GOP BLUES

Hispanic Vote, Transplants Helped Democrats Rise in the West

By David Frey, 7-02-09

For the first time in a century, the mountain West has more Democratic senators, and more Democratic congress members, than Republicans.

That’s part of a shift across the region and the nation, say a pair of Stanford University professors, that has the Republican Party in crisis.

“There is no silver bullet for Republicans,” says Doug Rivers, professor of political science at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. “For the short-run, the news is pretty bad.”

The West is still consistently Republican territory, say Rivers and his colleague, David Brady, who spoke on Wednesday at the Aspen Institute’s annual Aspen Ideas Festival, an annual gathering of leaders and thinkers. But the GOP grip on the region is waning.

Even in states where Barack Obama couldn’t beat John McCain, he enjoyed strong gains over Democratic contender John Kerry four years earlier. Obama outperformed Kerry by 6 percent in Montana, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and New Mexico and by 5 percent in Wyoming.

The West’s congressional delegation went solidly blue, flipping the situation from 26 years earlier. Back in 1983, the West had 15 Republican senators and seven Democrats. This year, it has nine Republicans and 13 Democrats.

It’s the same story in the House. Democrats rose from 8 in 1983 to 17 this year. Republicans tumbled from 15 to 10.

What happened? In part, Hispanic voters made up a stronger portion of Western voters, they say, and they came out strongly for Obama. In part, liberal transplants came to the West, shifting the voting patterns.

But part of it seems to be a crisis in the Republican Party, where once solid portions of the GOP platform are tumbling away. Opposition to gay marriage is waning among the public, they say, and while Democrats seem willing to compromise, many Republicans aren’t. Same with abortion. Democrats have been more willing to back anti-abortion candidates than Republicans have been to back pro-abortion candidates.

Immigration is a hot-button issue for many Republicans, but they warn it could be a losing issue as Hispanic voters grow. And religion, a centerpiece of the GOP, is on the wane among the public.

Even on issues like taxes and global warming, Republicans are distancing themselves from the mainstream, they say.

“The best hope of the Republican Party is that the Democrats overreach,” Brady says.

As the nation turns bluer, Republicans will have to turn to independents for success, he says.

“I’d say (to Republicans), don’t count too much on 2010,” he says. “Start working on 2012.”

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