One of the standard assumptions of political punditry is that the 2016 presidential election is the Democratic Party’s race to lose. There is some truth to this thesis since any objective reading of the Electoral College math shows that the Democrats have a near built-in majority with a large number of deep blue states like New York and California (the biggest prize of them all) that Republicans have virtually no chance to win. Since the deep red states that are equally uncompetitive don’t pack the same clout, the GOP has to sweep the swing states in order to win the White House. This has bred some triumphalism in Democrats as well as a faith in some of the liberal media that conservatives are doomed.
Yet another just as important piece of the electoral puzzle needs to be taken into account before we start making assumptions about what will happen in November. Though we speak of deep blue and deep red states, the hold of either political party on the loyalties of the voters is as tenuous as our political discourse is stridently partisan. As the latest Gallup survey shows, the number of voters who think of themselves as independents rather than hardcore Democrats and Republicans remains high with 42 percent of Americans claiming that status. Just as important, the number of those identifying with either party is declining. But while there is plenty of bad news in that result for both parties, it is important to note that the losses for Democrats are greater than those for the GOP. In fact, the number of those calling themselves Democrats is at an all-time low in the 64-year-old history of polling by the venerable Gallup organization.
That number tells us something that confirms the party’s decline in just about every metric since Barack Obama became president. Democrats have lost ground across the board since 2008 and not just in terms of the number of Americans telling Gallup they support the party. The GOP has made huge gains in terms of state legislatures and governors, and they control of both chambers of Congress. Indeed, in terms of every measure of political strength other than control of the White House, Republicans are at their highest point since before Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president.
The reason for this can be traced to the way Obama’s highly partisan and divisive approach to policy disputes has undermined support for Democrats around the country. The party’s thin bench on display in a 2016 presidential race in which a weak Hillary Clinton is facing even weaker opposition also betrays the way Obama’s determination to govern on his own has hurt his party’s brand even as it has also brought out the worst in Republicans.
To note these results doesn’t mean that Hillary Clinton can’t count on the support of at least the rough half of the country that has backed the Democrats in every recent election in which neither party has gone below the 47 percent mark. But it does remind us that, although activists on both sides of the political aisle often talk as if the only thing that will win elections is turning out the base, the 2016 election will still depend on that growing number of independents.
This ought to be sobering news for Republicans as well as Democrats. In particular, many on the right labor under the delusion that millions of hidden voters stay home if the GOP chooses anyone but a hard-core conservative, and that if only such a candidate is nominated can they win. That belief dies hard among conservatives even if statistics consistently show their share of the vote isn’t diminished by the presence of a John McCain or a Mitt Romney at the top of the party’s ticket.
But Democrats can have their own version of the base myth. They believe the party’s growing dominance among minorities will inevitably translate into electoral majorities. But while Hispanic voters did help them win a number of the swing states that Obama swept in 2008 and 2012, it’s not clear that anyone other than the president can generate that kind of turnout. A lot will depend on the identity of the Republican nominee. But if Obama’s tilting of the party further to the left has made it less likely to attract independents, it isn’t logical to assume that his ability to win more of the center in the last two elections will be duplicated either.
For all of his political success, President Obama has done something no other member of his party has managed to achieve since Prohibition. Democrats have some key demographic advantages but also weaknesses that are there to exploit if their opponents can manage to nominate a presidential candidate that can appeal to conservatives while also attracting more independents. Democrats are clearly in decline and far weaker than its cheerleaders in the mainstream press think. Rather than the Electoral College cakewalk they think they’re going to enjoy, the incredibly shrinking Democrats face problems that they need to address quickly.