Election 2012 Postmortem: Fun With Numbers

In 2011, for the first time since white people helped themselves to this continent, minority births outnumbered white births. Looking ahead, projections have America's white population falling below 50 percent before the year 2040.

Why does this matter? You're not a racist. I'm not a racist. We are practically color blind, you and I! We are  both very awesome humans.

The stats matter because of how this year's voting breaks down by ethnicity. Look:

Latinos chose Obama 71-27 over Romney;
Among African Americans, Obama won 93-5;
Asians: 73-24 for Obama;
Three quarters of other nonwhites chose Obama.

If we set up the U.S. demographics for the 2036 election using these parameters:

White: 50 percent
Latino: 26 percent
African American: 12 percent
Asian: 4 percent
Other nonwhite: 8 percent

And we simply extrapolate 2012 preferences to that new population, we get the following scores:

White: Republican 29, Democrat 21
Latino: R 7, D 19
Black: R 1, D 11
Asian: R 1, D 3
Other: R 2, D 6

Add everything up: D 60, R 40.

Let me restate, without giggling: the Democrat wins 60 percent of the vote in an entirely theoretical but unfarfetched election.

Granted, I'm not accounting for a rogue asteroid strike, or nuclear annihilation, or alien invasion, or even a spectacular zombie apocalypse. But come on: the poplar vote hasn't been that unbalanced since Nixon cleaned house in '72. In fact, only four presidential candidates ever have crossed the 60 percent threshold: the aforementioned Dick, plus LBJ in 1964, FDR in 1936, and some guy named Harding in 1920.

Even Reagan, when he won the Electoral College 525-13 (he really did that), didn't crack 60 percent of the vote.

It's been said that in American politics, demographics is destiny. Well, in that case, for the foreseeable future, if white men and evangelicals remain the base of the Republican Party, and everyone else forms the base of the Democrats, my money's on the D's.

P.S. -- Each week, I'll rehash one aspect of the election we just endured / produced / witnessed. Coming soon: SSM, legalization of pot, immigration, racism, Senate Shake-up, and others. Tune in for our next episode. Sometime.