This is an interesting study on demographic change as it relates to the American electorate. We all knew the future held trouble for the GOP unless they can get off the angry-old-white-people train, but these guys have figured out just how much trouble:
-Whites were 80% of the American population in 1980. Today they're 63%, and will switch from majority to plurality sometime in the early 2040s.
-When you look at
eligible voters only, the day of reckoning is postponed, but not by much- the eligible American electorate will be majority-minority by 2052.
-We're about to hit a tipping point in a few very important states, notably Texas, whose eligible electorate will become majority-minority in time for the 2020 presidential election.
-Generational replacement is going to be an issue, too. Baby Boomers currently comprise 24% of the American population. Millenials (born after 1980) and those who come after them will become a majority of eligible voters in about 2030.
Is there a way out of this for the GOP? There'll have to be sooner or later. I would not be surprised if the Hispanics of 2015 are considered white by mid-century- an equivalent article a hundred years ago would have been proclaiming the end of white America as "swarthy" Italians and Greeks took their place. Nobody remembers this, because Italian-Americans have been so thoroughly assimilated into mainstream white America that the only remnant of their past status is bad Mafia jokes. If Hispanics are the next group to become "white", Hispanic voting patterns may change.
(For that matter, the GOP could win back a lot of the college-educated vote by ditching the anti-science rhetoric and getting serious about global warming instead of trying to ban evolution from public schools. Due to the primary system, though, I'd be surprised if they make a serious shot at this within the next decade.)
[EDIT: I am now tempted to create an electoral model based on the data here pairing Clinton up against various Republican candidates...]