Timeline shortens for La. to become a minority majority state
9th March 2015 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
According to a new study around 2035, Louisiana will become a minority-majority state. In other words, in about 20 years, the politics of the state as a whole could more closely resemble the politics of the City of New Orleans.
That does not mean necessarily that the state of Louisiana will transform into a Democratic Party majority, but if current demographic trends remain constant, candidates – especially Caucasian ones-will have to build multiracial coalitions to win.
And African-American politicians, as they already do in New Orleans, will begin to learn the importance of courting Asian and Hispanic votes to prevail.
A new study commissioned by the Center for American progress finds that Louisiana will cross the threshold of minority majority by the 2030s, along with Alaska and New York.
As Ruy Teixeira, William H. Frey, and Rob Griffin write, “The scale of race-ethnic transformation in the United States is stunning. In 1980, the population of the United States was 80 percent white. Today, that proportion has fallen to 63 percent, and by 2060, it is projected to be less than 44 percent. Hispanics were six percent in 1980, are 17 percent today, and should be 29 percent by 2060. Asians/Others were just 2 percent in 1980, are 8 percent today, and should be 15 percent by 2060.”
“Blacks, however, should be stable at 12 percent to 13 percent over the time period,” they added. Still, the three authors showed awe at the shape of things to come. “Nothing captures the magnitude of these shifts better than the rise of majority-minority states. Right now, there are only four majority-minority states: California, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Texas. But with the ongoing demographic transformation of the country, our States of Change projections find that this will become more and more common.”
As they explain, “The next two majority-minority states, Maryland and Nevada, should arrive in the next five years. After that, there should be four more in the 2020s: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and New Jersey. In the 2030s, these states should be joined by Alaska, Louisiana, and New York, and in the 2040s, these states should be joined by Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Virginia. The 2050s should round out the list by adding Colorado, North Carolina, and Washington. By 2060, that should bring the number of majority-minority states to 22, including seven of the currently largest states and 11 of the top 15. Together, these 22 states account for about two-thirds of the country’s population.”
The three Center for American Progress researchers conclude, “There are several things on which reasonable people from different political and ideological perspectives can agree. The first is that, over the long term, public policy must adjust to the needs of a quite different America. Diversity is spreading everywhere: into new generations, into every age group—even seniors—and into every corner of the country—including such unlikely states as Oklahoma, Kansas, and Utah. Policy, both national and state, must become increasingly diversity oriented or be deemed ineffective. There is simply no way around this.”
“Second, political parties must compete for the votes of a new America. Given the magnitude of the shifts described here, it is simply not viable for either major political party to cede dominance of emerging constituencies to the other side. Over the long run, there is simply no way around this either.”
They warn, though,”that since minorities are not monolithic in their policy or political preferences and because, in any case, those preferences may change over time, any assumption that majority-minority states will adopt a unified policy or political orientation would be unwise.”
“Some of the trends we have described here—especially growing diversity—appear to constitute a demographic thumb on the scales for Democrats in the short term, but Republicans could take that thumb off the scales in several ways.”
Demographic changes do not necessarily entail an automatic triumph of liberal or progressive politics. Some conservative parties internationally and particularly within the Anglosphere have been very effective in attracting “values voters” amongst immigrant populations to win elections. The Canadian Conservative party (a far more right-leaning grouping than that party ranked on the political spectrum just two decades ago) now consistently wins the immigrant vote north of the border, for example. That would have been impossible a couple of decades ago. A pro-immigrant focused strategy made the Canadian Tories the preferred party for minorities.
Yet the opposite can equally be true. Twenty years ago California’s Republican majority legislature and GOP governor turned sharply against illegal immigration. Their stances alienated Hispanics to such an extent as to turn “The Golden State” into a solid Democratic bastion, where the GOP still cannot compete in most statewide office just two decades later
Likewise, these demographic trends in Louisiana and across the nation paint a far more multi racial political lens through which politicians must look to gain election, not just in the future, but right now – if their parties are going to survive.
This article originally published in the March 9, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
