Mr. Wilson’s support among Hispanics was 47% in 1990. Four years later it was 25%, and ethnic voting patterns would run against Republicans for another decade. The party lost state assembly seats for three successive elections. Mr. Wilson’s would-be GOP successor, Dan Lungren, carried only 17% of the Hispanic vote just eight years after Mr. Wilson had won close to half of it.
Nationally, what was once a stronghold state for Republicans became easy pickings for Democrats. Between 1952 and 1988, Republicans won California in nine of 10 presidential elections, but Democrats have won the state in the past six contests. The 1996 Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, won only 6% of California’s Hispanic vote, compared with former Gov. Ronald Reagan’s 35% in 1980 and 45% in 1984. Republicans held half of California’s U.S. House seats in 1994. Today they hold 26%, and their U.S. Senate candidates regularly lose.
It seems lost on Donald Trump that demographic trends that have played out in California over the past quarter-century are no longer unique to the Golden State. But it behooves Republicans to recognize these patterns and adjust their rhetoric accordingly. Today, more minority babies than white babies are born in the U.S. each year. “The shift toward a nation in which no racial group is the majority” is already taking place,” writes demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution in his book, “Diversity Explosion.” “In 2010, 22 of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas were minority white, up from just 14 in 2000 and 5 in 1990.”
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