Can the GOP Overcome Demographic Change in Red States? by TIM ALBERTA
October 31, 2016 Republicans must adapt to a diversifying electorate or lose their influence.
Prescott Valley, Ariz.; Salem, Va. — Lee Stauffacher and Pam McKinney love their home state of California — its paradisiacal climate, its sublime topography — but they had to leave. The state had been overrun, first by immigrants legal and illegal, their cultures and traditions in tow, and then by liberal politicians who seized control of the government by catering to these constituencies and turning their communities into Democratic garrisons. The state became majority-minority in 2001; whites are now 39 percent of its population and dwindling. In turn, the GOP is essentially extinct, representing conservative enclaves around California but irrelevant in statewide elections.
So Stauffacher and McKinney, a staunchly Republican couple in their 60s, moved last year to Kingman, an 82 percent–white town in Arizona’s ultraconservative northwest corner. They figured, given the state’s ideological reputation — owing to hawkish immigration policies championed by generations of GOP officeholders as well as Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio — it was the ideal regional antidote to California.
But not for much longer. Over the last 25 years, the state’s Hispanic population has tripled, and whites have gone from 74 percent of the population to 54 percent. Minorities will be the majority by 2022. Arizona’s changing population means a changing electorate; and a changing electorate usually means a changing government. Stauffacher and McKinney, it seems, can’t escape this cycle.
They woke early one October morning and drove three hours east here, to Prescott Valley, where Donald Trump was campaigning. The area is rural and overwhelmingly white — hardly representative of Arizona, but perfect for reaching his core audience. Some 20,000 people came, law enforcement estimated, though only a fraction could squeeze inside the event center for Trump’s speech. Stauffacher and McKinney were among them.
“When I listen to Donald Trump, I hear the America I grew up in. He wants to make things like they used to be,” McKinney, a retired court clerk, says afterward. “Where I grew up, in the San Joaquin Valley, it was a good, solid community, but it fell apart when the government started pandering to all of these immigrants who don’t understand our culture and don’t want to assimilate.” She stiffens. “I’m okay with immigrants as long as they’re legal. But they need to assimilate to our culture. They can have their culture at home. In public, you’re an American. They’re celebrating their own holidays instead of ours.”
Read more at:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441595/voter-demographics-diversifying-republicans-falling-behind
