The College Republican National Committee recently released a report arguing that the GOP is losing young voters. Many analysts have claimed that Republicans face an age problem, a gender problem, and a race problem. But in reality only the last of the three claims has any truth to it.
Exit polling from the 2012 presidential election found that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won the white female vote and the white under-30 vote in 2012. He ultimately lost, however, because he fared poorly with all other female racial groups and under-30 racial groups.
The GOP has also made significant gains in winning back young people, women and non-white voters in last year’s election.
President Obama performed 12 points better with men than he did women in 2008, according to exit polls. Yet, when he won re-election in 2012, the gap had risen to 18 percent.
But this apparently growing gender gap is explained entirely by race. White women, unlike black and Latino women, actually voted Republican in greater numbers relative to men in 2012 than in 2008.
The race-age intersection tells a similar story. Obama won white voters under the age of 30 by 10 percent in 2008, whereas Romney won white voters under the age of 30 by seven percent in 2012—the largest GOP gain of any Caucasian age group. Romney didn’t drive young white voters away—instead, he attracted them in spades. The GOP similarly gained black and Hispanic young voters in 2012, though these pickups were smaller than for young white voters.
So the fact of the matter is that the Republican Party didn’t lose young voters in any racial groups. It made huge gains among white voters under 30 and modest gains among young black and Hispanic voters, only losing the Hispanic vote between the ages of 30-64.
The GOP is simply not the party of old white men. It is the party of both genders and all age groups of white voters, and is making inroads among young voters—including young black and Hispanic voters. Being the party that wins all white gender and age groups and is just beginning to recapture the non-white female and youth vote is not ideal.
But understanding where we stand helps clarify our message. Namely, our top priority should not be pandering to women or young people, but recapturing once and for all the non-white vote Democrats stole from our party half a century ago.
