A number of months ago, I engaged in a spirited debate with Alan Abramowitz and Ruy Teixeira over whether there were “missing white voters” in the 2012 election upon which Republicans could potentially draw in the future to win elections. We also sparred over whether white voters were trending Republican, potentially offsetting Democratic gains among nonwhites.
Lost in this debate was a clever argument, set forth by Nate Cohn (then of The New Republic) and also alluded to by Benjy Sarlin at MSNBC. The gist of the argument was this: Even if whites are, in fact, moving toward Republicans, they are primarily moving toward Republicans in already-red Southern states and in Greater Appalachia — states like West Virginia, Kentucky and Arkansas, which were largely settled by Scots-Irish immigrants and their descendents. CONT.
Sean Trende, Sabato’s Crystal Ball