Now we are turning to demographics. It was a fascinating recent survey that found the most common age for white americans was 55 and the most common age for hispanics is eight. You can see from that any step shut the way things are trending. I want to welcome to the stage karlyn bowman, senior fellow and Research Coordinator at the American Enterprise institute. And roy to share. Thank you so much, both of you for being here. So demographics, weve been talking about soviet politics this election to thats the underlying current, right . Lets start with the big picture. In your view, karlyn bowman, how is the electric they should going to differ from the electorate of four years ago for eight years ago or 20 years ago in terms of its makeup . Thank you to the atlantic for inviting us. Ruy, built at brookings. I met aei. We are working on this for about the last 10 years together under big report on states the changes available on all of our websites if youd like to look at the work weve done. The going racial and Ethnic Diversity of the electric is by far the most important longterm trend changing the electorate over time. What does that mean in practice . If minoritys could be as much perhaps 30 of electorate today, groups vote heavily democratic in recent elections has and it was plus for the democrats. Democracy favors the democrats. What was it four years ago, eight years ago . 27 , four years ago and could be as high as 30 as you at the total minority population. Basically like clockwork fisher of minority voters tends to go up by a couple Percentage Points each president ial cycle. At the same time the white vote goes down by two points but its heavily concentrated to overcome straight among white noncollege those are the most conservative. You didnt have an increased young college. The changing mix tends to push the democrats for the youve got minorities who vote 80 democratic, increasing. Youve got nonwhite College Voters who vote like 36 or 37 , the democratic decreasing. Its a resume for pushing things in a certain direction although demographics is not destiny but it matters a lot. Isnt like clockwork. Are there any variables that could change this makes, whether changing turnout expectations . Report about maybe many more hispanics were eligible for citizenship seeking naturalization just so they can vote. What variables do you see . The key variable here with the differential turnout trends among different segments of the electorate like white noncollege, like latinos but it should be stressed that even if you see some of this, these differences its not likely to affect the basic trend much. In other words, it could be the difference between minority voters going up by 2. 1 instead of 1. 9. Whats primarily driving this shift is population change. Even differences in turnout are not going to make as much difference as you might think. Latinos already vote come in 2012, a pretty good democratic year, 16 points under white voters and you still see the result that we saw. I would not expect much in return to crash at this election to i expected to go up. White turnout well see but i think i think the extent we see greater white turni turnout it e counterbalanced in this case that increased minority turnout. Thats a variable but just to stress the key thing driving these changes is not turnout patterns. Its population change. Would also look at us and key grips and thinking how they were turnout in november. Will young people who supported Bernie Sanders stay home . We dont know the answer. Will married women have been a solidly Republican Group over time, are they going to turn out for donald trump . That remains to be seen. Will be africanamerican turnout be as high as it was for barack obama . Thats going to be enormously important to Hillary Clinton going forward. These are the kinds of things were looking at but the issue is differential turnout. Ruy can you famously wrote the emerging democratic majority back in 2002. I was a decent primer about the increasing diversity of the electorate in population change leading to the demographic, democratic advantage in elections. People would you change about that book if you were to write it with perfect hindsight. If we are going to write it right now, i think the basic thesis about the president ial coalitions turnout to be by and large correct, the groups we saw were growing did grow. They move in the direction they thought in the states that we targeted as being moving towards the democrats basically did. If we write it today i think we do a couple things. One is deal more with the issue of congress. Because we do see, congress is basically a big lack of variable behind the changes taking place in the country for pushing president ial elections in a certain direction. Soap opera bout that, about the structural problems democrats may have translated the Demographic Dividend into electoral payoffs. Some of the issues around that i think we talked about it in a few states we were behind the curve in realizing how fast they would shoot any other direction towards the republicans, the appellation states. In the book we still categorized West Virginia at least for the near future as a democratic state. Turned out not to be true at least in president ial. Theres a couple things we would change but i would have to say that basic thesis seems pretty solid. I stand behind it. To you a great . I do agree with that. Democracy favors the democrats. Geography probably still favors republicans are little and will in this election overall but i think ruy is right, the Republican Party needs to wake up to the demographic changes. What with having . They would probably start with a lot more outreach to minorities and looking to start with latino population. The africanamerican vote is a solid democratic bloc over also think it would be hard to make inroads there. Young africanamericans are less democratic not more republican. Theyre moving into the independent catholic summit of the young americans. Reaching out to the latino populace will be essential for the republicans moving forward. I think, think he did with growing number of single women, another demographic we identified in the face of change will be important over time because that group is growing. You mentioned the idea demographics are not destiny. I like to drill down on that. Do we ever see sanchez and publishing groups . Havent we seen the asianamerican vote become much, much more democratic than it used to be . Thats correct. If you go back to the early 90s, 1990s, the asianamerican vote was republican leaning. Its changed dramatically since then. It was partly a result of immigration in the United States, hardly a result of the cold war disappearing and communism no longer an issue. Partly you see voters have shifted to the left. Is have always been progovernment voters, asianamericans. Thats come out with a vengeance to the point where the party idea of democrats, asianamericans is slightly larger than among latinos. You cannot population. The biggest within groups shift we see in the past 40figures has been a shift of white nonCollege Voters from the democrats to the republicans. What that enabled the republicans, these changes that are prodemocratic have been unfolding for a long time that they were completely swamped to begin with by the movement of white nonCollege Voters into the republican camp, particularly in president ial. Theres a lot of moving parts and hold everything equal and you push forward and we have a big report about different singers called americas electoral future that our project did. Clearly if you push forward with the basic patterns, its a big advantage for the democrats especially several cycles down but you can see what the results are, for example, is republicans increased their share of the white vote by five points. If you do that they could continue to win president ial so intel about 2028 Holding Everything else equal. Eventually that runs out of gas but it doesnt determine all the outcomes but it think it tells parties some of what they need to do and not do. So often these discussions about demographics are deeply pessimistic the republicans. Do you see any encouraging, any opportunities for optimism in the electorate, or is republicans entire coalition staked on part of the electric dedicating small and dying out . The Republican Coalition is getting smaller. The white vote has been the basis of the public and party shrinking by about two percentage point every four years. Thats significant. Im not sure i see a lot of positive things for the republicans overall. I think their postmortem after the 2012 election clear reflected they are aware of some of these challenges going forward. Breaking into the latino vote over time is going to be very, very important and they will have to do more work in that regard. Issues matter, elections matter, candidates met at the looking at a lot of states that could be implied that we never wouldve expected before donald trump seems to be doing better in the rust belt and hillary is doing better in the sun belt. I read Ron Brownsteins 2001 article on the blue wall, the 18 states that a vote in 2009, straight democratic or five president ial elections, the longest trend since the fdr election. Then i looked at those dates again after 2012, the same states voted six times for Democratic Candidates over all. Now some of those dates, michigan and wisconsin are conceivably inflate at least this and some of the most recent polls. These trends into change and so theres some opportunities for republicans that were not eight years ago in part because of issues and candidates and all the rest. I agree with that. I think in a sense you can also put a demographic lens on that. Whereas trumps chances seem as these areas where states where the white population is still this large, where its old and with a minority population and other shifts are quite slow. They are relatively static state. Wisconsin, michigan, ohio. I think it makes sense of those would be in the target s zone ad have some chances of moving in the other direction. That said, im a little skeptical of the ability of trump to move an adequate share of the white noncollege vote so far in his direction as to swamp of other trends in the job democratic leaning of these states. It really does look like a White College vote is going to swing pretty heavily towards the democrats. In a lot of the states youve got not only over perform what you presented among white workingclass voters, you have to massively over perform. I think its a tough calculus. Democrats have this advantage in president ial elections but how do you explain the abysmal performance in midterms that we seen for the past couple of cycles . Can really only be explained by turnout of different groups . Turnout is a very important. So, too, is a strong federal system. When you think about all the effort elections and the fact democrats are largely clustered in big cities, density equals democrats is another democratic adage. In that since republicans have done extraordinarily well down ballot in governorships even after this election they were probably hold a majority of the governorships. Theyve picked up over 900 legislative seats since obama took office. Theres Something Else going on and i think its related to the changing demography but also these are more localized election. Is also changing dynamics of the parties and what youre hinting other coalitions . Im old enough to number 2006 when democrats won a midterm . I think the coalitions are different, the coalitions, the republicans have turnout in these off year elections, they could drop off, democratic constituencies. I think two other things are important. The republicans have done a great job focusing on house and state legislative races. I think to some extent its a product of the fact some of these other changes are not good for them so they want to maximize their impact on governance by mopping up in these off year elections in the hospital received. I think theyve done a better job than democrats and focusing on the. The second thing is something David Wasserman mentioned which is a structural advantages below the state level for the republicans, the way districts are drawn partly for gerrymandering but democrats insist on living next to one another and they minimize the effectiveness of the votes. Republicans have far more districts but basically 8545 republicans or democrats into many dishes that are 70 to 80 democratic district and that just wastes vote. You can win a majority as the democrats did in 2012 and still manage to lose in the house. Theres indications now that if the democrats would have to carry the house vote by 5446 to get a majority of house seats. Thats not fair maybe but thats the way it is and it definitely helps the republicans. I want to take a couple of questions but first do either of you see any sleeper subgroups among the electorate . Weve heard a lot about single women. Are there other groups or demographics in the electorate that have not gotten as much attention as sort of the big blocks that you think that either come on the radar or that youre interested in . I think im going to be looking at africanamerican women in part because the rate of voting by africanamericans in the 2012 election was higher than the rate of voting by white americans for the first time in our history. Africanamerican women in particular look enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton. Theyve gotten quite a bit of attention. Shes spent a lot of time courting that vote and i think theyll be a very important vote in the fall. I dont know if they qualify a group of people have not been paying attention to but maybe less so than some of these others but White College educated women. I think they will be really big issue everything they will swing very dramatically in the direction of the democrats. Thats going to swing the whole White College educated vote toward the democrats. As these things go thats a big change. As Ron Brownstein pointed out the other day, democrats have not carried the White College educated vote practically ever since polling has been testing these things. I think thats an interesting thing. Im excited to be in a key demographic. Who has a question . Raise your hand. Dont be shy. The microphone is coming to you. Theres someone right in front of us. Tell us who you are and who you want to ask the question of. My name is miles. My question is for both of you. On from californias 24th district which is both a young district and a very white district. In both president ial add an open house seat this year to you think the youth of the fact that the very white district will play, its relatively a purple district. Which one do you think will be more important in the vote this year . Im not enough of the house nerd to know who speak lois capps, she is retiring this year. Young voters are not necessarily the most reliable. Maybe they will be this you. Their turnout rate is not particularlyso i probably look at the white population. Its a little bit hard to attempting forces because i dont know that much about the district. I do think the performance by the young whites which is a subset of the white vote over all is going to be quite important because if you look at the difference between whites by generation, its quite dramatic between White Millennials, for example, and white older generations. To the extent that a president ial election can propel these White Millennials into action in a district like that, it could be quite significant and get the white vote more towards the democrat. My sense is, huge drop off an off year election is huge and i think this is an exciting election. We the people are really interested, levels of camping interest are higher than theyve been for a long time. I wouldnt be surprised to see a spike in huge turnout, maybe even relative to the last president ial. I think people come a lot of young people are going to think maybe i like Bernie Sanders or maybe im not crazy about hillary but at the end of the day this guy is insane and i had to go out and vote against him. I think thats something to watch, the white youth vote. It may be quite impressive in this election. White millennials did vote for romney including White Millennials women spent if the democrats move back towards do we have a young people but theyre increasingly detached from the Political Parties . They arent much more independent than other generations. They seem to be just interestingly in the polling data which i spent time on, they seem to be much more interested in state and local Spending National politics. One more. Weve ago right up here in the middle. Right back there. Im from austin, texas, and im 18. Givegiving him any questions our security whether or not millennials will show up to vote for the president ial election you think it will be a key demographic given congressional districts are coming at . Great. We sort of address that a little bit but as you mentioned, ruy, that sort of the Bernie Sanders would end up to be a chance that they get discouraged. Young people have not anticipated and elections before. Could you look at this election and say im staying home . I think they could but i think at this point i question that. I dont really see the evidence for why thats likely to happen. If you look at the vote of people who are consistent standard supporters, and analysis about this, look at available for today, its like 90 for Hillary Clinton. I dont think theres that much reluctance to vote for hillary in this context. If they have regional commit it to be the i think it into the Campaign Ramps up the choices are clear. I think it probably will get out to vote in numbers that are equivalent to before, maybe even higher, we will see. If they come up to vote for th