How Demographic Changes Will Affect Future Elections

Many states’ political landscapes are changing fast due to rapid demographic changes, while others that are experiencing a slow, declining population are seeing their political landscapes change much slowly. Today, we’re going to take a look at how demographic changes will affect future elections, especially the Rust Belt and Sun Belt regions of the United States.

The first thing to note is that 2020 is a census year, which means that redistricting is going to occur after this year’s elections. The projected changes are as follows:

• New York will lose two seats.
• Alabama, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and West Virginia will lose one seat.
• Arizona, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon will gain one seat.
• Florida will gain two seats.
• Texas will gain three seats.

Considering these changes, here will be the (projected) electoral map for the 2024 presidential election:

Clearly, the entire Rust Belt region is declining in population, as immigration from Latin America and domestic migration is fueling rapid population growth in Sun Belt states such as Texas and Florida. In fact, most of the country’s fastest-growing cities, such as Phoenix, Las Vegas, Austin, and Los Angeles, are all located within the Sun Belt. It is, therefore, seen that as the Sun Belt’s importance in politics grows, the Rust Belt’s importance in politics shrinks.

The growth in the Sun Belt is fueled mostly by young people and immigrants, all of which vote overwhelmingly democratic. Therefore, even as Democrats continue to lose seats in traditional strongholds like Illinois, New York, Rhode Island, and more, they are more than likely going to make up for that in the Sun Belt.

This is particularly evident, too, in states like Texas and Georgia. Both were once solidly GOP states, going to McCain by 15% and 7% respectively. Yet, in 2016, the margins narrowed up significantly, going to Trump by only 9% and 5% respectively. Arizona’s margin moved from 9% Republican in 2012 to just 3.5% Republican in 2016. In a nationwide red year, all of these traditionally Republican states have moved significantly leftward. Therefore, the Republicans are losing a large number of their stronghold states—and fast.

If the Sun Belt goes blue, there is virtually no hope of the Republican party winning. Texas, for instance, is just too large a state for the Republicans to lose.

Adding up the light blue and the solid blue states, that’s 338 votes for the Democrats. As seen, even if the Democrats lost hold of the Rust Belt, it would be in no way disastrous to them due to their huge gains in southern states. Although the Rust Belt is trending red, that is not enough to help Republicans get back up to a competitive margin. For the Republicans to lose Texas is akin to the Democrats losing California—a huge, painful loss. But assuming the Democrats were to lose California in the map above, they would still win. That just tells you how huge a blow losing the Sun Belt is to the Republicans.

Just this year, Arizona, North Carolina, and Florida are all expected to lean blue, and Georgia and Texas flipping blue may be a reality just in the next election.

This population growth that is making Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico safer and safer for the Democrats year-over-year. These states, along with Virginia, are already virtually lost causes for the GOP.

With constant increases in the Latino population in Southern states, as well as more people moving to the metropolitan areas of Phoenix, Austin, Houston, Atlanta, and more, the future of the GOP looks increasingly bleak. Unless the GOP makes some fundamental changes to their party, they risk being made irrelevant in the near future.