“The [Republican] party’s core is dying off by the day.”
That’s the gist of a recent report from Politico that captures one of the most dangerous problems plaguing the GOP. It’s also one that receives very little attention.
“Since it appears that no political data geek keeps track of voters who die between elections, I took upon myself to do some basic math,” said Daniel J. McGraw, author of the Politico piece. “And that quick back-of-the-napkin math shows that the trend could have a real effect in certain states, and make battleground states like Florida and Ohio even harder for the Republican party to capture.”
It’s no secret that the Republican party has a problem connecting with younger voters. Members of the Republican party, who identify with the conservative social policies of the party, tend to be older, and with old age comes death. The Republican party has a problem of people dying off and they are not replenishing their ranks with younger voters.
“I’ve never seen anyone doing any studies on how many dead people can’t vote,” William Frey, senior fellow at the Brooking Institute told McGraw.
“The [GOP] does rely too much on older and white voters, and especially in rural areas, deaths from this group can be significant,” Frey told Politico.
The challenge will be for Democrats to get younger voters to come out and vote, as older voters tend to show up at the polls for elections at higher rates than their younger counterparts.
