Ominous signs for the GOP in North Carolina

by | Mar 21, 2018 | Editor's Blog, NC Politics | 10 comments

A look at a new Pew Report combined with numbers accumulated by Dr. Michael Bitzer illustrate the problem Republicans will face in North Carolina over the next decade or so. According to Bitzer’s data, more than half the voters in the state are women. According to the Pew study, women are shifting rapidly toward Democrats.

According to Bitzer’s data, women make up 53% of the voters while men make up 45% with two percent unknown. Even if all of that 2% is men, women still have a six point advantage.

The Pew data shows that since Donald Trump’s election women are increasingly identifying with Democrats. In particular, younger women are abandoning the GOP. Among Millennial women (born between 1981 and 1996), a stunning 70% consider themselves Democrats while only 23% consider themselves Republicans. That’s a yawning gap that, if not closed, will leave the GOP a serious minority party in a decade or so.

According to Pew, women of every generation except for the silent one (born 1923-1945) are trending Democratic. Women in the silent generation are roughly evenly split. In a decade, the youngest of the silent generation will be in their mid-80s and they’ll be replaced by the millennials who will be voting in large numbers.

Among ethnic groups, Democrats hold a commanding lead, too. Asians and Hispanics, fast growing populations in North Carolina, support Democrats by almost 40 points. In the coming decade, those voters will make up significantly more than 10% of the electorate in the state.

Educated voters are also shifting quickly towards Democrats. They’ve made an about face over the past 25 years. In 1994, 54% of college graduates without a post-graduate degree identified with Republicans while only 39% identified with Democrats. Today, 54% consider themselves Democratic leaning while only 39% identify with the GOP.

Party identification is not static. It can change over time and with the policies of parties, but right now, the GOP is only holding steady with a group of people who are shrinking—white men without a college degree. And while those voters still make up a substantial percentage of the electorate, the fastest growing segments of the population consider themselves Democrats.

If the GOP wants to stay a relevant party, they’ll need to figure out how to attract minorities and women. If the rising generation of millennial women continues to support Democrats by almost 50 points and women continue to make up more than half the registered voters in North Carolina, the GOP will find itself in a difficult position. In another decade, Republicans could find themselves in the position they held for most of the 20th century—a permanent minority party.

10 Comments

  1. Paul lillebo

    I find these voter “leaning” numbers suspect. The largest faction in that respect, nationally, consists of the independent voters, now running at more than 40% of the electorate. These are ignored in the article. The independent voter typically sees both the major parties as hopelessly corrupt. The Reps and Dems have no interest in reversing the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which has resulted in practically unlimited money being spent on behalf of candidates in our elections. The politicians know who gives the big bucks, and the big donors’ views on legislation mean everything to “our” representatives in Congress. The big money elections favors incumbents, and incumbency is the life-blood of the ruling parties. The only way to get the moneygrubbing parties out is to elect independents. To give all candidates an equal chance in our elections, we need to adopt a modern form of voting, such as ranked-choice (“instant runoff”) voting, where voters can express their true preference without fear that their vote will be “wasted”.

    • chaboard

      ‘Independent’ voters don’t run 40%…..UNAFFILIATED voters run ~40%. But the vast majority of unaffiliated voters ARE leaners who identify strongly with one party or the other. Very few *voters* see ‘both parties as hopelessly corrupt’.. It’s a pretty common view among non-voters, but there’s not much point in voting if you feel that way. It’s a population that largely self-selects itself out of the voter pool

      Oh and ‘independent’ candidates are MORE dependent on money to get elected….because they don’t have an existing party infrastructure to tap into. The only way to get money out of politics is to vote for the party that has consistently supported laws doing just that for 40+ years, and to vote against the party that sees money as equal to free speech. You have to get a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court before *anything* else works – and you’ll never get that running independents.

  2. Apply Liberally

    Which explains why the NCGOP has used surgical voter suppression, egregious gerrymandering, and meddling with judicial elections to impress their ideological influence and their fingerprints on our institutions since 2011.

    • Brother Doc

      Maybe the Russkies can help them keep their power–seems to have worked for Tillis’s election to the Senate.

  3. James Trovato

    Let’s hope the Dems can reverse the destruction the Rs have caused in my beloved, adopted home state. 20 years of progress completely zapped in 5 short years. So sad.

  4. Jay LIGON

    That the majority of white women supported Donald in November 2016 remains one of the more shocking aspects of his rise to power. The “Access Hollywood” tape where he bragged about sexual crimes, the many women who came forward reporting his assaults and his peeping on young girls, testimony by his first wife that he beat her so badly he pulled out clumps of her hair and his own disgusting admissions during his regular appearances on Howard Stern all seemed to disqualify him as a suitable person to occupy the nation’s highest office.. It did not. White Women and Evangelical Christians ignored those red flags and voted for him anyhow.

    A few months later, the #Metoo movement voiced the outrage of abused women across the country in stark contrast to the support of the same man from white women. Today there are three lawsuits pending in various courts relating to his philandering and abuse of women, and there may be more waiting in the wings.

    Donald’s election shattered any belief that all women vote for the same reasons, but if there were ever a person who could unite women against something repugnant, I would have guessed that the Donald would have been it.

    We live in strange times. A porn actress passed a polygraph test about her affair with Donald, while the president of the United States can’t tell the truth about the weather. He doesn’t have an honest bone in his body or a single moral molecule.

    • Christopher Lizak

      For some reason women don’t like to vote for other women when it comes to Executive office.

      Not sure why.

  5. Norma Munn

    Although I did not realize until reading this that I am part of the “silent” group – a description that would bring howls of laughter from my friends— I fervently hope these projections are borne out. Of course, there are Democrats I barely recognize as such so I think it safe to say that I will still be grumbling.

    • jay ligon

      I hear you, Norma!

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