Election Demographics

The Presidential election this week confirmed what many Republican strategists have feared. The GOP is in dire straits, and that is no exaggeration. The GOP is on the verge of no longer being a viable national party. The above-graph is the national exit polling demographic data from this week's election. Two demographic data points in particular stand out as troubling to the GOP.

First, Obama won the election with an 8 point lead among college educated Americans. That is devastating for the Republican Party. This is something that conservative intellectuals have been dreading for years, the tipping point of the tail wagging the dog within the conservative movement. To put it bluntly, the talk radio anti-intellectual wing of the GOP is killing the party.

The conservative movement in the United States began as an intellectual, east coast grass-roots movement. That movement is now dead, there are literally zero Republican Congressmen from New England left serving. The Republican Party, the political apparatus the conservative movement hitched its wagon to in the 1950s, has now devolved into a brand of rural, white, elderly, and lower education voters.

Not only did Obama win big among college educated Americans, Obama also won big among upper-income Americans, which is not surprising given the demographic overlap between high education and high income. Obama defeated McCain nationally among voters with > $200,000 annual income. This is particularly ironic considering that many talk-radio brand Republicans continue to hold onto the delusion that the more educated you are and the higher income you have, the more likely you are to vote Republican. This may have once been true, but unfortunately for them, that horse has left the barn, and it ain't coming back any time soon.

Jonathan Martin's Politico article today said it best:

Most ominously for Republicans, the GOP is increasingly becoming less grand than old – and outdated. As reflected in Tuesday’s results and exit polls, it’s a party that is overwhelmingly white, rural and aged in a country that is rapidly becoming racially mixed, suburban and dominated by a post-baby boomer generation with no memory of Vietnam or the familiar culture wars of the past.

Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty, the son of a truck driver who worked his way through college, is also passionate about the need to put a new face on the party.

“Demographically, culturally, technologically and economically the country is changing,” he noted, while the GOP is “stuck in a 30-year-old feel in tone and image.”

“We need a more forward-leaning, newer, younger, more diverse party. That does not mean that our values and principles get thrown overboard.

Overall, it will be interesting to watch the GOP over the next year as it attempts to pull itself from the flaming wreckage of the 2008 election. The infighting has already begun, and the sheer awesomeness of the hilarity is already in full force. According to the McCain camp, Sarah Palin is so stupid that she literally did not know that Africa was a continent, she thought it was an individual country. McCain staffers have also been reported as calling Palin's family "Wassilla hillbillies." So awesome...