Political observers have spent considerable energy discussing the many legislative seats that Republicans flipped in the Virginia and New Jersey elections this month. But few have remarked that women and minorities led the charge, continuing the recent trend toward a more diverse GOP.
Women or racial minorities won 10 of the 15 state legislative seats Republicans captured from Democrats in November. The winning candidates run the gamut of life experiences. New Jersey’s Marilyn Pipierno, a fitness coach who won a seat in New Jersey’s 11th Assembly district, is typical of the new crowd. She and fellow Republican Kimberly Eulner beat two Democratic incumbents in a suburban Monmouth County seat that President Biden had carried by nearly 12 points just the year before. In all, seven of those 10 victors flipped seats that Biden had carried by at least seven points.
A.C. Cordoza is perhaps the most interesting new Republican. Cordoza, who is Black, was a Democrat who backed President Barack Obama’s campaign only to find his “core values” aligned more with Republicans. READ MORE
By Henry Olsen | Washington Post
(Image credit: Al Drago/Bloomberg | Image/article Link: Here)
In this year’s election, Democrats lost big in and around big cities. They weren’t supposed to lose Virginia or South New Jersey, let alone see red waves in places like Long Island, but they did. The exact reasons, and key voters, will be chewed over by strategists for both parties heading into the 2022 and 2024 cycles. Was it white women? Latinos?
For much of this year, I’ve been surveying voters and residents in the country’s growing metropolitan regions and based on my findings, the results of the most recent election did not come as a surprise.
My research suggests analysts should look more broadly at what I call the “metro majority” — a crucial cohort of voters that is both more diverse and more centrist than most political analysts assume. Demographers correctly point out that America is increasingly urban and suburban; the voters who now drive our politics are the 86 percent that live in and around cities, from their centers to the beginning of their exurbs. READ MORE
By Michael Hendrix | Politico
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | Image/article Link: Here)
When a caseworker in California Democrat Katie Porter’s House office answers the phone, the constituent on the other end of the line may speak one of a dozen languages.
Porter has had staff translate outreach and congressional materials into Mandarin, Farsi, Korean and Vietnamese, among others. She said her staff draws from the diverse community and speaks several languages, but that’s not always enough.
“My staff people, first and foremost, are people who are experts in government services; they are not trained for translation,” she said.
Over the past decade, Porter’s Irvine-area 45th District in Southern California grew to the largest by population in the state and was 45 percent non-Hispanic white in 2020, down from 55 percent in 2010. The district is more than one quarter Asian, which has shaped how Porter reaches out to her constituents. For example, she often contacts local community groups and ethnic churches in efforts to share more information about federal programs.
Results from the 2020 census show the country had less than 60 percent non-Hispanic white residents for the first time. The Census Bureau changed how it asks race and ethnicity questions, as well as its data processing behind the scenes, making it difficult to say how much the country diversified exactly since the 2010 count. READ MORE
By Michael Macagnone | Roll Call
(Image credit: Mark Rightmire/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images file photo | Image/article Link: Here)
