Population Growth Trends and Republicans' Performance Among 2022 Midterm Demographics
Republicans Lost Young White Voters in 2022
A couple of months ago, I wrote about the demographics of voters in the electorate, particularly as it relates to the voting base of the Republican Party. It’s not exactly a secret that base Republican voters tend to be white and older. But in the 2020 presidential election, Republicans won majorities of white voters between the ages of 18 and 29 and 30 to 44 while they lost Black and Hispanic voters in the same age groups by 79-point and 41-point margins.
As I explained at the time, this is a huge challenge for the Republican Party. It’s a huge challenge because Millennials and Generation Z are more racially and religiously diverse than any other generation in our history. Let me throw a couple of recent new stories at you to further drive home these points.
First, the population of the United States grew by 0.4 percent in 2022. While this is a higher rate than 2021’s historical low of 0.1 percent, it’s still among the lowest we’ve experienced. Immigration accounts for 80.4 percent of the population increase. The Census Bureau notes, “Positive natural change (births minus deaths) increased the population by 245,080.” I’ve previously explained that we face a demographic crisis, and absent a sudden (and unlikely) increase in births, the only way we can really address this crisis is through the liberalization of our immigration law (also unlikely because conservatives seem to not be fond of even legal immigration these days).
Second, the number of “religious nones” (those who don’t practice any religion) has continued to grow, although not at the same pace as it had been. As religion and politics become more blended together—particularly the rise of so-called “Christian nationalism” and “national conservatism”—this will drive away the generally socially tolerant Millennial and Generation X voters. It’s a perilous place for Republicans to be, but it’s not like the party’s conservative base is learning many lessons from the 2022 midterm election. Granted, I’m one of those voters who has been completely turned off by the Republican Party’s embrace of Trumpism, Christian nationalism, and national conservatism, but I’m a Xennial or Millennial, depending on the definition one uses.
Everyone generally agrees that Republicans should’ve performed far better in the 2022 midterms than they did. Obviously, the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) hurt their prospects, and there’s no denying it. Yet, some conservatives are trying to go even further by trying to ban abortion pills like mifepristone and misoprostol. One anti-abortion activist recently said, “Everyone who is trafficking these pills should be in jail for trafficking.” Like I noted already, conservatives aren’t learning any lessons from the midterm election.
But let’s look at the age and racial demographics of the midterm election. As the CNN exit poll data show below, Democrats took voters between the ages of 18 and 29 by a 28-point margin and voters between the ages of 30 and 44 by a 4-point margin. Republicans won the ages of 45 to 64 and 65 and up by 10-point and 12-point margins.
Unlike the 2020 presidential election, when Republicans took 53 percent of white voters between the ages of 18 and 29, they got their clocks cleaned by Democrats among this same segment of voters in 2022, losing them by an 18-point margin. However, Republicans did win 54 percent of white voters between the ages of 30 and 44. Although, that figure is slightly less than the 57 percent Republicans had in the 2020 presidential election.
Democrats won Black voters in the 18 to 29 age group by an 80 percent margin but performed better by comparison with voters between the ages of 30 to 44 and 45 to 64. Compared to the 2020 presidential election, Republicans did 1 point worse among the 18 to 29 group, 2 points worse among the 30 to 44 group, 3 points better with voters in the 45 to 64 group, and 3 points better with voters over the age of 65.
Among Hispanic voters, Republicans performed better in all four age groups, but especially among the older two. In the 2020 presidential election, Republicans lost the 18 to 29 group by 41 points, the 30 to 44 group by 28 points, the 45 to 64 group by 26 points, and the 65 and older group by 38 points. In the 2022 midterms, Republicans lost these groups by 38 points, 23 points, 11 points, and 17 points.
It’s clear that Republicans have made some inroads among Hispanic voters, particularly older voters. That said, while they did perform better among voters in the two young age demographics, it’s only marginally so. Still, a marginal increase can be the difference in a House or a Senate race. Looking at the 2018 exit polls, the strides that Republicans have made with Hispanic voters are much more noticeable. Granted, that was a classic midterm election in which the party in power lost the House, although they did pick up two seats in the Senate.
Part of the problem Republicans had was the Trump factor. That may or may not wane. It really depends on if the base has a reckoning about the extraordinarily negative impact Trump and his handpicked candidates have had on the party’s electoral prospects. It also depends on whether the base continues to move more toward Christian nationalism and national conservatism.
Some would argue that the populist economics of national conservatism will be more attractive to independent and centrist voters. Maybe. Maybe not. Younger voters, centrists, and independents aren’t going to respond well to Christian nationalism and national conservatism because of the extreme social conservative views that these two particular ideologies represent and the prominence of those views in the rhetoric coming from those who are most often identified as part of these ideologies.
The “new hotness” in the broader conservative movement doesn’t necessarily translate to lasting electoral change, as if the 2022 midterm election didn’t already teach us that. The normalization of respectful disagreement, a message of optimism, and seeking to build bridges where they can be built would go much, much further with young voters, centrists, and independent than one-off movements that only seek to divide us.