The long-term trajectory of American politics
What kind of seismic shifts can we expect to see in the future?
American politics in recent years have been, well, chaotic. Partisan gridlock and increased polarization have defined the last couple of years in Washington, and nobody seems to know what the future may have in store.
U.S. Elections are notoriously difficult to predict, but what if I told you that we can make educated assumptions about future elections just by looking at demographic trends/projections data that we already have?
“Demographics are destiny” was a common theory floated around by Democratic insiders after Obama’s re-election in 2012, and its proponents believed that as the share of white voters decline year by year, Democrats will eventually cement their electoral dominance over Republicans in national elections. Well, now we can look back at what happened in the two following presidential elections and conclude that this indeed did not happen. Donald Trump won in 2016 thanks to his impressive surge in support among white working-class voters and barely lost in 2020 due to his improvement with minority voters.
While we can be quick to disregard this “theory”, it’s necessary to grapple with the fact that there is a lot of evidence that the American electorate is changing in a significant way. Since demographics have increasingly become a strong indicator of political ideology in recent years, ongoing demographic changes have massive consequences for the future.
While “Demographics are destiny” focuses on race, I believe that religion, education, and age demographics are the game-changing factors that will shape the next few decades of American politics.
1: Religion
In recent years, religiosity has proven to be a good indicator of a voter’s political lean. This is a pattern that cuts across various race, gender, educational attainment, community types, and income brackets. Controlling for all other factors, voters who self-identify as Christian or report attending religious services often are more likely to vote Republican. A survey by Pew Research Center showed that white voters who attend religious services “Monthly or more often” backed Trump by 44 points in the 2020 presidential election, and those who attend “A few times a year or less often” broke for Biden by 6 points. That amounts to an absolutely colossal 50-point gap between the two groups, and it goes to show how much of an impact religion has on vote choices, especially among white voters.
As the data above shows, white Christians who are regular church-goers were the most important constituency of Trump’s support in 2020. For Republicans, there’s just one problem; these are the exact kind of voters who are decreasing in population across the U.S.
The main driver behind the decline in Christianity is the eye-opening generational gap that has arisen in recent years, with young Americans opting to not go to churches as often as their parents or grandparents have.
Millennials are the first generation to be majority non-Christian, and there is plenty of evidence suggesting that Generation Z will follow in their footsteps by becoming even less Christian than they are. This means that the electoral composition of future elections will be less and less Christian with each passing year as older voters die out and are replaced with younger voters. Now, it’s not guaranteed that religiously unaffiliated voters will continue to be as Dem-friendly as they have been in the past, but as a party that relies heavily on a base of devout Christian voters, Republicans should be worried about the sharp decline in church attendance and religious affiliation.
2. Education
The educational realignment is a relatively recent phenomenon in American politics. Republicans have increased their vote share among voters with low educational attainment, and in reverse, Democrats have continued to gain with college graduates. This trend is especially notable among white voters, and it explains why states such as Iowa and Ohio have cemented their GOP lean while states with heavily GOP-leaning suburbs such as Texas and Georgia have suddenly become competitive.
Non-college graduates constitute a larger share of the overall population for now, meaning that theoretically, Republicans have a larger room to grow. This, however, ignores the fact that Trump already received over 65% of the vote among non-college educated white voters in 2020, while Biden received less than 55% of the vote among degree-holding white voters.
According to the Center for American Progress, in the 2020 presidential election, college educated and non-college educated white voters accounted for 24% and 43% of the electorate respectively. In 2036, those numbers are projected to be around 25% and 34%. Meaning that while the share of the college-educated white vote will hold steady, the non-college white vote share is projected to fall off a cliff.
As we can see in the graph above provided by Catalyst / The Washington Post, the Republican coalition is far more reliant on non-college educated white voters. Any decrease in their share of the electorate will disproportionately hurt Republicans, and they will have to make up for the lost support by gaining support with non-white voters or somehow reversing trends with college-ed white voters.
3: Age
Age differences in voting pattern has been a longstanding fixture in American politics. Ever since the Reagan era, younger voters have tended to be more liberal than older voters. Recently however, said differences have become too large to simply ascribe to traditional generation gaps. According to NBC exit polling of the 2022 midterms, voters aged 45 and over voted for Republicans by 10 points. On the contrary, voters aged 19-29 and 30-44 voted for Democrats by 28 and 4 points respectively.
The common explanation given for this phenomenon is that young voters get more conservative as they age, and while that may be true for generations before, it may not be the case for Millennials.
John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times has covered this topic extensively on his recent article “Millennials are shattering the oldest rule in politics”, in which emphasizes that millennials are, in fact, not getting more conservative as they age. This statement is supported by vote analysis of four separate generations, clearly indicating that the liberal lean of today’s younger voters is likely here to stay.
Per the Center for American Politics, Millennials and Generation Z voters are projected to be about 60% of the overall electorate in 2036. If heavily Democratic voting behaviors of young voters today do not reverse, Republicans will come to face an abyss of electoral irrelevance.
Religion, education and age. Three separate demographic factors all point towards one direction. A very grim future for the Republican party that currently relies on a base of mostly old, religious, and non-college educated white voters. The future is never set in stone, and the current playbook of politics could be thrown out of the window overnight. However, as it stands, Democrats seem to be in a very good position to reap the benefits of these key demographic changes.
Yu Yamada
References :
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/30/most-white-americans-who-regularly-attend-worship-services-voted-for-trump-in-2020/
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/americas-electoral-future-3/
https://catalist.us/2021/05/trumps-improvement-with-non-white-voters-in-2020-was-important-but-not-as-important-as-the-turnout-surge/
https://enterprise-sharing.ft.com/error-pages/expired-link?contentId=c361e372-769e-45cd-a063-f5c0a7767cf4