Not really, says Dan Balz. Not if you look at the electoral college.
Lots of factors affect elections: the quality of the candidates, the state of the economy, the effectiveness of the campaigns. But in a country whose demographics continue to change, Republicans will begin this campaign with one significant disadvantage.
Over the past three decades, the political leanings of many states have shifted dramatically. What once was a sizable Republican advantage in the electoral college has become a decided Democratic advantage. ...Balz,WaPo
The latest analysis comes from demographers who track individual states.
For perspective, I asked William H. Frey, a demographer and census expert at the Brookings Institution, as well as Republican and Democratic strategists of past campaigns, for their assessments of trends in the battleground states, based on demography and internal politics.
Frey analyzed nine states and found little good news for the Republicans. He found five — Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia — definitely moving toward the Democrats because of their growing diversity. Obama won all but North Carolina in both of his presidential races.
Frey cited Ohio as one state that could become more hospitable to Republicans, because aging white baby boomers continue to make up a large part of the population there. Noting that candidate quality can make a difference, he wrote in an e-mail, “Democrats would have to be lucky and much more pro-active with blue collar whites to continue success there.”
He sees some glimmers of hope for Republicans in Michigan and Pennsylvania, if the GOP can find the right candidate. But he also envisions potential problems for the party in states such as Arizona and Georgia, which he said could be toss-ups by 2016 and could lean Democratic in the long run.
Frey said three states — Iowa, New Hampshire and Wisconsin — probably will continue to be toss-ups, in large part because of smaller minority populations. But none can be said to be moving in the GOP’s direction.
Republican and Democratic strategists who offered private assessments do not disagree significantly with Frey’s analysis, although all were more a little bullish about their own party’s chances. ...Balz,WaPo
In the end, Republicans face a difficult fight. They could, says Balz, be helped by the president if Obama continues to be as unpopular as he is right now. But even so, the numbers -- no matter which way you look at 'em -- show Democrats to be on more solid footing while Republicans are facing "underlying trends [that] have not been helping them."
As voters, we are choosing between two lousy parties and the prospect of choosing between outright nihilism on the right and the scant moral superiority of the left.
