Since President Bush's narrow reelection in November, many Democrats have looked longingly to the Mountain West as the party's best opportunity to rebuild an electoral college majority. And in the years ahead, states such as Colorado, Arizona and Nevada may indeed become more competitive political battlefields.
But new long-term population projections from the Census Bureau show that anyone who believes Democrats can consistently win the White House without puncturing the Republican dominance across the South is just whistling Dixie. The census projections present Democrats with an ominous equation: the South is growing in electoral clout even as the Republican hold on the region solidifies.
Veteran demographer William H. Frey, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, this month extrapolated the census numbers into projections for the electoral college over the next quarter century. His conclusions, in a paper titled "The Electoral College Moves to the Sun Belt," framed challenges for both parties but raised the toughest questions for Democrats.
Overall, Frey forecast a continued shift in influence from "blue" states where Democrats have run best, primarily in the Northeast and Midwest, to "red" Sunbelt states that mostly have voted Republican in presidential elections since the 1960s.
The shift isn't precipitous, but it appears inexorable. In 2004, Bush won 286 electoral college votes, while Democrat John F. Kerry tallied 252 (with 270 needed for victory). Frey projects that after the 2010 census, four electoral college votes will shift from Kerry states to Bush states.
Even a change that subtle could have dramatic consequences. In 2004, as Kerry reminds audiences, the senator from Massachusetts could have won the White House by moving Ohio to his column; by Frey's projections, that would no longer be true in 2012 (partly because Ohio would fall from 20 to 18 electoral college votes).
Frey's analysis shows the tilt toward the Sunbelt continuing decade by decade. By 2030, he forecasts, the Democratic strongholds of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts and Michigan would lose a combined 17 electoral college votes. Over that same period, Florida (up nine, to 36) and Texas (up eight, to 42) could gain that many votes alone. Arizona (up five, to 15), which has voted Democratic for president once since 1952, would be the other big winner.
