Why demographics doom Donald Trump

David Byler of RealClearPoliticis asks whether demographics will sink Donald Trump. He then provides a lengthy analysis of the question, based on “demographic data and election fundamentals.” He examines various scenarios and even provides a nifty interactive device into which one can feed various assumptions about turnout and preference by various racial and ethnic groups.

However, Byler doesn’t mention the group that, in all likelihood, dooms Trump’s candidacy. That “demographic” is women.

According to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, Trump’s favorability split among women is a dismal 21 percent positive-70 percent negative. In fact, Trump is treading water with Republican women. 47 percent “can’t see themselves supporting” the tycoon. 51 percent can see themselves doing so.

Even without Trump as the nominee, the GOP would struggle to win female voters. According to the poll cited above, in a generic Republican vs. Democrat race, 52 percent of female voters chose the Democratic option while 36 percent chose the Republican.

But here is the result when Trump and Hillary Clinton were plugged in: Clinton 58 percent; Trump 31 percent. That’s a 27 point gap among about half of the electorate. And the other half, males, contains plenty of Blacks and Hispanics group that disfavor Trump even more than women do.

Keep in mind too that, as Trump likes to say, he hasn’t started on Hillary Clinton yet. By the time Trump completes his crude, intemperate, and (most likely) sexist assault on Clinton, he may be lucky to get one-third of the female vote.

Demographic changes make it challenging, but not impossible, for a Republican to win the presidency without a respectable amount of support from Hispanic voters. (Black voters are hopeless for the GOP.) As Byler observes, to overcome these demographics, the GOP candidate must rack up a big margin of victory among White voters (around 65 percent White support, say). Without the strong support of white women, that is simply not possible.

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