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Abstract
The recent rise in identification with American political parties has focused interest on the long-term dynamics of party support. Liberal commentators cite immigration and youth as forces that will produce a natural advantage for the Democrats in the future, while conservative writers highlight the importance of high fertility amongst Republicans in securing growth. These opinions are not based on demographic analysis. We addressed this omission by undertaking the first ever cohort component projection (up to 2043) of populations by American party allegiance, based on survey and census data. On current trends, we predict that American partisanship will change much less than the nation's ethnic composition because the parties are similar in age structure. Nevertheless, our projections suggest that the Democrats will gain 2–3 per cent more support than the Republicans by 2043, mainly through immigration, although the higher fertility of Republicans may eventually offset that advantage.
Notes
1. Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. Vegard Skirbekk is Research Scholar at the World Population Programme, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria. Anne Goujon is Research Scholar at the Vienna Institute of Demography, Austrian Academy of Sciences, and at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria.
