A new study from Republican pollsters focusing on the Latino community said the party has "run out of persuadable white voters."
The report from Resurgent Republic and the Hispanic Leadership Network warns that "Trying to win a national election by gaining a larger and larger share of a smaller and smaller portion of the electorate is a losing political proposition."
The exit polls show the same thing. White Americans have dropped from 83% of the electorate to 72% of the electorate in the last 20 years, and newly released Census data shows the situation won't be improving for Republicans anytime soon, if ever. Census officials reported yesterday that the U.S. is on track to be a "plurality nation" in just three decades, meaning no one single majority group will exist as the white population falls below 50%.
Our children will reach that milestone even faster, with a majority-minority child population expected by 2018. That generation will set the path for the coming decades. The non-Hispanic white population is expected to peak in 2024 at nearly 200 million, and then begin to drop over the next 25 years. Hispanic, black, and Asian populations are expected to grow through 2060, with Hispanic populations nearly doubling.
This should give pause to more than a few Republican pollsters, who lost all these groups in 2012, and by large margins. Obama won 93% of black voters, 71% of Latinos, and 73% of Asians. Combine that with the changing demographics of the U.S. electorate, and the party faces a hard time winning a national election ever again.
The Resurgent Republic/Hispanic Leadership Network report found that Latinos feel the party does not "respect" their values and concerns as a community. It also found that Democrats have a messaging advantage.
This is no doubt why Republicans have been blaming tone over policy, but San Antonio Democratic Mayor Julian Castro contends, the GOP won't be able to win over Latino voters until they stop treating them as "foreign."