The past three presidential elections have been head-snapping for many Americans: a sharp turn into what many people believed was the future of electoral politics with the elections of Barack Obama and an even sharper reversal with the victory of Donald Trump. People are still making sense of it all. …
But of the past three presidential elections, which is the best guide to the 2020 election? Demographer William H. Frey offers the conclusion that neither the Obama victories nor the Trump shocker should be taken as the true measure of the current state of presidential elections, that in their own ways, those elections bent demographic trends in favor of the winning candidates.
Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has published a new edition of his book, “Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics are Remaking America.” First published in 2014, the new edition provides a careful analysis of the differences between Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012 and Trump’s victory two years ago. CONT.
Dan Balz, Washington Post