LA Times Columnist: ‘Shifting Demographics’ to ‘Further Doom’ Republican Party

The nation’s “shifting demographics” will “further doom” the Republican Party, not only in California but across the country, a Los Angeles Times columnist writes.

Liberal columnist George Skelton writes in the Times that California’s “changing demographics” have turned the once red state into a deep blue enclave where no Republicans can get elected statewide anymore:

Democrats dominate politics in California and Republicans are doomed for one simple, overriding reason: shifting demographics. [Emphasis added]

…

“Republicans are heading into a demographic cul-de-sac,” says longtime Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. [Emphasis added]

“This is not just in California, but nationally. It’s happening here first. But it’ll tend to happen around the country.” [Emphasis added]

As Skelton notes, California voters have not elected a Republican statewide since 2006. In 1990, 39 percent of registered voters in the state were Republicans. Today, less than 24 percent of registered voters in California are Republicans, while 44 percent are Democrats. Nearly 27 percent of California’s voters are swing voters who lean heavily towards Democrats.

At the same time, California’s population has shifted almost exclusively due to the current legal immigration system that brings about 1.2 million mostly low-skilled legal immigrants to the U.S. every year. These immigrant residents are vastly more likely to vote Democrat in elections, academic research has repeatedly discovered.

The result has meant that more than one-in-four California residents were born outside the U.S., with the majority from Central and South America, as well as Asia. In terms of votes, nearly six-in-ten Latino likely voters and 43 percent of likely Asian American voters in the state are Democrats.

Similar trends have been realized in unlikely states like Virginia, where most recently Democrats took full control of state government, from the State House to the governor’s mansion. A report by the New York Times admitted that a “tidal wave” of legal immigration has helped transform the southern state from a GOP-stronghold to now a Democrat toss-up.

Under current legal immigration levels, the U.S. is on track to import about 15 million new foreign-born voters in the next two decades. Those 15 million new foreign-born voters include about eight million who will arrive in the country through chain migration, whereby newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the country.

Ronald Brownstein, senior editor for the Atlantic, noted this year that nearly 90 percent of House congressional districts with a foreign-born population above the national average were won by Democrats. This means that every congressional district with a foreign-born population exceeding roughly 14 percent had a 90 percent chance of being controlled by Democrats and only a ten percent chance of electing a Republican.

The impact of legal immigration levels was evident in the 2016 election despite President Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton. Among native-born Americans, Trump won 49 percent to Clinton’s 45 percent, according to exit polling data. Among foreign-born residents, Clinton dominated against Trump, garnering 64 percent of the immigrant population’s vote compared to Trump’s mere 31 percent.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.