Democratic candidates may face tensions in reconciling their growing reliance on upper-income voters with the party's increasing emphasis on an edgy populist message that portrays the economy as unfairly tilted toward the affluent.
In the near term, though, the new patterns present clear opportunities. These trends are especially encouraging for Democratic planners, and worrisome for Republicans, because they compound changes evident in the electorate since at least 2004.
Exit polls in the 2006 House elections found that, compared with 2004, Democrats increased their share of the vote among young people, women, voters earning at least $100,000 annually, and Latinos -- all groups that also grew in most of this year's Democratic primaries. A recent Gallup Poll similarly found Democrats with a commanding lead over Republicans in party identification among young voters and women, a double-digit lead with college graduates, and even a narrow edge among families earning at least $75,000 a year. (The poll did not measure the Latino vote.) Bush's approval ratings remain anemic among all of these groups.
Like many Democrats, Garin contends that those attitudes reinforce the message of the turnout trends in this year's primaries. "This says a lot about the potential, and maybe even the likelihood, for a turnout configuration [in November] that is very favorable to Democrats," he argues.
Some Republican operatives agree. But looking at national polls that show presumptive GOP nominee John McCain leading Clinton, and running relatively closely behind Obama, most Republican analysts believe that the senator from Arizona can overcome those currents. That's partly because of his personal appeal to independents. But Republicans are also optimistic that McCain can make gains with the groups that have resisted backing either Obama (downscale white women and seniors) or Clinton (white men) during the primaries.
One veteran GOP strategist said that if McCain is paired against Obama, which now seems most likely, the Republican will need to overcome a likely surge toward the Democrat among young people and independent affluent voters by making big inroads among downscale whites and seniors who are uncertain about Obama's national security experience.
Dowd says that even if McCain wins, Republicans should still worry about these trends, especially among young people. On issues from Iraq to social tolerance, Dowd notes, young voters have moved sharply toward the Democrats since Bush took office.
In 2000, under-30 voters split about evenly between Bush and Gore, according to exit polls. In 2004, they preferred Kerry over Bush by 54 percent to 45 percent. In the 2006 House elections, they backed Democrats by 60 percent to 38 percent. In a race between Obama, 46, and McCain, 71, even many Republicans wouldn't be surprised to see that wide a gap among the young.
"If you look at Ronald Reagan and how he performed among youth, he created a generation of Republicans that was able to sustain itself," Dowd says. "Well, what Bush has done in his presidency is almost the opposite: He has won elections and lost a generation. Now this generation is emerging, and if Democrats end up winning this election, and then govern in a way that gives people a sense that it is a new politics, they will have a generation. It will be the reverse of Reagan."
Such are some of the stakes in a riveting election that is already remaking the electoral landscape. |
