Two Data Points That Will Change California Permanently

By David Dayen
d-day

One is national, the other state-specific. Both of them explain why we're starting to see traces of jelly in the knees of Republicans as they try to figure out how they're ever going to win an election again.

Nationally, the new party identification numbers by age group are out from the Pew Center. These are incredible:

Democrats now hold a 25 POINT advantage among voters aged 18-29. It is generally assumed that partisan identification hardens with each passing election, and by the time you get someone to vote with a party for the third time in a row, you've got them for life. Over the next five to ten years, we could get that advantage for an entire generation. This is the chickens coming home to roost (if I can use a phrase so intimately involved with Rev. Wright without accusations of being an angry black liberation theologist) for 30 years of failed Republican policies, and nowhere is that as acute than in California, where Republicans are on the wrong side of the environment, the economy and health care.

The local set of numbers is even more striking:

“Forty-nine percent of California's children between 12 and 17 have at least one immigrant parent, a phenomenon that could dramatically change the composition of the state's electorate within several years, according to a report released Tuesday.

"Of these 1.2 million kids, 84 percent are U.S. citizens, either because they were born here or were naturalized, said Rob Paral, a Chicago-based demographic researcher who prepared the report, "Integration Potential of California's Immigrants and their Children."

"The report predicts that as these children turn 18, they could help fuel a rise in immigrant voters by 2012."

The combination of these two numbers spell total doom for Republicans. Young voters are moving rapidly to the Democrats, and millions of California children are reaching voting age, mindful of Republican demonizing on immigration issues and the pain they've delivered to their families. Now think about potentially 30% of the electorate being made up of these children and their legal immigrant families.

The wave is coming, my friends, the wave is coming.

Dave is a writer, comedian and TV/film editor based in Santa Monica. He is an elected member of the Democratic State Central Committee from the 41st Assembly District. He blogs on state and national politics at http://d-day.blogspot.com/

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