Demographic and Geographic opportunities for the Democratic Party over the next 4 years

1. 1 | P a g e
Where do we go from here - The Democratic Party
Opportunities over the next four years
Well, this is going to be an interesting next four years. Republicans are celebrating significant victories
across the spectrum. Republican’s control the Presidency, both houses of Congress, 37 State Senate
Legislative chambers (55.5% of the elected state senate positions, while Democrats control 40.8%), 31
State House of Representative chambers (56% of elected state representative positions, while Democrats
control 43.2%). Republicans control 33 of the 50 State Governorships and a majority of the state supreme
courts that are partisan. Overall, Republicans hold majority partisan shares in the estimated 13 state
executive offices in the United States, even though not all offices exist across all states. Of the 13 offices,
seven appear in all 50 states, including: governor, attorney general, superintendent of schools, insurance
commissioner, agriculture commissioner, labor commissioner and public service commissioner.
Looking at the data, the Democratic Party has an important decision to make for the next four years, fight
the republican wave or acquiesce to their majorities and attempt to find victories within the confines of
the existing political governance model.
This crossroads and elected control Siberia is also counter to their overall voter advantages. With a poor
candidate, poor message and a bombastic force of personality opposed to the Democratic candidate,
Hillary Clinton still was able to win the overall popular vote by 2.1% and 2.864 million votes over
Donald Trump (65,845,030). Candidates not named Donald Trump won 73,982,422 votes, equaling
54.02% of the total ballots cast for President, so the truth is, 2016 did not mark a fundamental shift in the
American electorate—and revamping the Democratic Party’s entire political strategy would be an
enormous mistake. “This was an extreme election,” says William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings
Institution. Trump won the highest share of white voters since Reagan v Mondale at 61%. His voter share
of white voters to non-white voters was 87.4% white to 13.6% non-white, making his coalition the most
disproportionately white for a Republican ever. Hillary had the lowest Democratic white voter share ever
at 32%, doing worse than Walter Mondale who received only 34% of the vote in 1984.
All of that being stated, Democrats are in a solid position to rebound without the need to return to the
white working class voter community. In the 30 states that Donald Trump won, in which 47.32% of the
ballots were cast against Trump, even though Hillary Clinton only won 41.89% of those votes.
Conversely, in the 20 states and District of Columbia won by Hillary Clinton, the rejection of Trump was
more pronounced, with 62.79% of the voters voting for non-Trump candidates and Hillary Clinton
winning 56.04%. Clinton and Democrats won 88 of the 100 largest counties (including Washington
D.C.), which provided a vote margin of over 14.4 million votes above Trump. Democrats and Clinton
delivered a dominant performance in most urban centers and many affluent white-collar suburbs. She held
Trump to less than one-fourth of the vote in such mega-counties as Manhattan, Cook (Chicago), and Los
Angeles; expanded on Obama’s margins in growing Sunbelt cities such as Miami, Charlotte, and
Houston; and utterly routed Trump in thriving new economy centers like Austin, Silicon Valley, and
Seattle.
The common thread in these data points are:
 Increasing ethnic and racial diversity of these voters - 55.5% of the new Democratic voter base
were non-white including 22% being African American, 18.1% being Latino and 6% being
Asian, 24.4% of the other candidates voters were non-white)
 The actual impact of voters of color and their rejection of Trump – The anti-Donald Trump vote
among communities of color tallied 82.9% of theie share of the electorate (46,567,100 non-white

2. 2 | P a g e
American voters; 36,568,869 votes for Hillary Clinton (78.5%); 7,957,496 votes for Donald
Trump (17.1%); 1,985,950 votes for other candidates (4.3%).
 Non-Trump White voters who are more open to living in multi-cultural communities - the non-
Trump white voter base (44.5% of the Democratic base and 75.4% of the Third Party candidate
voter base, 39% of white voters overall, equaling 35,132,095 voters) are primarily urban dwellers,
younger, college educated professional or entrepreneurial in new economy activities, traditional
protestant or non-Evangelical Christians, unmarried and LGBTQ),
 Lives in the counties that generate the majority of the economic output and job growth in
America over the past 8 years - 65% GDP contribution from the 430 counties Hillary won and job
growth rate of 15% versus 35% GDP contribution & 4% job growth rate in Trump counties.
 Despite pronouncements otherwise, is spiritually diverse - The Democratic Party’s faith based
voter consist of African American voters of faith (70% are Christian, 7% are Muslim and 8% are
of other faiths), Asian voters of faith (majority of the overall voter population are either Christian
or Muslim), Latino voters of faith (over 86% are Christian), Arabic voters (over 90% are Muslim
or Christian), Jewish voters, and white Christians (Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian and other
Protestant non-evangelical religions).
So, if you’re Democrats and their party, what do you do? Do you follow the pundits and Trump, who say
you have to win back the former white Democratic voting base at all cost or do you shift to the voting
consumer groups who are buying your products currently. The comfortable logic will say that Democrats
must fight Trump for these voters, that there isn’t enough of the geographical diversity needed to reverse
Democratic fortunes in state based elections. I definitely disagree with this strategy. The democrats have a
winning base, they need to learn how to better maximize this across geographical lines to maximize voter
impact and electoral success.
The non-Trump white voter base will grow in four years - 6,956,933 younger white voters who will
be aging into the voting population by 2020 versus an expected 7,048,854 white eligible voters who
may die prior to the next election (via trending mortality rates by ethnicity). Those lost voters due to
mortality typically are in the age clusters of 50 and older and live in rural, exburbs and non-urban
counties, which will dampen the white Republican voting base numbers. The new White voting base is
younger (only 16% are older than the age of 65) and more educated then their Republican white voter
counterparts (Only 11% are non-college educated white males). By 2020, the white non-Trump voting
coalition voters could comprise 58.6 million white adults, 37.6% of the potential white Non-Hispanic,
Jewish, Arabic, Some Other ethnicity ID adult population
Increase in the overall non-white adult population - the minority share of the electorate, which stood at
just 23 percent in 2000, will soar to 40 percent by 2032. There are 46,567,100 non-white American who
voted in the 2016 general election, another 41,651,148 non-white eligible American adults who didn’t
vote and there are another 6,764,062 who are ages 15, 16 and 17 who will be joining the electorate by
2020. By 2020, the combined potential of the Minority adult voters could comprise 102.04 million
(factoring in projected morality rates, immigration considerations and the age in rate of teenagers of
color). Expecting participation of 60% by this voting consumer base, there would be an estimated 60
million non-white likely voters across America in 2020.

3. 3 | P a g e
Geographical diversity is growing - 39 percent of African Americans live in the suburbs, 36 percent live
in cities, 15 percent live in small metropolitan areas, and 10 percent live in rural communities. That’s a
noticeable shift from 2000, when 41 percent of African Americans lived in cities, 33 percent lived in
suburbs, 15 percent lived in small metro areas, and 11 percent lived in rural communities. Many middle-
class African Americans, priced out of cities such as San Francisco and New York, are moving to Sun
Belt areas such as Phoenix and San Antonio. Between 2010 and 2015, the black population of the
Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale metropolitan area grew 17.9 percent. The black population of the San Antonio
metropolitan area also grew 17.9 percent, according to Aaron Renn, a senior fellow at the Manhattan
Institute. Among the other fastest-growing cities for African Americans were Austin, Orlando, Las Vegas,
Seattle, Minneapolis, and Dallas.
The growing diversity of the swing states – Democrats fared well in states with the fastest-changing
demographics. Clinton won Virginia (+5.32%), Colorado (+4.91%), and Nevada (2.42%). She also cut
into the GOP’s victory margins from 2012 in Arizona, Texas, and Georgia (Texas 9%, Arizona 3.5% and
Georgia 5.1%) to single digits. But in North Carolina and Florida lost Florida by 1.14% and North
Carolina by 3.66% of the votes cast —two battleground states expected to trend blue in the future.
Winning the Presidency came down to a narrow margin of 77,000 votes in three key states (Michigan
0.22%, Wisconsin 0.76% and Pennsylvania 0.72%), while these states have sizable and growing minority
adult populations (Michigan 27% trending towards 30% by 2020, Wisconsin 19% trending towards 24%
by 2020 and Pennsylvania 26% trending towards 30% by 2020). This is a razor thin margin for Trump
going forward, requiring an even bigger share of the white voting population to shift to Trump in 2020.
The majority of the Swing states in America are continuing to increase their population and faith based
diversity that can benefit Democrats in 2020. Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico are or
will be minority majority adult population states by 2020. North Carolina will be less than 60% white and
Michigan and Pennsylvania should be below 70% white and Minnesota and Ohio will move closer
towards the 70% white threshold. This doesn’t include the growing diversity of Colorado and Virginia,
which went Democratic and New Hampshire which has Democratic and Independent leaning voters. All
of the major battleground states also have large population segments of faith based Democratic voters
(29% or higher population share) and sizable non-religious populations that vote Democratic (20% or
higher population shares.
The struggle of tending to an America that doesn’t exist anymore - the Republican Party voter
consumer base was 87.4% white, 4% Latino, 2% African American and only 12.3% nonwhite. Since
1980, working-class whites have seen their share of the electorate plunge by about 30 percent—and it will
continue to decline another two to three points every four years. Meanwhile, the “rising majority” that
favors Democrats—single and professional women, people of color, and millennials—will continue to
grow. Additionally, there are another 6,956,933 younger white voters who will be aging into the voting
population by 2020 versus an expected 7,048,854 white eligible voters who may die prior to the next
election (via trending mortality rates by ethnicity). Those lost voters due to mortality typically are in
the age clusters of 50 and older and live in rural, exburbs and non-urban counties, which will dampen the
white Republican voting base numbers.