Let me first say that I am an ardent admirer of ConnScript. His political insight is second-to-none, and I sincerely believe that he could be blogging for much bigger operations than ours.
With that said, I was deeply disappointed to see ConnScript take the bait on Pew’s recent map of relative political party advantage across the United States, in the post “Death of the GOP?” (the same goes for Politico’s equally breathless Josh Kraushaar). While the numbers don’t lie, they can be interpreted in total ignorance of historical context, leading people to the false conclusion that the Republican Party is in its death throes. Just look at the numbers.
The fact is that Democratic Party identification has been higher than Republican Party identification for decades. As seen in this graph of party identification from 1939 through 2009 , Republicans have outnumbered Democrats only one time since the Great Depression, a brief blip around the 1994 “Republican Revolution.”
Moreover, according to the more reputable American National Election Studies (the academic standard for party identification, which, in the opinion of many, uses a superior measure of party identification), Republican identification has never reached 30% since those studies began in 1952, while Democratic identification has never fallen below 32% during that time.
Finally, among all Gallup respondents identifying with a political party, the percentage identifying as Democrats has stayed well above 50% in every single poll since World War II.
The lesson: When you see polling data showing that Democratic identification is higher than Republican identification throughout the country, do not declare the death of the Republican Party. Republicans have been the minority for as long as polls have been taken, since the 1930s. Yes, this includes the Republican revival of the late 1940s and 1950s, the Nixon landslide of 1972, and, most notably, the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s. Just as the solid Democratic advantage in those years did not signal the death of the Republican Party at that time, these Pew numbers do not signal the death of the Republican Party at this time.
Party fortunes go in cycles. After the then-disastrous losses of the Democratic Party in the 2002 midterm elections, many hasty pundits declared the death of the Democratic Party. Now, after two terrible election cycles for Republicans, we see the same foolish rush to eulogize the Republican Party. It’s understandable, in a way, but that doesn’t make it accurate or legitimate. We are already seeing strong signs of Republican life as the party lands top recruits for the 2010 elections, and stands poised to take back the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia. Whether Republicans are revived over the next two years or soon after, I have no doubt that we will be mocking in future years the rush to declare the Republican Party dead at this time (and then ignoring history all over again once the next shift in party power, however small, takes place).
Perhaps some of you will disagree. That’s fine. But if you are going to use numbers such as Pew’s to justify your speculation that the Republican Party is dying, you need to put those numbers in historical context. History shows that a Democratic advantage in party identification is almost without exception in the modern era, and it often conflicts with current and imminent political realities. As such, it is a miserable indicator of party vitality.
I am man enough to admit when I’ve been proven wrong and this is one of those circumstances. In my defense though, I did point out in my original post how the GOP still have plenty of opportunities in 2009 and 2010 and that this wasn’t the death of the Republican Party.