The Ex-Wave of the Future

Samizdata has an interesting statistical table showing how demographics has
worked against the Democratic Party. Had the apportionment of electoral votes
followed the population distribution of the 1960s, John Kerry would have won.
Democrat bailiwicks have not grown as quickly as the those which have tended
Republican.

1960 census (1964, 68 elections) -- Kerry 270, Bush 268

1970 census (1972, 76, 80 elections) -- Kerry 270, Bush 268

1980 census (1984, 88 elections) -- Bush 276, Kerry 262

1990 census (1992, 96, 2000 elections) -- Bush 279, Kerry 259

2000 census (2004, 08 elections) -- Bush 286, Kerry 252

It would be interesting to discover what the underlying reason for this
differential growth is. Some will argue, no doubt, that "Blue State" social
attitudes may have depressed their birthrates, but that is too pat an answer,
and the whole question deserves a more scholarly treatment. But whatever the
explanation, if the trend is real -- and the divergence looks to have persisted
for forty years -- then the leftist assumption that they are the vanguard of the
future and the party of youth is empirically suspect. Time is not obviously on
their side. If so, there is no reason to believe that their prospects will
improve simply with the passage of years.